Prioritising development
THERE is reason for hope on the global level. Optimism must necessarily be guarded at this stage, but the world as a whole appears to be moving towards the development targets set by the UN Millennium Declaration of 2000. Six years on, slow but appreciable progress has been reported on some key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as halving extreme hunger and poverty by 2015 and bringing child mortality down by two-thirds from 1990 levels. Unfortunately, the global advancement seen thus far has been anything but uniform. As the UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs wrote earlier this year, “disparities in progress, both among and within countries, are vast, and ... the poorest among us, mostly those in remote rural areas, are being left behind.” Much of this analysis rings true for Pakistan. Recent media reports point to huge socio-economic disparities that are visible not just across income groups but also regions as well as the urban-rural divides within provinces. Almost halfway through the MDGs deadline, the country is failing to keep pace with the goals it is committed to realise by 2015.
The economy has been growing rapidly for the last three years but the benefits of growth are not reaching the poorest sections. If anything, the inflationary forces unleashed by quick growth and increased spending by the wealthy and the middle classes have further eroded the purchasing power of the poor. No reversal in this trend is expected in the medium term. Still, the government is confident that it can bring the number of people living below the poverty line down to 13 per cent by 2015. It was announced in June this year that the poverty rate had declined by 10.6 per cent between 2001 and 2005 — from 34.46 to 23.9 per cent. The World Bank did not agree, putting the poverty rates over the same period at 33.3 and 28.3 respectively, or a five per cent drop. At this rate, Pakistan will be in no position to meet its 2015 poverty-reduction target unless efforts are speeded up considerably. As it is, the official definition of the national poverty line — Rs878 consumption expenditure per month per capita — is open to question. The same is true of the official inflation rate of seven per cent per annum.
Pakistan’s performance is poor with regard to other Millennium Development Goals as well. Almost half of the country’s children of primary-school age are going without education and there is, moreover, a wide gender disparity in enrolment in the rural areas. If net primary enrolment continues to increase by only 2.5 per cent per annum, just 78 per cent of children will be in primary school by 2015. The universal primary education MDG can be achieved only if the increase in net enrolment suddenly doubles to five per cent a year. How this can happen with an education budget that stands at a little over two per cent of GDP is anybody’s guess. The situation in the health sector is also far from encouraging, with the maternal health and child mortality goals nowhere in sight and the incidence of HIV/Aids increasing. The progress report on other MDGs such as gender equality and empowerment of women, affordable essential drugs and environmental sustainability also leaves much to be desired, largely on account of the government’s distorted policies and priorities. As Kofi Annan put it, there is time enough to reach our goals but only if we break with business as usual.
A deadline for autonomy
THE minister for inter-provincial coordination has promised that the much-awaited constitutional amendment bill providing for enhanced provincial autonomy would be adopted before June 2007. This will be widely welcomed. It has been felt in political quarters that the federation would function more efficiently and amicably in Pakistan if the provinces were granted greater freedom of decision-making in their own affairs. The periodic unrest in the smaller provinces, especially Sindh and Balochistan, can be attributed to the sense of deprivation these units suffer from on account of the over-centralisation of power. In order to demarcate the jurisdictions of the centre and the provinces, the Constitution of 1973 provides for two legislative lists. The federal list that contains 67 subjects on which the National Assembly can make laws is comprehensive in itself. In addition, the jurisdiction of the federation prevails on the 47 subjects that are in the concurrent list. This hardly leaves any important subject in the exclusive preserve of the provincial assemblies. Moreover, the provinces are heavily dependent financially on the centre which collects most of the taxes and shares the divisible pool with the provinces according to a formula. In 2006-07 the provinces received 41.5 per cent of the pool. By 2010 this share is expected to go up to 50 per cent.
In theory this assures greater autonomy for the provinces, assuming that the 18th constitutional amendment bill envisaging this is passed in the next few months. But much would depend on how the various lists are adjusted. The Waseem Sajjad committee that considered this matter was reported to have been juggling around with the concurrent list. The need is to abolish the concurrent list altogether and make the federal list short and concise. It is unbelievable that Islamabad should be deciding the syllabus of a school in a remote area of Sindh. There is also the need to give the provinces greater fiscal autonomy which will give their revenues greater elasticity. It is also important that the control Islamabad exercises over the provinces through its appointees in the administration is loosened. The fact is that the biggest threat to the federation comes not from outside the country but from within. By allowing greater autonomy to the provinces, the government can strengthen the federation.
Now a doping scandal
PAKISTAN cricket hasn’t been in such a fix since 2000. First there was the Oval Test forfeit and then the captaincy musical chairs, with Younis Khan abruptly vacating the hot seat and Mohammad Yousuf taking his place. Within three days, Younis was back in charge courtesy a whirlwind change at the helm of the PCB. Destabilising as it was, that upheaval at least came with an element of the absurd. But now a much darker chapter is upon us. Doping, the latest scandal to rock Pakistan cricket, has the potential to debilitate the side for months to come.
