ISLAMABAD: “The state is responsible for bad governance which is contributing to social inequality and ever worsening social indicators,” Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Secretary General I.A. Rehman said on Tuesday.

“Work on the metro bus was started in the federal capital without an environmental impact assessment report and now local government elections are being held in Islamabad without a law. These are examples of bad governance,” Mr Rehman said.

I.A. Rehman was chairing a consultation on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the outcome of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the measures taken by Pakistan to achieve these.

He said that the state perpetuates inequalities with regards to women and minorities. “Fata is an example of state manufactured inequality.”

The SDGs are a proposed set of targets relating to future international development.

They are to replace the MDGs which are due to expire at the end of 2015.

The 17 goals included in the SDGs include ending poverty everywhere and ensuring health, education, gender equality, urbanisation, environment protection and access to justice etc.

The speakers at the HRCP consultation were presented with a document detailing the progress made by Pakistan over MDGs.

It was pointed out that Pakistan was off-track on six out of the eight MDGs and the speakers, mostly from the civil society, expressed scepticism over the data provided by government functionaries over all MDGs.

“Data has always been a controversial issue, and there is a need for strong political will,” said Dr Pervaiz Tahir, former chief economist at the Planning Commission.

Speakers argued that various governments are known to have hid accurate figures to show effective governance but this is only a short term gain.

“This is self deception. We think we can fool Europeans, Americans, UN and World Bank,” said Fatima Arif, who works for the welfare of the Hazara Community in Quetta.

Meanwhile, prominent civic society worker of Islamabad Tahira Abdullah said the government was not serious about social development.

“We have done nothing in the past 12 years to improve the status of women and we cannot expect anything out of the SDGs.

“We can talk about the subject at length but as long as the government is not interested, the civil society cannot do anything,” she said.

Other speakers, including Dr Baela Raza Jamil, Dr Alia Khan of Quaid-i-Azam University and Naseer Memon of SPO lashed out against the apathy of the government over the MDGs and said that the same attitude was expected for the SDGs.

Meanwhile, Zafarullah Khan of the Centre for Civic Education said that it was clearly visible that government functionaries were taking action first and making plans later.

“We have vision 2025, but there is no data related to demography, movement of citizens within the country and even the details of those relevant federal and provincial government departments that have to implement the vision 2025,” he said.

The HRCP has decided to hold more consultations over the SDGs to create awareness and pressurise the government to pay attention.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2015

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