Reducing population

IF the high population growth rate of Pakistan has been adversely affecting its economic growth rate so far, will the current high economic growth rate cut down the population growth? Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is hopeful that the rising economic growth rate, which peaked to 8.4 per cent last year, will reduce the rate of population growth.

Normally, when a country becomes rich its population begins contracting. Northern Europe is a case in point. South Korea is another good example, although in the 1960s both started off on a similar economic base. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have been able to achieve low population growth rate because of women’s education and profitable employment. In the case of Bangladesh the pioneering Grameen Bank has been exceedingly helpful.

Women’s education and employment are the key to solution of the problem. That brings not only a reduction in population and better family life but also a host of other beneficial features.

In Pakistan, with the inadequacy and poor quality of education with our ghost schools and ghost teachers and with our indifference to the abuses of child labour, we have over 1,800 camel-riding kids left stranded in the Gulf states. Poverty at this end and good monetary rewards at the other end make the parents agree to let their little kids ride those racing camels. A large number of them have died in the process. Yet the sadistic game has been going on for long with more kids being dumped in.

The population growth came down from the over three per cent in the earlier years to 2.6 per cent in the mid-1980s and then to two per cent in the year 2000, according to official figures. But the people who see infants being born in high numbers, except for the modern families, don’t believe the growth rate has really come down to two per cent.

The Economic Survey says that if the population growth had slowed to two per cent since 1959-60 the population would now have been 103.4 million instead of 155 million.

As a result of the large population base with its high annual growth the country has today a large number of uneducated, untrained and unskilled persons who are unemployed. They migrate from the rural areas to the cities and start living in Katchi Abadis where there are no basic amenities. When jobs are not available crime breeds there.

Critical population issues and the fallout of a large population growth were examined at a two-day “Population summit” at Islamabad with a large number of foreign experts attending. There was no disagreement on the ill-effects of a high population growth in a developing country with scant resources, but the issue was how to bell the cat and get the best results quick with too many contrary forces at work. The prime minister said that economic growth, literacy, provision of health facilities, and adequate infrastructure depended on population reduction. He said he would like to bring down fertility rate through further improvement in economic conditions.

The fact is that as long we have a large population and a high population growth rate, our economic growth will be below the country’s real potential. And the negative features of our system will be large in size and too many in number. Much of the resources of the country would go into consumption and too little of them in production. Our exportable surplus will be small and the exports far below the country’s potential. We have mostly unskilled manpower, and what is produced in terms of value is small compared to average Japanese or US worker’s products.

In fact as the population increases and more food is needed, more and more of the farming areas are converted into residential colonies and the arable area becomes less and less. Japan is an example but Japan has a highly adaptive culture of its own.

Our forest area too is too small, just about two or three per cent and that is getting less and less as trees get cut down for fuel. So we are left with the deserts of the Punjab and Sindh, and the mountains of Balochistan — very large in area but with too little water, but they are mineral rich.

The environmental pollution caused by a large population is excessive, unless the people are too disciplined. Sewerage disposal in such a country becomes more and more of a problem. And now the sea is flowing into the cultivable land in Sindh and reducing the forming area.

There are too many people everywhere, usefully or otherwise. Over four million people are employed by the central, provincial and local governments. Their pension bill is enormous and weighs down on the government as the people live longer than before.

We have large assemblies and large councils of ministers. And the ministers have too many officials to assist them. In fact most of the ministers are not qualified, nor really needed by the government. A large number of their support staff are wholly unnecessary and an enormous burden on the state.

Women are often victims of male-dominated societies. They are victims even before they are born. Their sex is ascertained even before they are born through ultrasound and if it is a female child it is often aborted. Many states in India have banned this practice.

In Pakistan, in 1980-81 the number of women was 40.42 million while that of men was 44.67 million but in 2005 women are 76.36 million and men 77.59 million — a gap of 1.23 million compared to over four million earlier.

After talking of poverty alleviation in the developing countries for long the World Bank’s annual report for 2006 now talks of equity enhancing the power of growth to reduce poverty. By equity it means equal opportunities for all to move forward and grab the opportunities for progress. The World Bank has already indicated it does not like one kind of education for the rich and another kind for the poor and underprivileged. And it wants quality education for women. It has already said in an earlier report that four million girls who ought to be in primary schools in Pakistan are out of them.

How do we have equity for the poor in a tribal or feudal society? The World Bank on its part is stepping up its financial assistance for the poverty reduction programme. It offered $90 million which was stepped up to $230 million under its second programme and now for the third programme the Bank has offered $500 million. More and more funds are available from the donors. The issue is making the best use of that and use the Bank advice well.

