ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been set on the basis of global trends and are not country specific, United Nations Resident Coordinator in Pakistan Jan Vandermoortele said.

He was speaking at the inaugural session of the third International HRD Congress organised by Human Resource Development Network (HRDN) here on Saturday.

Mr Vandermoortele said MDGs had been misunderstood and the yardstick to measure development in one country might not be applicable to another. Therefore, these goals have to be contextualised for different countries as Cambodia and Vietnam did, he added.

He also suggested that MDGs must be linked with the government’s political agenda and national budget.

Speaking on the occasion, National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Dr Naseem Ashraf, in his address, said: “We need to define security in the new paradigm of human security.”

He said denial of basic needs must be addressed to counter terrorism and extremism. He was of the view that injustice and denial of political rights were the root causes of Palestine and Kashmir issues.

Eminent scholar Anjum Altaf presented the paper on ‘Governance and Human Security’.

The session was chaired by Dr Ishrat Hussain and Ashfaq Saleem Mirza, while Farzana Bari and Akbar Zaidi were among the panelists.

Anjum Altaf stressed on equal opportunities for all but unfortunately Pakistan was characterised by extreme inequality. In the absence of human security any form of democracy would be irrelevant.

He said civil society should play its role to highlight demands for democratic governance. The West had gone through social revolution which preceded political revolution. We needed such a revolution before we go for good governance, he elaborated.

Dr Ishrat Hussain said there was no single model of governance which could provide solution for all times and for all societies, therefore different models of governance and democracy should be explored.

He also said there was a need to develop equilibrium between economic and political rights of the society. Giving example of India, he said democracy kept India together but did not help much to give people individual freedom.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Sajjad Zohir, Dr Ema Hooper, Dr Saba Gul Khattak, Dr Stephen Kidd, Shenaz Wazir Ali, Afia Sherbano, Hamid L. Sharif, Dr Kaiser Bengali and I.A. Rehman.—Our Reporter