Planning for quake recovery

THE October earthquake’s devastation of Azad Kashmir and parts of the Frontier province urgently requires realistic planning and effective implementation for alleviating victims’ misery and rebuilding their homes, businesses, villages and cities. About five million persons have been uprooted, more than 56,000 are dead, hundreds of thousands have been injured and thriving cities, towns and villages have been turned into rubble in the blink of an eye.

A typical national response to such catastrophes follows a predictable cycle: immediate rescue, followed by temporary relief of a short duration and finally years of recovery and rebuilding. Pakistan has already gone through the first phase and the second phase is underway with the setting up of tent camps, food distribution, compensation of victims and the opening of roads. It is time to plan for the most challenging phase, namely organizing the social, economic and physical recovery of the devastated areas. How is Pakistan, particularly its government, planning and organizing for this challenge? What is the most effective way of approaching it?

Public statements by President Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz are reassuring in that they are determined to rebuild devastated areas. The Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) has been established under the president’s direct command and in the charge of an active duty general of the Army’s Engineering Corp. Statements coming out of Islamabad are floating all kinds of ideas, from knee jerk to utopian, including the president’s five-point and prime minister’s 12-point programmes.

Among such pronouncements are appeals for five billion dollars in aid, suggestions for enacting a building code for earthquake prone areas, promises of building new cities, proposals for a seismic survey, etc. Opposition parties in the National Assembly are demanding a role in the rebuilding programmes.

All in all, considerable attention has begun to be given to the planning for recovery. Yet all these proposals and measures have one element in common. They are, by and large, top-down plans, conceived by officials to be enforced on people by the military and civilian bureaucracies. Without the involvement of people, such proposals become the plans of the masters.

Such plans, by themselves, are seldom successful anywhere in the world. This is the lesson learnt both in normal conditions and in times of emergency. In Pakistan, top-down programmes and bureaucratic implementation have a long history of inefficiency, wastefulness, failure to meet objectives and corruption. There are alternative approaches to the rebuilding project that are economical, indigenous, less dependent on foreign debts and aid and based on involving people in rebuilding of their homes and communities. Such approaches of actively involving citizens in reconstruction planning are more economical and effective.

The appropriate approach to rebuilding is from the bottom up, by mobilizing people and drawing on their individual and community initiatives and resources. People are resilient and they are going to rebuild their homes and businesses, no matter how adverse their circumstances and regardless of the finely drawn plans of experts. This is the worldwide experience of disaster recovery. It has happened in tsunami areas. The same process has already begun to unfold in Pakistan’s devastated areas with people making lean-tos around their homes for shelter. It happens every year after rains and floods in Pakistan. It is people’s attachment to their properties and ancestral places that need to be channelled and assisted with governmental aid.

Recovery planning is about people, places and processes. A targeted package of financial, technical and administrative help should complement people’s initiatives and resources. The government cannot rebuild two to four lakh or more homes and businesses. Organizing and implementing a process of aided self- help is appropriate for a task of this magnitude. The plan for recovery should be this process and not a set of blueprints of mega projects drawn in Islamabad. Only the direct involvement of individuals and communities, bypassing political and official middle men, in planning and redeveloping their villages and towns will trigger people’s energies and commitments. This process has to be organized patiently and sustained imaginatively over a long period.

It is not an untried and entirely new approach. It is a form of community development that has a long history in Pakistan. The country has witnessed both successes and failures of community development programmes. The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in the Northern Areas and the Orangi project in Karachi are living examples of the success of community development. Whereas heavily bureaucratized and patronage-ridden programmes of VAID in the 1960s and IRDP in the 1970s are examples of striking failures. A community-based approach to disaster recovery is highly feasible, if conceived with lessons of these experiments in mind.

The government has, undoubtedly, a strong role in a community-based approach to reconstruction. It is the government that organizes the process and keeps it going for years. It provides information, funds, technical help, organization and infrastructure. Even roads, water courses, schools, hospitals, universities, parks and building regulations, to cite a few examples, have to be developed by local, provincial and federal authorities. Yet the community approach requires that even public planning should have people’s inputs. Citizens should be involved in determining objectives and priorities of public plans.