The withdrawal symptoms could be severe. For one thing, the team’s World Cup prospects have taken a serious blow. With the two best bowlers in the side facing lengthy bans for steroid use, Pakistan’s attack is unlikely to trouble the best in the game unless someone suddenly stands up to be counted. As was evident in England this summer, Pakistan’s bowling looks emaciated without Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif. The team will also have to live with a brand new taint. Though it was two individuals who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, the stain may stick to the side as a whole. Still, all is not lost yet as both Shoaib and Asif have the option of contesting the accuracy of the result. It is also possible that the two unknowingly took nandrolone while recovering from injury. Already, the chief executive of the international players’ association has criticised the ICC for not providing cricketers with “effective education” regarding drug use. Initially, everyone was all praise for the PCB which, by conducting its own tests and sidelining the ‘guilty’ players in what seemed to be a timely manner, had retained control over the follow-up proceedings. But now ex-chairman Shaharyar Khan has set the press buzzing by telling the Indian media that Shoaib had been “a worry” for some time vis-a-vis doping. So what did the PCB do to address these concerns? Nothing, it seems.
Repercussions of a small bang
WHEN the South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, succeeds Kofi Annan as the secretary-general of the United Nations on January 1, it is likely that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions will still be near the top of the UN’s agenda. As a candidate for what is arguably the most prestigious diplomatic post in the world, Ban was keen to emphasise his experience in negotiations with Pyongyang.
One can only wonder whether that is much of a qualification, given that the Security Council’s decision to back Ban early last week more or less coincided with North Korea’s announcement that it had successfully tested a nuclear device. The proximity of the two events may not have been coincidental; as its missile tests on July 4 demonstrated, the enigmatic regime in Pyongyang has an acute sense of symbolism.
Whereas Ban’s elevation to the topmost tier of the UN was greeted with unenthusiastic acquiescence, the North Korean nuclear test prompted a noisy chorus of condemnation, with China and Russia joining the United States and Japan in unequivocally denouncing what Pyongyang described as a “happy bomb”. Several commentators, meanwhile, perceived a degree of irony in Pakistan’s castigatory comment, on the grounds that Islamabad behaved in much the same fashion only eight years ago. Besides, North Korea’s nuclear programme is believed to have benefited from centrifuges supplied by the A.Q. Khan network.
There are also suspicions that the North Koreans may have been emboldened by the example of Pakistan, which faced condemnation and sanctions in the wake of its 1998 nuclear tests, but not for very long. There is, of course, a huge difference: Pakistan opted in its infancy to become a camp-follower of the US and has never strayed far from that path, whereas North Korea has, since its inception in 1948, steadily attracted Washington’s hostility while relying on Beijing and Moscow for support and, at times, sustenance.
Last week, as the UN Security Council debated a US-drafted resolution in response to the Korean nuclear test, it was once more Russia and China that prevented the threat of military force from being deployed as a coercive instrument; their powers of persuasion also meant that a proposed ban on trade in any sort of weaponry was watered down to cover only heavy armaments and armour. The two of them reluctantly gave way in the face of US and Japanese insistence on the inspection of North Korean cargo shipments, but China’s UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, made it clear that his country was unlikely to act on this particular clause. This declaration was deemed unacceptable by John Bolton, the studiously undiplomatic, toupee-wearing jester who represents Washington at the UN. “I can’t believe that China won’t adhere to obligations that the Security Council has imposed,” he pronounced. A little while earlier he had also managed to get up the nose of his Russian counterpart by comparing North Korean ambassador Pak Gil-yon’s walkout from the Security Council with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe-pounding protest in the General Assembly more than four decades ago. That was “an inappropriate analogy”, noted Vitaly Churkin, even for someone in Bolton’s “emotional state”.
The fact that president George W. Bush has lately been hailing the UN’s “swift and tough” action does not necessarily mean that his administration has changed its stance towards the organisation, which is seen as useful only so long as it assists in advancing US foreign policy goals. Before the aggression against Iraq, when the US was seeking a clear mandate for the use of force, Bush told the UN it would render itself irrelevant if it refused to fulfil that particular American wish.
The UN refused to buckle at that point (although subsequently it rather lamely acquiesced in the occupation of Iraq, notwithstanding Annan’s admission of the war’s illegality). The fact that it is no longer being threatened with irrelevance adds up to a tacit admission that things in Iraq have gone horribly awry.
Bush declared last week that the use of force against North Korea would be premature because “diplomacy hasn’t run its course”. He said: “I believe the commander-in-chief must try all diplomatic measures before we commit our military. I’ll ask myself a follow-up. ‘If that is the case, why did you use military action in Iraq?’ And the reason why is because we tried the diplomacy.”
That, of course, is a blatant untruth. Four years ago there was a determined effort to brush aside diplomacy. North Korea continues to be offered incentives for abandoning its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iraq was simply ordered to own up to secret stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and a nuclear weapons programme. It told the truth and was greeted with “shock and awe”. Had it lied, it would have been attacked nonetheless. By no stretch of the imagination can the prelude to that incredibly stupid war — which is thus far believed to have cost an estimated 650,000 lives — be described as “diplomacy”.