Unless the feudal base of society with all its distortions are corrected and the people are truly empowered to do the right thing and in the right time there can be no equity.

Now under an official programme of promoting development and reducing poverty by investing more money on development President Musharraf has come up with a plan to invest 27 billion dollars as foreign investment and make provisions for that in five years. Umar Ahmed Ghumman will be the chief coordinator of the President’s investment initiative, and report back to him. He will evidently be supplementing the efforts of the prime minister and the privatization minister Hafeez Shaikh as the president wants to accelerate investment. Much of the investment will be in the oil and energy sector and power production along with promotion of the engineering industry.

Meetings to be held by the officials concerned to resolve the problems of the investors should be interesting and prove a model for other investors with their problems, including domestic investors. Law and order will be one of the major problems which the investors face. It is no use for the government to minimise the problem in a country in which the police have become a problem instead of solution to the problems in their domain. We have seen increasing the number of the policemen does not solve problems nor does transferring the police officers from one place or post to another to solve the problem. The corrupt and grossly inefficient policemen have to be removed from service and punished as their crime warrants.

Rape too takes place in other countries. But it is not too often a gang rape. And seldom are police officials seen indulging in gang rapes themselves instead of preventing such ghastly crimes.

The prime minister said at the Population Summit: “Our policy mainstream population at the centre of the national development agenda has started yielding dividends and has achieved remarkable results in lowering fertility rate but we still have a long way to go.”

Federal minister for population Chaudhri Shahbaz Hussain says that the population Planning Department is hiring 13,000 Imams and Khatibs to start a training programme. It is good to use the services of Imams for controlling population if they take their task earnestly. In Egypt the Rector of Al Azhar university had declared family planning in conformity with Islamic teachings several decades ago and the Imams in Iran also play a role in keeping the population growth in decline.

But in Pakistan President Ziaul Haq had said on TV, “God creates and God sustains. You go on doing your job.” Such open rejection of family planning from the top was too discouraging to the family planning staff. But the time has come to take family planning seriously when we do not have enough drinking water and we live in the dark half the time because of power failure. Let us keep our numbers down instead of making them more and more.

A structural reinforcement plan: Reorientation of Saarc-II

IN the context of “systemic re-orientation”, Saarc must adapt itself to the new realities even if it means the rewriting of its basic charter. All institutions are susceptible to change and improvement.

We need to seriously look at the charter to overcome its shortcomings and outdated elements, especially the provisions on “principles of cooperation,” “inter-governmental structure,” “financial arrangements” and “general provisions” concerning decision-making.

Sustainable development and poverty eradication must remain the over-arching goals of Saarc and demonstrate a more focused and result-based approach in the realization of national development plans. The realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) must also be integrated with time-bound national development strategies.

Trade must be viewed as a means of development and not an end itself. While efforts need to be made for the elimination of restrictive barriers to mutual trade and the opening of markets in the region on the basis of “fairness and equity,” we must also ensure that the process of operationalization of Safta remains linked with the region’s development strategies.

In order to augment Saarc’s capacity to serve as a catalyst in the economic and social development of the region, we might consider the possibility of establishing a South Asia Trade and Development Bank. This would also facilitate accelerating the operationalization of SAFTA.

The objectives of Saarc as set forth in its charter represent our “common vision” which should continue to guide regional cooperation in a holistic manner, while striking balance between ambition, the region’s peculiar environment and operational capacity.

The needed “re-orientation” must also focus on avoiding too many meetings and excessive documentation and moving away from the declaratory stance to an action-oriented and goal-based implementation mode. We should find ways to work together with unity of purpose and through value change and pragmatism. We must accept “country ownership” for implementation of all regional action plans and their overall coordination and follow-up.

For an “enabling environment”, we must free South Asia of tensions, military confrontations and escalating military budgets. No other region in the world is in greater need to redirect its energies and resources to eradicate poverty and to improve the quality of life of its people. We must not run after funds or aid mechanisms that always tend to cripple nations’ initiative and drive and retard the urge for self-reliance.

Increased engagement of non-governmental stakeholders, including NGOs, civil society and the private sector in realization of Saarc’s goals will not only help bridge the mental divide, created by governmental policies and propaganda, between the peoples of the region but also give an added impetus to the process of regional cooperation.

Besides simplifying and facilitating travel within the region, we must promote people-to-people contacts, business and cultural exchanges, and cooperative linkages among educational institutions in the region.