Recovery planning is more than recreating old ways of living. It is an opportunity to mitigate existing conditions and build a more secure and shining future. For example, Azad Kashmir and the Frontier province require rebuilding earthquake-resistant homes and communities, selectively relocating people away from steep or unstable sites while respecting their property rights; stabilizing mountain slopes with extensive reforestation, developing a simple but effective building code, recreating family/clan habitations, reviving local economies and promoting new industries and businesses. Such forward-looking objectives require comprehensive and on-going planning. What will such a planning process look like? The following steps outline such a process.

* Community-based planning requires setting up three parallel organizations; i) appointing local community organizers/ village advisors, ii)organizing village, union council and district planning committees of informed citizens without the usual power brokers, iii) establishing a decentralized system of delivering technical and financial assistance through properly trained staff mandated to work at the grassroots level.

* Begin with action plans by assisting families that have begun to rebuild their homes and businesses. Demonstrate simple earthquake-resistant methods of construction using local materials and relying on improving traditional building techniques. Bring to people’s doorstep technical advice, training, financial aid, loans and support.

* Organize ERRA as an aid and co-coordinating agency. It should be dispensing modern and appropriate technical assistance and distributing capital funds and financial aid to local communities. ERRA should be based in affected areas, such as Muzaffarabad, Balakot, Bhasham etc with branches and travelling teams in districts and union councils. It should also implement public works projects planned regionally and locally. It should form a cadre of ‘barefoot builders/designers’ who guide and train households, designers and masons in earthquake-resistant building codes and construction techniques.

* Home reconstruction should be closely linked with programmes for reviving local economies. Reconstruction jobs should be essentially reserved for locals. Building material industries should be established in affected areas as part of economic priming activities.

The recovery process organized along these lines will yield many benefits. It will be economical, by substituting self-help for foreign aid. It will promote people’s participation and social reconstruction. It will largely use indigenous resources and reduce foreign dependence. Yet this model of planning and development poses greater organizing challenges. It requires persons long immersed in community development at the helm. For example, persons like Arif Hasan of Orangi Project in Karachi, Tasneem Siddiqui of Hyderabad’s ‘Khuda ki Basti’ fame or a senior staffer of AKRSP could lead such a process. The army is genetically not programmed for a community approach to development. Its rightful role could be as a back-up force for infrastructure redevelopment. A disaster of this scale in a poor country requires mobilizing people.

The writer is a professor emeritus, urban and regional planning, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada.

A leak in the basement

IT was the leak that shook the world — and worse still — The New York Times.

The first time it showed up was when Robert Novak, known as “Hurricane Darkness,” printed the name of a CIA agent who was the wife of American Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times that Saddam Hussein was not buying uranium from Niger to make an atomic bomb and did not have weapons of mass destruction, which was the president’s excuse for going into Iraq, and which was supposed to be a piece of cake, which turned into a quagmire, causing the death and wounding of thousands of American soldiers and Marines, not to mention Iraqi citizens, and created an army of insurgents who are still there killing Iraqi soldiers because they are not ready to defend themselves without coalition forces.

Once the leak was sprung, it became a broken levee. The public demanded to know who leaked it, and the Justice Department, under pressure, appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether any laws were broken and how far up in government the leaker went.

It turns out the name was mentioned to six reporters, but only Novak used it, and so far, no one knows what he revealed to the special prosecutor, except that he is not in contempt, as is Judy Miller, of The New York Times, who refused to reveal her sources and chose to go to jail instead, a noble act, which recently became questionable, in part, because her confidential source agreed to give her a waiver, so she could get out of jail.

But she refused and stayed for 85 days.

The New York Times originally described her as “Joan of Arc,” but after she was released they started having some misgivings because her version of what happened conflicted in many ways with those of the Times reporters who were covering the story.

