ISLAMABAD: Technical experts and politicians on Thursday expressed concerns over Pakistan’s failure to improve its social service indicators.

They were speaking at a seminar, “Improving public development policy research”, organised by the Consortium for Development Policy Research and the International Growth Centre.

The speakers, including federal minister for planning Ahsan Iqbal, health minister Saira Afzal Tarar, bureaucrats from the federal and provincial governments and even the representatives of donor agencies, raised one question – “Why are reforms in the health and education sectors not working in Pakistan?”

Some blame the continuous decline in service delivery on “lack of political will” in the ruling class

However, minister for education Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Atif Khan said the reasons for the continuous decline in the service delivery and performance of public sector institutions in the health and education was the “lack of political will.”

He added: “We are spending a lot of money but still people prefer to send their children to private schools. This is all because of lack of political will.”

Speaking about the reforms agenda of the PTI government, he said around 28 per cent of the provincial budget had been allocated for education in the current fiscal year.

“But we face a serious issue of absenteeism among teachers and an independent monitoring unit has been formed to control it.”

He added that 1,700 cases had been registered against teachers and officials in this regard. However, he did not specify the long-term reforms initiated by the provincial government to streamline the education system.

Minister Ahsan Iqbal also criticised the current state of affairs in the social sectors. He said Pakistan was a mid-level country in terms of economic indicators but it belonged to the category of least-developed nations when it came to social services. He even said provinces had become too heavy after the 18th amendment.

“As many as 17 ministries have been devolved to provinces but they have not done so to strengthen the divisions and districts,” he said, adding: “Time has come the districts are made autonomous in terms of health and education while provinces should only make policies.”

He said there was no direction or even organisational capabilities in government institutions, including ministries.

“It is not the people who work but a system that functions but the problem is that we have not been able to devise a proper system,” Mr Iqbal said. “We are moving towards a new paradigm of governance.”

He said the new system of governance would be based on collaborative governance to develop coordination among various departments.

“The most important segment of this system of governance will be result-based evaluations,” he added.

However, after speaking at length over the reforms, he stopped short of giving any timeframe or roadmap for the reforms agenda.

Like the minister, secretary planning Hassan Nawaz Tarar said the provinces seemed least responsive to the social sector needs of the local population and none of them had any plan to promote the health and education standards in the deprived areas.

On the other hand, health minister Saira Afzal Tarar highlighted the issues of her own home district, Wazirabad, which she claimed did not even have a single cardiologist in the public sector.

“We still have a high number of neonatal deaths due to diarrhoea, and maternal deaths. Babies are delivered in subhuman conditions,” she added.

She also said almost all NGOs of the world had operations in Pakistan and the government was also spending significantly in the health sector. But the impact is not visible.

“Even after an increase in salaries, there are no doctors in the remote areas,” she said. “Things are still alarming in Balochistan where doctors want to leave the province due to security issues.” She said extremism was a key reason for a number of failed projects in the health sector.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2015

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