For Saarc’s “structural reinforcement”, we need to establish coherent modalities and effective mechanism for implementation, coordination and follow-up of the agreed regional action plans. Some of the proposed measures are:

A high-level standing body, ‘Saarc troika’ comprising the outgoing, the current and the next chairmen of Saarc as its members at the level of heads of state and government should be institutionalized as a political mechanism to evaluate and facilitate the implementation of major regional projects and decisions. The secretary-general, as an ex-officio member of this group, should coordinate and service the work of the ‘Saarc troika.’

— A new ministerial body, ‘regional planning council’ comprising finance ministers of the member-states should be constituted to prepare and coordinate regional plans, and to review implementation progress.

— The Saarc secretariat should be reinforced as a dynamic and action-oriented entity, equipped with adequate professional, financial and technological resources as well as the requisite operational tools to enable it to “respond effectively and professionally to its increasing responsibilities in the wake of the widening scope of regional cooperation in South Asia.”

— Instead of the current system of annual summits, we should have biennial summits. This would obviate the need for frequent postponements, which have always had an adverse impact on the process of regional cooperation, besides bringing Saarc into negative focus, both regionally and globally.

— As a matter of policy and normal practice, all Saarc meetings, except for the summit and council of ministers meetings, should be held at the Saarc secretariat in Kathmandu unless a member-state specifically offers to host a particular meeting.

— Saarc’s decision-making process should be rationalized, restricting the principle of unanimity to vital issues, whereas decisions on other matters should be taken on the basis of simple majority of the total membership, provided that the remaining members choose to abstain and/or are not against the decision

— The organizational structure of Saarc should have fewer but more decisive organs, comprising:

i. The Council of Ministers (COM): Highest policy and decision-making body comprising foreign ministers of member-states, to meet annually in a Saarc country and in extraordinary sessions, when required, in a Saarc country or elsewhere.

ii. The Regional Planning Council (RPC): Planning and coordination body comprising finance ministers of member-states or their equivalents from any other economic ministry such as head of the country’s planning organization, to meet at least once a year to evolve annual regional plans of action, and to review progress in implementation of on-going regional programmes. This would more or less replace the present standing committee.

iii. The Council of Permanent Representatives (CPR): Permanent inter-governmental body which, except when the council of ministers is in session, should be responsible, for carrying out its policies, formulating issues requiring decisions by the member states and for taking appropriate steps on matters connected with the implementation of the decisions of the council of ministers. It should comprise the Permanent representatives/ambassadors based in Kathmandu or any other Saarc capital, accredited to Saarc as permanent representatives, and should meet on a regular basis in the Saarc Secretariat, Kathmandu as the permanent plenary of the organization and an inter-governmental authority to oversee the working of the secretariat.

iv. Standing committees: The present technical committees and any other committees or ad hoc groups should be abolished. Instead, the CPR should have three standing committees (economic, social and cultural) at expert-working level to meet on a regular basis at the secretariat.

v. The secretariat: The secretariat headed by a secretary-general (elected and appointed for three years) should have such “professional” staff as the organization may require for its efficient functioning. Its personnel, recruited on professional basis from the member-states and paid from the central budget of the secretariat must be treated as full-time international civil servants.

Concluded

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Soft image, harsh reality

The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return.

— Aristotle,

The Rhetoric, Bk II.

ON September 17, demonstrators led by the Asian-American Network Against Abuse had picketed the Roosevelt Hotel in New York where General Musharraf was staying in connection with the UN General Assembly meeting. They were loudly protesting against the denial of justice to victims of violence and rape in Pakistan.

Inside the hotel where a woman crowned as “Miss Pakistan” was being paraded to project the country’s soft image, Gen Musharraf himself was busy persuading a gathering of young Pakistani-American women, aged 18-35, about his commitment to women empowerment. But the general turned that gala into a public relations disaster when he locked horns with a human rights activist. She had only dared ask him if he would retract his remarks made to the Washington Post in which he had allegedly claimed that Pakistani women use rape for financial gain and visas to western countries.

Accusing her of defaming the country at the bidding of ‘vested interests, ‘ the general exclaimed: “You are against me and Pakistan”. He reportedly went on, “I am a fighter. I do not give up and if you can shout, I can shout louder”. In an apparent reference to Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, he even castigated her for working “with the people who looted and plundered the nation.” He then asked, “Are you a Benazir supporter?”

Just a day earlier, the general was invited to speak at Columbia University where he sarcastically questioned an American student about his “relationship” to Sharif and Bhutto. That student had only asked poignantly why his strategy of moderation did not extend to the secular political parties in Pakistan and only to the ‘extremist’ religious parties which were his “strongest allies” in parliament. Of course, the general didn’t show even an iota of impatience for students at an Ivy League university, his ire being reserved for Pakistanis, especially women.