By this time the leakers’ names were bandied about, and lo and behold, the leak came from the White House and the names I. Lewis Libby, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney kept popping up, and try as much as they could, they couldn’t find a plumber before all the damage was done.

This is not the first time the White House has leaked, but it is the first time they got caught at it, and possibly lied to the grand jury about facts.

The whole purpose of the leak was to discredit Ambassador Wilson’s reputation and destroy his story because it contradicted the White House story about weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for invading Iraq, which they believed would bring democracy to the Middle East, in spite of anti-Bush people, who would love to see Republicans lose the election in 2006 because most of the American people have recently decided that going into Baghdad was a bad idea, and made us villains all over the world.

It is not for us to decide whether a leak to a reporter can bring down the White House, at least not until the special prosecutor hands in his report. —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

The CIA bureaucracy

THE most dangerous moment in any transition is halfway through, when the old structure is badly weakened but the new one isn’t yet strong enough to carry the load. That’s where the Bush administration stands in its incomplete effort to restructure the intelligence community.

The intelligence reshuffle was the product of two warring impulses that have been apparent in this administration’s foreign policy from the start — a “realist” support for strong, independent spy agencies and a “neoconservative” mistrust, bordering on outright hatred, of the CIA as a supposed obstacle to the president’s goals.

The intelligence-reform impulse led President Bush, after some foot-dragging, to back the recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission by creating a director of national intelligence to oversee the nation’s 15 spy agencies and appointing veteran diplomat John Negroponte to fill the post.

But before the new structure was in place, the president tapped Republican Rep. Porter Goss as director of the CIA. Goss was accompanied by a team of right-wing congressional staffers, quickly dubbed the “Gosslings” at Langley, who set out to cuff the CIA’s headstrong Directorate of Operations into line.

The aim was to revitalize U.S. intelligence. But rather than consolidate and streamline the overlapping agencies, the new system has added even more boxes to the organization chart. The result has been a further layering of the intelligence community’s bureaucracy and further demoralization among career intelligence officers. “Adding more layers causes indecision and confusion in the ranks, and leads to a wait-and-see, risk-averse attitude,” warns Richard Stoltz, a former head of the CIA’s clandestine service.

Negroponte’s new DNI structure has had some successes. It finally created a central hub for coordinating the intelligence community — something the old “director of central intelligence” role was supposed to accomplish but never did. Visit the DNI’s Web site and you’ll see the seal of the new intelligence czar at the centre, surrounded by the seals of the 15 agencies that (at least in theory) he supervises. Negroponte showed his clout in September by scaling back a planned multibillion-dollar satellite surveillance system known as the Future Imagery Architecture, according to news reports. That was a good start on the kind of tough management the intelligence community needs.

Negroponte has inevitably concentrated on the small islands he actually controls within the intelligence archipelago — the daily briefing of the president and the top-level analytical group known as the National Intelligence Council. Observers say that has led to crisper analysis of political options in Syria and Iraq. But some worry that Negroponte is so linked to the White House that he may politicize the process.

They cite the DNI’s release this month of excerpts from a letter allegedly written by Al Qaeda strategist Ayman Zawahiri just as Bush was making a major speech on al Qaeda terrorism. Revealing the letter made sense, despite questions about its authenticity, but not as a prop for a presidential speech.

The reorganization that created Negroponte’s office also established a National Counterterrorism Centre and, just last week, a National Clandestine Service. But beneath these imposing bureaucratic edifices will be the old CIA structures, the Counterterrorism Centre and the Directorate of Operations.

The layers are confusing, especially for intelligence officers trying to make good choices about where to build their careers. And the reality is that the country doesn’t have enough good terrorism analysts to staff two counterterrorism centres. The layering process is also evident in overlapping staffs to handle the public affairs and general counsel functions.

The really dangerous problems, though, lie in the heart of the CIA — the Directorate of Operations (DO), which recruits the spies and runs the covert actions. The Gosslings have made a real mess of things, driving out a half-dozen top officers, most recently the DO’s No. 2 official, 35-year veteran Robert Richer. Why these inexperienced congressional staffers thought they had better judgment than career professionals, many of them former military officers, is beyond me.

