| December 9, 2002 | Monday | Shawwal 4,1423 |
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Gender equality
Swift decline
FORMER finance minister and now the prime minister’s adviser on finance and economic affairs Shaukat Aziz has said all policies ‘that are in Pakistan’s interest’ will continue. Speaking the other day in Karachi, Mr. Aziz made a number of upbeat observations about the state of the economy. For the sake of this country and its people, one only hopes that his claims are based on ground realities and not on his wish list. His remaining at the helm of financial affairs of the country during the transition makes it doubly certain that the policies he had framed under the military regime would continue during the elected government’s tenure as well. Pakistan has suffered greatly in the past because of policy inconsistencies and the tendency of successive governments to overturn the policies of their predecessors. This practice should now come to an end. But equally there should not be any hesitation on the part of Mr Aziz to adjust his policies to the changed environment, from the parade ground to parliament, without compromising on the essential direction.
Mr Aziz hopes to soon liberate the country from International Monetary Fund conditionalities as, in his view, Pakistan would have accumulated more foreign exchange than its stock of foreign debt by the end of the current IMF programme. The optimism of Mr Aziz in this regard seems to be based on what he has already achieved in terms of building up forex reserves and reducing the debt through various means. However, most of the $10 billion in foreign exchange are unearned. They are made up of dole, one-shot remittances, and purchases. The reduction in debt liability has not been brought about by meeting obligations from our own resources. It has been accomplished through generous debt reliefs, write-offs and swaps. This too cannot be expected to last very long. So, in the coming months and years, Mr Aziz will have to gear up the economy to a point where it starts generating its own resources. The performance of the economy in the last five months has been highly encouraging. Exports and revenues have been going up. Production and investment are also showing marked improvement. These trends need to be sustained over a longer period of, say, five to ten years for the country to be able to come out of the bottomless pit it has fallen into.
Most of the reforms which have been implemented or are being implemented seem to aim at creating the right environment for the private sector to come out of its wait-and-see mode and start investing in productive sectors. Over time even the cost of money has also come down considerably and the stock exchange reforms have created conditions for companies to mobilize public savings for investment. All these developments, it is hoped, will achieve the desired results with respect to the private sector. On the public sector front, the government itself needs to come out of its hibernation and take up economic infrastructure projects which will not only generate jobs and help reduce poverty, but also create enabling socio-economic conditions for the country to reach the take-off stage within a reasonable period of time
THE recently released UN’s State of the World Population report places Pakistan among the 50 critical countries in the developing world which need urgent help in combating poor reproductive health, overpopulation, illiteracy and gender bias. The report says that if Pakistan’s population continues to grow at its current rate of 2.5 per cent per annum, it would cross the 344 million mark by 2050 — with devastating results in view of the available and projected resources needed to feed and clothe such a huge population. One of the key areas in which Pakistan lags far behind even its equally impoverished neighbours is gender equality. The high population growth rate is directly linked to women’s poor reproductive health, their lack of knowledge about health, nutrition and family planning issues, and the generally low status of women in society.
Women in Pakistan continue to face discrimination on three fronts: social, legal and economic. Traditional values place a premium on raising a male child much more favourably than a female. Other forms of social practices against women include honour killings, forced marriages, jirga/panchayat rulings sanctifying criminal acts against women, and marrying off of young women to the Holy Quran to deny them their due share in family property.
On the legal front, certain laws such as the Hudood, Qisas and Diyat Ordinances and the Law of Evidence discriminate against women. Women make up over 50 per cent of the rural workforce, mainly in the agricultural sector, but are denied compensation commensurate with their work. As the report suggests, the government needs to bridge the existing gender gap by implementing a gender reform action plan for which various international donor and development agencies have already pledged money amounting to $750,000. Thus, unless half the population’s basic right to live a useful and honourable life is secured, real progress may continue to elude us.
IT IS harder to maintain a building or a place than to construct it. This saying is very true in Pakistan as can be seen from the neglected condition of many buildings, parks and places of interest in the country. It is unfortunate that the capital’s ‘Food Park’ too should fall into neglect, and in just four months of its opening. The idea of a food park in Islamabad was conceived about a year ago by the Capital Development Authority, and the park opened to great fanfare.
But now it is sad to see that the beauty of the original design is being marred by the inevitable encroachments growing beside the food kiosks, and this has happened despite warnings against such encroachments by the CDA. The aroma of food is overpowered by the stench from an unattended choked manhole nearby. At the same time, the quality of food is reported to have deteriorated while prices have gone up, with many people complaining about being overcharged. The idea of a live entertainment corner featuring regular cultural and musical shows has not materialized.
It is reported that the present condition of the park is due to the CDA’s failure to see through an initial agreement with a multinational company, which was supposed to provide the required furniture, foot the bill for illumination, and be responsible for maintenance. Whatever the reason may be, it is no excuse to allow such a welcome facility to deteriorate in this manner. The least that the CDA should do is to ensure that the park is maintained in a condition that makes the people of Islamabad/Rawalpindi proud rather than be ashamed of this the first culinary landmark in the capital.