Ironically, many well meaning ‘liberal’ Pakistani human rights activists are upset that their president showed utter contempt for their right of dissent despite his claims of respecting freedom of speech. This sentiment captures the classic ‘with or without you’ dilemma of our archetypal political liberals, in and outside Pakistan. Most are technically sceptical of a general preaching democracy but see him as the ‘lesser’ evil. Many are happy to partake of his authoritarian manipulations, including the devolution plan, in the name of women’s empowerment. It does not worry them not that he is a military ruler but that he is unwilling to repeal specific discriminatory laws against women and the minorities.

Some are even disappointed by the “mishandling” of a few rape cases which has blotched the ‘liberal’ general’s otherwise good record on women’s rights (33 percent reservation of seats in parliament and local councils). As if repealing those laws or providing speedy justice to victims of violence, both undoubtedly important steps forward in the struggle for human rights, makes military rule any less objectionable.

So our liberals continue to harbour the illusion that by pressuring Gen. Musharraf to issue an apology here and repeal a law there, they can persuade him to live up to his agenda of ‘enlightened moderation’. A few good-hearted souls are already providing sympathetic explanations of the general’s blunders as the expression of a ‘patriarchal and feudal’ mindset.

Condoning violence against women is not simply a matter of patriarchal or feudal attitudes. It also has a lot to do with the pattern and orientation of governance. It has to do with the military’s inability to see complex social problems except in terms of simple dichotomies, black and white, enemy and friend — not to mention its professional proclivity to resolve matters by force.

In other words, the military has a hammer and it sees everything as a nail. So political dissenters are routinely equated with the enemies of the state, human rights defenders are labelled as enemy agents while some rape victims are silenced in the ‘national interest’.

The freedom to engage in democratically-sanctioned dissent, or the provision of timely justice to raped women for that matter, are issues intimately linked to the broader question of participatory and representative politics. Democracy may not be an instant fix to all of our economic and social problems, but it offers the real hope that those who govern the country are at least technically accountable to us. That option is simply not available under military rule, benign or otherwise.

President Musharraf’s remarks at the New York gathering must be placed in this broader context — a context largely shaped by the demands of external legitimization in a post-Cold War environment generally hostile to authoritarian rule. So the general was enraged because he felt helpless in the face of defiant women who publicly challenged the state’s wilful indifference to the atrocities committed against women. Women demanding justice in Pakistan can be tolerated as a minor domestic inconvenience, or coerced and sent into exile if need be.

Not much can be done, however, about Pakistani women in the diaspora who already have the money and the foreign visas. Their outspoken defence of women’s rights gets him a bad press globally. He can neither tolerate it nor afford it. Hence, his repeated attempts to dissuade them from protesting abroad.

In the end, a retraction was all that the rights activist had asked him for. What they got instead were the words of an enraged man. “I’ll come after you with all the force I can use,” Gen Musharraf reportedly warned her. They did not deserve this. But then the 150 million people of Pakistan do not deserve the military’s denial of their basic civil and political rights either.

So expecting a general, who thinks that one is either with him or against Pakistan, to respect the person’s right of dissent is no more than a naive liberal illusion. The sooner our liberals shake themselves off their misplaced beliefs the better for the country.

Immigration reform

IF the White House is finally serious about a comprehensive plan to fix the nation’s immigration system, and there are signs that it is, then President Bush needs to get serious about working with Democrats — and standing up to the more unreasonable members of his own party. Immigration reform is still possible this fall, but not without the president’s bipartisan leadership.

This isn’t the first time Bush has said he is ready to tackle the issue. He spoke about the need for reform in February 2001 and again in January 2004, each time raising expectations that he was prepared to remake the nation’s immigration policies into a system that would be “safe, orderly and legal.”

So it’s reasonable to ask why this time is different. The answer is pleasantly surprising: Members of the House who were invited to the White House last week to hear the administration’s proposal found it comprehensive. According to those present at the meeting, which included Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the plan is similar to a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress that has the strong support of both business and immigrant advocacy groups.

The president’s proposal calls for better enforcement both on the border and in the workplace. It would also create a guest worker programme that would be filled initially with those already working in the country.

The two main immigration bills currently in Congress, one sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and another introduced by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) contain similar provisions.

Both bills call for better border law enforcement, stiffer sanctions on employers who hire illegal workers and a

new electronic authorization system for verification of employment eligibility. They impose penalties on employers who fail to comply with the system.

—Los Angeles Times