I’m told that Goss has now gotten warnings from the White House that he should clip the wings of the head Gossling, his chief of staff, Patrick Murray. Goss should heed that advice before even more officers quit in disgust at the political meddling. And Goss himself may be part of the problem. His laid-back style (liaison meetings with foreign intelligence services on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, please) is said to have led Negroponte to tell one colleague that Goss was still working a “congressional schedule.”

The half-baked intelligence reorganization should go back in the oven. Negroponte, supported by President Bush, must finish the process — and consolidate this overlayered bureaucracy. Getting intelligence right is a life-or-death matter for America, and, so far, it’s only partly right. —Dawn/Washington Post Service

Global response to the call

THE devastation caused by the October 8 earthquake has no parallel in the history of our country. The loss of human lives has exceeded our worst fears and the economic impact has been incredible in its magnitude. Entire towns have been laid waste and the infrastructure totally destroyed. The survivors have to live through this nightmare for the rest of their lives.

The response from the nation has been overwhelming. It rushed to the aid of the victims and the events of the last three weeks bear witness to the longest volunteer campaign ever seen. While the government agencies failed to comprehend the enormity of the crisis and they were totally unprepared or inept to meet the crisis, in the early days, private relief efforts proved critical to the survival of thousands through timely and organized efforts. Within a few days, the President’s Relief Fund received about six billion rupees in addition to donations in kind of essential goods, exceeding in value terms even the cash donations.

The international response to the tragedy has essentially been tepid and lukewarm. The United States responded with 150,000 dollars and the response from other donor agencies and countries was also extremely modest. However, once the dimensions of the tragedy began to unfold, the response also kept on increasing, and so far a total commitment of $1.6 billion has been made.

It appears, however, that even these sums are wholly inadequate. The role of the UN and the other agencies has been most reassuring and substantive. Besides galvanizing its different agencies to provide necessary support for rescue and relief of the survivors, the UNSC launched an appeal for donations and organized a pledging conference in Geneva requesting $585 million in aid.

The donor countries, particularly the United States, Britain and the Muslim countries of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran have made handsome cash contributions, besides sending their relief teams. Similarly, the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank have offered $470 million and $250 million respectively in the form of quick-disbursing credits to restore the infrastructure in the ravaged areas. However, direct assistance to the victims has been grossly small compared to needs.

An analysis of the international aid pledged or received by Pakistan reveals that assistance from Muslim countries, notably, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, constitutes 60 per cent of the total. Against its fresh appeal for $585 million, the UN has received only $130 million. Most pledges are for long-term reconstruction. Of America’s $150 million, $50 million is a loan and the remaining $100 million is meant for long-term reconstruction. Similarly, $250 million assistance from the Islamic Development Bank is, in fact, a loan for 20 years with a markup of 3.825 per cent. The grant component is only $1.6 million.

President Musharraf has put the needs at $5 billion, while the total commitments, to date, are just 25 per cent of the required amount. The Geneva conference was also disappointing, as only $113 million were contributed to the UN agencies, despite Kofi Annan’s appeal that “the scale of the tragedy almost defies our darkest imagination. It is a winter without pity”. The relief organizations have been deeply disappointed. Oxfam — the British charity NGO — was bitter in its criticism of lack of adequate responses from rich European countries. It noted that France, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Finland and Austria had not given any funding to the UN appeal, while their contributions at a bilateral level were limited to rescue and medical efforts.

The UN representative in Islamabad sent an SOS to the donor countries to convert their pledges of $580 million into cash flow. “Now or never” was the anguished cry of the UN coordinator, warning that this was the “last chance” to save human lives. UN operations need $250 million immediately as thousands will die of malnutrition, hunger and disease if aid is not provided within days. “There is still a shortfall of 200,000 tents and 2.3 million are in need of food. In terms of cash, the UN emergency budget for shelter has only two per cent of its needs met, food four per cent water and sanitation five per cent and health 17 per cent. No wonder, the UN coordinator was so desperate to call it “now or never” situation.

