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| February 04, 2008 | Monday | Muharram 25, 1429 |
Breaking the code
The coal potential
Need for inclusive rural development
OTHER VOICES - American Press
THE concept of rural development has undergone a metamorphosis during the last three decades as the focus has now shifted from agricultural production to the wider idea of inclusive rural development.
WHY should a government that claims to have political legitimacy and has the machinery of the state behind it fear members of the legal fraternity? For it is fear that the authorities have betrayed in the treatment they have meted out to Mr Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and a PPP leader, Justice (retd) Tariq Mehmood, the former chief of the SCBA, and Mr Ali Ahmad Kurd, a member of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s defence counsel. These three gentlemen, who had been under detention since Nov 3, when the emergency was clamped on the country, were allowed a few hours of freedom last week on the expiry of 90 days of their detention only to be detained again - this time for 30 days. The government was in such a hurry that it did not even bother to complete all the legal processes that have been stipulated by the law in such cases. The arbitrary manner in which Mr Ahsan was prevented from proceeding to Sukkur speaks volumes about how vulnerable the government has now begun to feel. It would perhaps feel even worse if it were to recall that when brave men struggle for rule of law ‘stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage’.
The fact is that the Musharraf regime has much to worry about. Given its questionable legal underpinning and untenable moral and political base, the government will find it difficult to defend itself in any court of law that is truly independent. Hence its nervousness. But its knee-jerk responses are such that it is fast moving towards self-destruction. The clampdown on the lawyers is just one instance. Another is the adversarial posture it is adopting vis-à-vis the media. After all that has happened in the last three months when the independent television channels and the press have been forced to take the brunt of the government’s wrath the warning from Federal Information Minister on Saturday was a whit misplaced. Mr Nisar Memon said that any TV channel that violated Pemra’s code of conduct would be closed down. Contemplating such harsh measures against the media and adopting an extreme course against the lawyers are quite unbecoming for a government that worries obsessively about its image.
ELECTIONEERING in the run-up to the Feb 18 polls has been lacklustre so far and with good reason. Given the security environment in the country as well as the implied and explicit restrictions and warnings that come with one-man rule, the fervour normally associated with election campaigns is nowhere to be seen even at this late stage. One major opposition party is still mourning the loss of its leader, another seems to lack a coherent game plan while those in the president’s camp appear to be focusing on behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, which may well be their best bet. And though public sentiment is largely in favour of holding polls at the earliest, the sense of anticipation is justifiably coloured by concerns regarding the possibility of street agitation and terrorist attacks. On one election-related count, though, there has been plenty of action. Barbs have been flying thick and fast between political rivals accusing each other of intimidatory tactics and pre-poll rigging. Not unexpectedly, most of the complaints have come from the opposition which must compete on a playing field that is anything but level.
Now a report by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), an alliance of NGOs monitoring the electoral process across the country, states that all major political parties are violating the Election Commission’s code of conduct in the build-up to the polls. Some of the transgressions noted by Fafen are relatively minor, such as putting up posters, banners and billboards that exceed the size permitted by the EC. Far more abhorrent are reports that some candidates are issuing inflammatory statements of a sectarian nature, and that some parties — including, incredibly, those that portray themselves as progressive — are telling women not to vote come Feb 18. Fafen has also asked the EC to process all election-related complaints in a timely and lawful manner.
There is clearly no dearth of such grievances, particularly those regarding pre-poll rigging. For instance, in brazen violation of relevant rules and regulations, choice officials were transferred to ‘sensitive’ constituencies after the election schedule had been announced. The opposition also alleges that local government officials are using state resources to campaign on behalf of the PML-Q and its allies, besides intimidating and even arresting activists and supporters of rival parties. Similar charges have been levelled against senior officials at the federal level. Only free and fair polls can pull the country out of the crisis in which it is mired but the signs as we speak are far from promising.
THE good news is that Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro has constituted an inter-provincial committee to work out in ten days a plan for international competitive bidding for the production of 20,000MW of coal-based thermal power by 2019. And even better news is that the country has about 185bn tons of coal reserves. But the best news in its narrowest Pakistan-specific sense is that weather exigencies in Australia and China, transport bottlenecks in Indonesia and higher demand in India have helped stoke up the price of coal. This relatively high price of world coal is not expected to come down over the next ten years for various reasons making, for the time being, the cost of generating power by plants fired by even the low-quality indigenous coal compare very well with that of power plants based on imported furnace oil or gas. Notwithstanding the costly technologies needed to enhance the thermal efficiency of Thar and Lakhra coal, it is still economical. Going by Wapda’s 2006 estimates, the cost of production of electricity from gas, at Rs2.4/kWh, is nearly double that of coal-based power at Rs1.3/kWh.