Former Democratic senator Sam Nunn came closer to the mark when he noted that North Korea’s nuclear achievement shows that the US “started at the wrong end of the ‘axis of evil’. We started with the least dangerous of the countries, Iraq, and we knew it at the time.”
The prospect of a reversion to diplomacy is nonetheless to be welcomed. Iraq was chosen as a target because, inter alia, it possessed no weapons of mass destruction. North Korea’s suspected nuclear status appears to have served as a deterrent (although the absence of oil wells is also difficult to ignore). Last week’s explosion was remarkably small by nuclear-testing standards and took a week to verify. The device that was tested was apparently one-tenth the size of the Hiroshima bomb; experts believe that Pyongyang is still several years from producing an effective nuclear-tipped missile.
It does not necessarily follow that the current crisis is an entirely manufactured one, although the main causes for concern may lie in the less obvious areas. It is nothing short of an obscenity that North Korea has devoted so many resources to advanced weaponry when such a large proportion of its citizens reportedly face penury and starvation. The same argument applies, of course, to Pakistan and India — and could be stretched to cover, to some extent, all members of the nuclear club.
There is concern, meanwhile, that Pyongyang’s acquisition of nuclear status could spur an arms race in East Asia. South Korea, which has over the past couple of decades evolved into a functioning democracy after long stretches of US-sponsored military rule, may well be tempted to go down the nuclear path itself. And even Japan — despite Hiroshima and Nagasaki — is not entirely immune to the attraction of the ultimate weapon. Although Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a strident nationalist, last week reiterated his nation’s devotion to pacifism, he has in the past raised the prospect of renewed Japanese militarism.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohammed ElBaradei noted this week that up to 30 countries “have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons in a very short time span”. Nuclear proliferation is indubitably an international menace, but one cannot ignore the context in which it is occurring. The Non-Proliferation Treaty was never aimed exclusively at preventing non-nuclear nations from acquiring the deadly technology: it was once widely accepted that this aim would be feasible only in the context of the existing nuclear powers agreeing to whittle down their arsenals, with the eventual aim of complete disarmament. Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan nearly pulled off an agreement on this score in Reykjavik 20 years ago. But then, the US insisted on persisting with its outlandish (and thus far unsuccessful) Star Wars missile defence programme, which the Soviets refused to countenance.
In recent years, the US has been working on developing a new generation of nukes that could, it says, be deployed in a war theatre. In such circumstances, the five oldest nuclear powers hardly have a leg to stand on: their demand that others keep their hands off the technology reeks of apartheid. Sure, it can be argued that Pyongyang’s known and suspected idiosyncrasies make it a particularly dangerous nuclear power. But then, it isn’t the only such country with a president prone to irrational behaviour. Accounts of Kim Jong-il’s true nature tend to be contradictory, but he has shown no signs of seeking to violate the sovereignty of faraway nations.
If, as some observers suspect, North Korea’s militaristic antics are essentially a cry for help, the crisis could possibly be resolved through an overdose of carrots rather than sticks — as almost happened during Bill Clinton’s tenure. While Pyongyang has signalled its desire to continue with the six-party talks involving China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US, it’s keenness on a bilateral track with America could hold the key to rapid progress. Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears unlikely to take up the challenge. Condoleezza Rice and negotiator Christopher Hill are doing the East Asian rounds this week, but neither of them plans to visit Pyongyang.
Consequently, tensions in East Asia are likely to persist for some time and precipitate action by either side could provoke a considerably more serious crisis. Let’s hope cool heads prevail. Let’s hope John Bolton stays out of the picture. Let’s hope Ban Ki-moon turns out to be a great persuader who can coax Pyongyang away from the precipice. Meanwhile, it’s easy to share Bush’s dream of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. However, one can’t help but wonder why this privilege should be restricted to that corner of the world.
Email: worldviewster@gmail.com
Globalising governance
THE question “Who should run the internet” ought to be a no-brainer. It is, despite its US provenance, a global phenomenon and its governance should reflect that.
Nothing previously devised has put people and communities around the world in touch with each other to such an extent. Google’s purchase of YouTube, which claims 100m downloads of its videos each day will expedite that process.
The internet has, happily, been almost free of governmental interference. Indeed the burgeoning army of bloggers, video creators and web communities has proved a brake on some of the more nefarious activities of governments. But at its heart the internet needs strong rule over the issuing of domain names such as .co.uk and .com and control of the root servers critical to the net’s infrastructure with its tens of millions of pathways and intersections. The body that does this, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) is an “independent” not-for-profit organisation based in California that reports to the US department of commerce.
Clearly this ought to be changed and the recent loosening of the reins by the commerce department is a step in the right direction. The concessions - such as replacing a duty to report to the department every six months with an annual report to the internet community - may not seem much but they are significant, not least because they have been conceded by an administration not famous for handing power to international organisations.
There is a strong case for gradualism because even critics admit that despite past problems, Icann has not made a bad fist of a highly sensitive job. And, even more importantly, it is vital that the organisation is future-proofed before becoming fully independent.
—The Guardian, London