The realization that the international response has been very poor is slowly dawning on donors, and the appeals of the UN officials should spur them into giving more generous donations. The assistance for long term rehabilitation might not be so disappointing. However, in the immediate term, the cash flow is constrained thereby jeopardising the lives of thousands.

While complaining of inadequate international assistance, we should not lose sight of the fact that Pakistan also needs to tighten its belt, review its priorities and provide funds from its own resources to ameliorate the conditions of the victims. The revision of our budget should be undertaken immediately to identify the area where economy can be exercised and funds transferred to provide relief.

In this context, quite a few initiatives can be taken to generate resources without seriously impairing sectors from where the economy is proposed. For instance almost 400 billion rupees has been provided in the current budget for “executive and legislative organs, financial and fiscal affairs, external affairs”, and 235 billion rupees for defence. These two items constitute almost 60 per cent of our total budget. Effective control on the outlays and slashing of non-essential expenditure could release enough funds to meet immediate needs. There have also been suggestions that bulk purchase of F-16 fighter planes could be delayed and the amount diverted to relief efforts. The government needs a a realistic approach to energize and mobilize national resources both financial and human to meet the challenge.

Let us also not forget that the phenomenon of donor fatigue can set in soon and unless we have taken the necessary steps to revamp our national priorities, the tragedy may intensify. The donors’ conference called on November 19 in Islamabad should be our last effort and the response should determine our parameters and priorities. We need to prepare a comprehensive dossier on different aspects of the devastation and aid requirement to impress on the participants for a handsome response.

Equally important would be ensuring remittances of pledged funds of the donors. Our embassies should be alerted and asked to pursue the remittances from the donor countries without much delay. The track record of most countries in terms of meeting their pledges, in similar situations, has not been very encouraging.

Notwithstanding the quantum of aid, the most important thing is to assess the needs of the people promptly; and disbursed aid in a transparent manner. To ensure this, a committee should be formed with representation from all parliamentary parties to monitor the management of aid. Regrettably, Pakistan’s record in the utilization of aid has not been confidence-inspiring. Stories of massive corruption and diversion of funds are legion, from the 1974 earthquake to the Afghan war to the debt retirement campaign in 1998.

Huge amounts were collected but there is no record of their utilization. Little wonder that neither foreign donors, nor the citizens trust the government. President Musharraf would be well advised to enlist the help of the opposition in the aid management, instead of wasting energies on seeking their participation in the APC.

Lastly, a word about the deployment of Nato forces for relief work. Regrettably, their presence has given rise to many questions and apprehensions. The government should have taken the nation into confidence prior to their arrival. There is still time to allay the fears of sceptics explaining the nature of their duties and the period of their stay. The US ambassador’s statement that the “forces would leave when they were no longer needed, and not a day before” is pretty unhelpful, and not very diplomatic.

The writer is a former ambassador.

After Alan Greenspan

CONFRONTED with the nomination of a new Federal Reserve chairman, financial markets didn’t panic. That is a tribute to President Bush’s selection, Ben S. Bernanke, who, on the likely assumption that he is confirmed, will have to fill some of the biggest shoes in Washington.

The Fed’s departing chairman, Alan Greenspan, acquired a nearly mythical status over the course of 18 years, pronouncing on every economic question that preoccupied the political class as well as guiding the economy through the savings-and-loan collapse, the emerging-market crises and periodic implosions in corporate America.

Indeed, Mr Greenspan seemed almost indispensable at times: In the 2000 presidential campaign Sen John McCain joked that if the Fed chairman were to die, he would prop him up and put dark glasses on him.

Mr Bernanke’s chief asset is his stellar academic record. He has chaired the Economics Department at Princeton University, is widely cited and respected in the profession, and has specialized in the monetary policy dilemmas that confront central bankers.—The Washington Post