The case for exploiting our enormous coal deposits for power production and as a replacement for gas becomes much more compelling and urgent if one considers the escalating world oil and gas prices. And one cannot also ignore the enormous social returns on the investment in developing Thar’s coal deposits as some of the most depressed regions of Sindh could be lifted out of their centuries-old backwardness as a consequence. Coal is said to be contributing as much as 40 per cent to the world’s electricity mix. China, for example, produces 75-80 per cent of its electricity from coal, India 55 per cent, the US 50 per cent, Germany 48 per cent, Australia 45 per cent and the UK 33 per cent. It is a paltry 0.7 per cent in the case of Pakistan. Low-quality coal is said to pose no problem nowadays as technologies have been developed to enhance the thermal efficiency of coal to as much as 50 per cent. State-of-the-art coal plants in China are said to have a thermal efficiency of above 40 per cent. It is perhaps because of this popularity of coal as a fuel for power generation that, according to one projection, nearly 1,400GWe of new coal-fired capacity will be built worldwide by 2030, with two-thirds of the new capacity in developing countries. Coal-fired power plants are expected to provide about 38 per cent of global electricity needs in 2030, close to today’s share of global electricity supply needs. And coal deposits worldwide are expected to last for over 200 years compared to the oil and gas fields that are expected to be exhausted within the next 60 years.
This encompasses the social, economic and political dimensions of human development.
Until the 1970s, rural development was considered synonymous with agricultural development through enhanced productivity. In the 1980s, the World Bank, however, defined rural development as a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people — the rural people.
Several factors were responsible for this paradigm shift. First of all, concerns regarding the persistence of widespread poverty increased during the last few decades. It was realised that the spread of poverty was predominant in the rural hinterland, despite the dazzling performance of the agricultural sector in certain countries due to the green revolution. Much of the benefits of the green revolution accrued to the non-poor farmers in irrigated areas.
Moreover, views on the meaning of development were also seriously questioned by economists during this period, resulting in the dethronement of GDP as a measure of development. The concept of inclusive rural development is fundamentally different from the traditional concept in the sense that improvements in indicators like growth, income and output are not sufficient for it. Rather, changes in the quality of life, which essentially include improvement in health, nutrition, education and reduction in gender and income inequalities, are the indicators which define inclusive rural development.
There is universal consensus today that the ultimate objective of rural development is to improve the quality of life of the rural people. More specifically, inclusive rural development covers three different but interrelated dimensions, that is, economic, social and political.
Going by the Pakistani pattern of rural development, it appears that the focus has been on the agricultural sector, with the result that the vast majority of the rural poor has not remained the target of the government strategies adopted for rural development. The prevalence of a high degree of landlessness and the monopoly of a small minority over factors of production like land and water further reduced the effectiveness of such policies. Thus their outcome has enhanced the incomes of big landlords at the cost of small farmers, tenants and people associated with the non-farm rural economy. Infrastructural development has also gone in their favour by way of appreciation in the value of their lands.
The social dimension of inclusive rural development requires that social development of the poor and low-income households should occur through the narrowing down of inequalities in social indicators, promoting gender equality and providing social safety nets for the most vulnerable groups of rural society.
The majority of the rural people in Pakistan, comprising small farmers, landless tenants and daily wage workers, are socially excluded. Poverty levels continue to be much higher in rural areas as compared to urban ones. According to an estimate, rural poverty was 41.6 per cent in 2001, while it was 26.4 per cent in urban areas of the country that year.
Educational facilities are deficient in most villages and almost non-existent for girls in far-flung areas. Educational attainment levels and health indicators of the rural population are much lower than those of the urban population due to urban-biased policies adopted in the past. Large gaps exist in primary school completion rates between the rural and the urban populations. The poor quality of education and health has further accentuated rural-urban disparities. The state of public institutions providing these services in rural areas is generally poor. Additionally, the lack of qualified staff and high rates of absenteeism aggravate the problem.
Women who contribute to the rural economy in large measure are excluded from social mainstreaming. They are merely ‘invisible farmers’ whose contribution to the rural economy is not captured in any account of the state whatsoever. The prevalence of anti-women traditions like karo kari, swara etc., is a reflection on their sad plight.
