ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: First get trained and then train others. Such is the simple principle of development followed globally. But in Pakistan you could be a trainer without being trained or you can refuse to improve your own capacity and still claim to be the torch-bearer of the capacity building of the whole nation.

This seems to be true as far as the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) is concerned.

Its employees have demanded the government should give them waiver from a 12-day capacity building training mandatory for all the government employees.

In a letter, the NCHD human resource department has demanded the ‘waiver’ on the ground that the commission is mandated to act as a support organisation for the capacity development of other departments, district governments and elected officials and has developed its own comprehensive training programme for capacity building of its employees. So, the NCHD employees don’t need any additional training from the government.

Sources said the commission was trying to set a bad precedent that is likely to be followed by other government departments and would result in the complete stagnation of the capacity of the whole government machinery and serving bureaucracy.

“Tomorrow, Wapda or Pakistan Mineral Development Organisation will request the government for the same wavier on the grounds that they are experts in their own fields and don’t need the compulsory training,” an official said, requesting not to be named.

Pakistan is ranked 144th among 178 countries on the UNDP’s Human Development Index. Faced with poverty, illiteracy, lack of healthcare facilities and a rising population, the country is also encountering the daunting challenge of capacity building of its bureaucracy and institutions to efficiently deliver social services.

The NCHD came into being in July 2002 as an autonomous federal body on the recommendations of the task force on human development envisioned by President Gen Pervez Musharraf. Based on a holistic development model, the NCHD aims at enlarging the scale and scope of the efforts made by the government in ensuring the effective provision of social services.

But now the commission is acting as if it has achieved all its goals and its own employees need no further training compulsory for government employees.