ISLAMABAD: Local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are casting doubts over the government’s ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations, besides questioning its capacity to build an improved infrastructure in earthquake-hit areas.
Most of these NGOs are working in the quake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP where poverty, illiteracy and disease are widespread. The charitable and welfare organizations are also unsure about the government’s ability to convert challenges thrown up due to the natural calamity into an opportunity, mainly because of its poor track record.
Many of the international NGOs now assisting the government in relief efforts are planning to leave Pakistan after the winter. However, local governments in devastated areas are not prepared to take up responsibilities from these NGOs because they lack resources, capacity and vision.
Oxfam’s country representative, Farhana Faruqi Stocker, told Dawn that the reconstruction process had not yet begun. Aid workers, she said, were still concerned about saving the people from a second wave of deaths as winter set in.
“Reconstruction should not happen at the cost of the relief phase. Some early rebuilding interventions should be made in the relief phase like ensuring the durability of transitional shelters, rebuilding of basic health units and opening of roads and schools,” Ms Stocker said.
An issue of immediate importance, she said, was how to restore the people’s sources of income. The quake had destroyed crops and killed a substantial number of their livestock in areas where the people were mainly dependent on agriculture. The next sowing season would not start before October next year.
She was of the opinion that the government should grab the opportunity to get rid of poverty in the affected areas to achieve MDGs and to ensure a “reconstruction plus” that compensated for the development deficit there. The purpose of rebuilding should not just be aimed at recreating the pre-quake infrastructure but at building a modern one.
Ms Stocker said the best way forward was to train the people in skills that would be required in the reconstruction process. The government should formulate rules under which only locals could work as labourers in the rebuilding process. The local people’s income could be supplemented by giving them better market access and teaching them non-traditional skills, while ensuring gender equity and a sweeping social change.
When she was asked if she had heard of some people’s fears regarding transparency and accountability, Ms Stocker replied that most of the time fear was based on reality. It was the government’s responsibility to remove fears through concrete action.
She said the government would have to exhibit its claimed spirit of openness through joint decision-making and not just consultation with international aid agencies.
She said NGOs could not take up the role of a government. The government would have to follow a multi-tiered mechanism by involving the people “at the grass-root level and not merely those individuals sitting in Islamabad.”
An independent inquiry commission, involving international bodies, should ensure a just allocation of resources for reconstruction, Ms Stocker claimed, adding that the accounts of reconstruction projects should be made public.
“We want to see the continuation of the cooperation, which is there between the NGOs and the government for the past eight weeks”, she remarked. Gender-based budgeting was another measure, which the government should take.
LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: An aid official belonging to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), Mohamed Bendriss Alami, said capacity building of the local administration was of vital importance in order to turn the reconstruction process into a success. He said the local government infrastructure had been destroyed in the earthquake. The local government was short of human and material resources.
Most of the facilities like community latrines and sewerage system were there for a limited time and when the NGOs phased out it would be the community that would have to move forward with the existing infrastructure to the next phase of reconstruction, Mr Alami said.
He said there would be a need for people with different skills in different phases and totally different material for which planning was necessary. For example, he said, presently people could not be kept in tents and they needed small houses made out of wood, corrugated galvanized iron sheets and concrete. He said people should be provided with an infrastructure that could be maintained easily.
LIST OF NGOs: Aid Workers Association for the Development of Pakistan Bitsonline Children’s Resources International Concern Disasters Emergency Committee (UK) EDHI International Fatimid Foundation Help Asia Human Development Foundation Humanity First ICRC International Federation of the Red Cross International Rescue Committee India-Pakistan Earthquake Relief Fund Islamic Relief Kashmir International Relief Fund LUMS Disaster Relief Fund Mercy Corps OCHA Oxfam UK The Citizens Foundation Pakistan Relief Relief Web SABAWON International TCF Relief Fund UNDP UNICEF World Bank WFP WHO World Vision Omar Asghar Khan Development Foundation The Rural Support Programmes Network (RSPN) The Aga Khan Development Network The Church World Service Aid Islamic Call Al-Khidmat Welfare Society The Citizens Foundation Earthquake Relief Fund AmeriCares American Jewish World Service.
Catholic Relief Services Church World Service Christian Aid Concern Worldwide Direct Relief International Episcopal Relief and Development Humedica International Medical Corps The International Rescue Committee The International Rescue Corps Habitat for Humanity International Medecins Sans Frontieres/ Doctors Without Borders Mercy Corps Muslim Aid Network for Good Northwest Medical Teams Plan USA Save the Children