Without delving deep into the reasons for the fragile political system of Pakistan, it is to be noted that continuity in local government institutions has historically been missing, with the result that these institutions have failed to empower the rural populace. Of late, there has been the introduction of a devolution plan meant to devolve power to the grassroots, with a view to empowering people. However, the perception remains that rather than spreading power, the new local government system has been instrumental in creating political fiefdoms with power getting more concentrated in the same old hands.
It has been a case of old wine in a new bottle. International experience suggests that a high growth rate is not sufficient for inclusive rural development. Economic growth does not lead to automatic improvements in social indicators of the poor and low-income households, particularly those headed by women in countries where social inequalities are higher. Empirical studies on the growth elasticity of poverty have shown that the impact of economic growth on poverty is higher when human capital is better developed. It is lower when the levels of income inequalities are greater.
Effective land reforms, the development of rural infrastructure, growth of effective institutions, rural financial services and focus on rural non-farm enterprises are considered the major drivers of inclusive rural development. High concentration of land ownership has been a major stumbling block in the way of rural economic growth and poverty reduction in Pakistan.
Owing to the absence of a congenial environment, the growth of community-based rural institutions is almost non-existent. This factor has hindered the growth of ‘rural civil society’. Thus there is a need for effective state-led intervention to encourage the growth of rural institutions like water users’ associations, dairy cooperative networks, farmers’ cooperatives and producers’ associations, as these community-based organisations may emerge as potent drivers for inclusive rural development.
Concrete steps are required for the provision of rural financial services, as improved access to credit, deposit and insurance services will boost broad-based rural development and reduce income inequalities. Such measures will go a long way in creating opportunities for the rural poor to gainfully employ themselves and improve their standard of life.
Besides this, it is also imperative to increase the ability of poor households to enable them to take full advantage of these opportunities through improved access to quality education, health facilities, local financial institutions and community-based local institutions. Inclusive rural development is an outcome of conscious policies and actions, which require a coherent strategy for rural development at the national level.
Secrets and rights
The New York Times
PRESIDENT Bush’s excesses in the name of fighting terrorism are legion. To avoid accountability, his administration has repeatedly sought early dismissal of lawsuits that might finally expose government misconduct, brandishing flimsy claims that going forward would put national security secrets at risk.
The courts have been far too willing to go along. In cases involving serious allegations of kidnapping, torture and unlawful domestic eavesdropping, judges have blocked plaintiffs from pursuing their claims without taking a hard look at the government’s basis for invoking the so-called state secrets privilege.
As a result, victims of serious abuse have been denied justice, fundamental rights have been violated and the constitutional system of checks and balances has been grievously undermined. Congress may now be ready to push back. The House and Senate are developing legislation that would give victims fair access to the courts.
In October, the Supreme Court declined to take up the case of Khaled el-Masri, an innocent German citizen of Lebanese descent who was kidnapped, detained and tortured in a secret overseas prison as part of the administration’s extraordinary rendition programme.
… Since the Supreme Court has abdicated its responsibility, Congress must now act. Too many laws have been violated, and too many Americans and others have been harmed under a phoney claim of national security. — (Feb 2)
Sunshine State follies
The Boston Globe
FOR a primary that yielded only half the number of Republican delegates it might have, and that did not quite count on the Democratic side, Tuesday’s contest in Florida clarified the presidential campaign considerably. Each party now has just two viable candidates — John McCain and Mitt Romney for the Republicans, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democrats.
As such, Florida’s primary exemplified a nomination process that began far too early and may be over far too quickly.
The shift in the landscape was particularly quick in the Republican race, which previously had been muddled. And the key to that shift was the evaporation of Republican Rudy Giuliani’s campaign. No, John Edwards’s exit from the Democratic contest…wasn’t a shock.
… (Florida) lost half of its Republican delegates and all of its Democratic ones by violating party rules that forbade most states to hold primaries before Feb 5. Democratic candidates were forbidden to campaign there. Still, Clinton sought to have it both ways. After winning the symbolic Democratic vote she rushed to Florida to tout her victory.
Both nomination battles could be resolved… If so, perhaps the subsequent nine months of jockeying between the major-parties’ nominees will finally convince Congress of the need to step in and reform the presidential primary calendar…. inside the bubble of presidential politics, one might forget. Many Americans are confronting problems more immediate than a far-off general election. — (Jan 31)