Role of academia in policy-making stressed: Farm development
By Muhammad Ilyas
ISLAMABAD, June 23: The viability of economy depends on the development of scientific infrastructure in an era of rapid globalization and competition that is possible only by involving universities in planning and policy-making.
This was stressed during the first day's proceedings of a two-day workshop on the role of agriculture universities in meeting WTO challenges here Wednesday. The workshop is being attended by deans and senior teachers of various agricultural universities of the country.
The initiative to involve the academia, in a country where the bureaucracy has persistently marginalized them even in matters requiring their informed input, has been taken by the Actionaid, an NGO.
Explaining the objective of the workshop, Dr Fouzia Saeed, country director, Actionaid, said it was evident from a critical analysis of WTO that its agreements "are theoretically well designed and elegantly articulated but the decision-making was not transparent as it is cleverly presented by its promoters".
This state of affairs gave rise to challenges which needed concerted endeavours of all sections of society particularly the agricultural universities. For in Pakistan, the most serious challenges posed by WTO was in the farm sector.
She urged them to increase their research activities on WTO issues in order to give policy advice to the government so that our representatives in Geneva might take positions in the negotiations based on empirical research.
Dr Saeed also sought their help in developing a website where the results of research by various institutions might be pooled and a systematic system of collaboration among them established.
A highlight of the proceedings was the speech by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, MNA and PPPP leader, who said while chairing a session that Pakistan found itself in a blind alley because of the persistent neglect of academia's potential to deal with issues in an increasingly knowledge-based world.
Roshan Malik, programme officer of Actionaid Pakistan, while giving an overview of WTO regime, said the agreements on agriculture (AOA) had been so framed as to obligate the developing countries to reduce their subsidies and tariffs significantly, while leaving developed countries to continue the same.
The agreement is oblivious of fundamental differences between the agriculture system in the two sets of countries. In South countries, for instance, it is livelihoods-based and employed 70 per cent of labour force as compared to only 4 per cent in the North.
Qasim Niaz, Joint Secretary, WTO cell in Ministry of Commerce, said some North countries too have comparative advantage in agriculture which they use to indulge in over-production of commodities. These are then heavily subsidised and dumped in other countries, to the detriment of countries of South, he added.
Prof Bashir Ahmed Sheikh, Vice Chancellor, Sindh Agricultural University, who chaired the inaugural session, said in contrast to countries of North, agriculture in Pakistan was heavily taxed.
He lamented the neglect of R&D which was essential to increase productivity and improve quality of our products for coping with an increasingly competitive world. Khadim Hussain, Manager, Actionaid, noted with satisfaction that the developing countries had sufficiently improved their capacity to deal with the intricate legalistic jargon of WTO agreements and discussions.
