| 05 January 2005 | Wednesday | 23 Ziqa'ad 1425 |
Children in disaster zone
Sudan peace prospects
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has drawn a highly rosy picture of the economy and projected a rosier picture for the future while speaking at the annual dinner meeting of the American Business Council (ABC).
He told his audience that the year 2005 would be a high-growth year for Pakistan. He projected a per capita income of $1,500 by the year 2015 as against $600-plus now. He hoped that during the current year agriculture will show a growth rate of four per cent with the cotton crop already yielding a record 14 million bales.
He also predicted a double-digit growth for the manufacturing sector. Mr Aziz also talked at length about his government's privatization plans and hoped that foreign investment would flow in thick and fast.
Higher growth is certainly welcome. But the belief that its trickle down effect will take care of the all pervasive poverty and that chronic distributive injustices that exist in this country would disappear as a consequence of higher growth is misplaced.
In fact, such a policy only worsens inequality causing rich to become richer and poor poorer and which in turn chokes off growth itself in the longer run. This has happened in Pakistan twice in the past.
The average growth rates of six per cent per annum during the decades of the 60s and '80s added more poor to the population while making the rich even richer. Both these decades of high growth ended up in wide socio-economic disparities, causing the country to go into reverse gear and face imminent loan default situations.
According to a recent study conducted by Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC), given the distribution of income in Pakistan based on 2001-02 estimates, every rupee increment in GDP accrues 48 paisa to the richest 20 per cent of the population and seven paisa to the poorest 20 per cent.
The study says that irrespective of the rate of growth, the economy is structurally locked into a low employment, high inequality and high poverty trap. One, therefore, tends to agree with the conclusion of the study that distribution-neutral growth alone cannot be counted upon to reduce poverty.
Growth to be pro-poor and sustainable needs to be pursued along with well thought-out distributive policies. Another SPDC study has shown that a one per cent decline in food prices lowers inequality by 0.089 per cent.
Raising direct tax revenues, investment, and development expenditure on social services by one per cent each is likely to reduce inequality by 0.024, 0.037 and 0.015 per cent respectively.
Further, improving agricultural terms of trade and agricultural wages are also likely to reduce inequality by 0.046 and 0.024 per cent respectively. So, there is a way to reduce inequality while growing faster.
If the prime minister and his team of economic experts were to sit with independent economic experts of proven abilities and discuss the linkages between growth, distributive justice and poverty, there is no doubt that the government would be able to come up with logical and effective policies that would accelerate growth while, at the same time, ensure distributive justice.
Education and health cover for all plus effective and economically justified land reforms would gradually bring the have-nots at par with the haves in terms of intellectual skills and physical assets from which flow incomes.
Children in disaster zone
While hundreds of parents in the tsunami-hit regions are said to be waiting by the seashore, hoping the ocean will bring their children back to them, disturbing reports of child abuse and trafficking of orphaned children have also surfaced.
The latter include rape, gang-rape and selling and buying of children in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. In one case in Sri Lanka, even church workers providing voluntary services have allegedly been involved in such fiendish acts.
Other reports suggest that relatives of the surviving orphaned children have rushed to claim custody, hoping to bag the compensation money being offered by relief and rehabilitation agencies.
This is simply abhorring at a time when a grave disaster has affected some 1.5 million children, leaving an estimated 50,000 of them dead, and shows again how such times can bring out the worst in some of us.
The plight of the children in the affected areas and even that of some 150,000 pregnant women caught up in the disaster have received little attention so far. With water-borne diseases rampant and medical facilities washed away by tidal waves, there is little hope for these vulnerable sections of the affected people unless they figure prominently in aid and relief agencies' rehabilitation plans.
Sri Lankan authorities have promised to conduct inquiries into allegations of child abuse in relief camps, while there is little local authority or government left in Indonesia's Aceh province which can be expected to do the same there.
This puts the onus of initiatives on Jakarta, which has refused to allow international relief workers unhindered access to its erstwhile rebel-controlled province. That said, the affected children's misery does not end there.
Besides disease and abuse, an increasing number of children in Sri Lanka are at a grave risk because of the landmines now floating in the flooded areas along the coast. Sri Lanka and Indonesia cannot be expected to get the multi-dimensional job done all by themselves.
There is a dire need for the governments of the two countries to realize this and to allow international relief and aid workers unhindered access to the affected areas. Politics for now must give way to more pressing humanitarian considerations.
Sudan peace prospects
Even though the Darfur crisis in western Sudan shows few signs of abating, Khartoum can be congratulated for pulling off a deal with its southern rebels, thus ending Africa's longest running conflict of 21 years, and one that has claimed two million lives.
The permanent cease fire agreement, reached between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on Friday after two years of negotiations, is a prelude to a more comprehensive peace accord, incorporating previous protocols, to be signed on January 9.
The rebels stand to gain considerably from a 30 per cent share of the posts in a transitional government and the vice-presidency for six months. Oil revenues will be shared equally between the north and the south.
Khartoum will withdraw 91,000 troops from rebel territory within two and a half years while polls will be held in another three. The constitution will be rewritten to ensure that Islamic law - a major bone of contention between the Arab-dominated north and the Christians and animists of the south - is not to apply to non-Muslims.
After six years, the semi-autonomous south will be given the option to secede. For their part, the rebels must vacate positions held in north Sudan, and, along with the government, contribute troops for joint patrolling of border areas.
While the accord may serve as a blueprint for better relations with the Darfurians, it could also incite the western rebels, and other disgruntled groups, to follow the SPLA's violent example in forcing Khartoum to accede to their demands.
There is also the fear that the southern rebels, largely constituting the Dinka people, will use their new found power to benefit their own community, leaving other tribal groups out in the cold.
Moreover, a close watch will have to be kept over developments by outsiders like Egypt that has vital interests in the area. Obviously, both the rebels and the government will have to tread carefully. But this should not deter them from carrying out development works aimed at improving the lives of their people.