While questioning the possibility of free and fair elections, the speakers demanded the formation of a consensus-based national caretaker government and an autonomous and independent Election Commission. They also insisted on allowing the participation of the exiled leadership of the PPPP and the PML (N) in the coming elections in order to restore real democracy in the country. The speakers warned that the country could face a 1971-like situation if free and fair elections were not held in Pakistan, which was likely to happen under the present government led by General Pervaiz Musharraf.
Mr. Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Secretary General of ARD, lamented that the way the present government was doing the things clearly suggested that the coming general elections would be the most rigged elections in the history of the country. He said that the President has to be a symbol of unity acceptable to all stakeholders and that the President must ensure a level playing field to all political forces, adding that unfortunately, the present un-elected President was manipulating all the political process to create a favorable environment for his “king’s party”. He strongly objected to the President’s participation in such public meetings, appeals to the nation and oversight of Ministers’ abuse of powers. He also decried public statements that refuse to allow the leadership of popular political parties to take part in the election process, which was in fact a violation of law of the land. “The nation would stand up as it happened in 1971 if the citizens were denied their basic right to choose or reject their political representatives in the coming elections” he warned. He referred to a detailed report of the European Parliament, which outlined its observations regarding General Musharraf’s manipulative role in the different elections held during his tenure. Responding to a question, he said that the proposed All Parties Conference would chalk out a joint strategy determining whether or not to participate in the upcoming elections.
B. A. Malik, former Ambassador of Pakistan and central leader of PPPP, cautioned that if General Musharraf remained in power, the nation would have to forget about the possibility of free and fair elections in the country. He said that the country’s institutions have been virtually broken; the Election Commission cannot play any independent role and the judiciary has always been generous towards legitimizing the successive military takeovers. He feared that in the presence of General Musharraf the country was likely to experience the highest degree of interference in elections ever experienced.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, Executive Director of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency (PILDAT) discussed different aspects of the election process. He identified five major stakeholders: the people, political parties, the present government, the Election Commission of Pakistan and the Judiciary. Talking separately about each of these stakeholders, he said people have no trust or interest in the election process; the political parties were disorganized; the present government’s and the President’s neutrality was questionable, the willingness or ability of the Election Commission was weak and finally, the “mixed-racket” role of the Judiciary was another serious issue which had a strong effect on the election process in the country.
During the vibrant question and answer session, the participants raised questions about the accountability, transparency and fairness within the major political parties such as the PML (N) and the PPPP. Another issue was the need for increased public pressure on General Musharraf’s regime for the conduct of transparent, free and fair elections. Some people questioned the effectiveness of the media and civil society with regard to building a genuine pressure, which could compel the government for the free and fair elections.
While highlighting the importance of Public-Private Partnership (PPPs) in education, the experts called upon the Government to introduce a comprehensive legal framework for strengthening and effective functioning of PPPs in education, with a view to ensuring direct community participation for better provision and improving the quality of primary education in the country.
Dr. Faisal Bari of the Mahbub-ul-haq Human Development Center (Islamabad) said that the role of the community in PPPs was becoming very important, especially after the devolution of power to the District level. He stressed that, apart from the intrinsic value of education as a human right, public money has to support education, as an uneducated child was burden on both parents and the country. He maintained that neither the public nor the private sector in Pakistan alone could shoulder the challenge of providing quality education to the whole population. He noted that the concept of PPPs in education sector was not a new phenomenon adding that it had prevailed in Pakistan since the 1990s, as different broad-based institutional arrangements functioning in the country.
The private sector, he noted, supported the improved functioning of public-sector schools. The institutional arrangements to achieve this included the support of comparatively informal school management committees/parent-teacher associations (SMCs/PTAs) at the community level for the improvement of school infrastructure and quality of teaching, as well as the ‘Adopt-a-School’ program. Based on his research findings, he said that collaborations involving the community yield better results if they come into being organically. A range of NGOs, such as CARE Lahore, hybrids like the Rural Support Programmes and public bodies such as the National Commission for Human Development have actively encouraged the improvement of public education institutions through private funding and management. He also mentioned, however, the “reverse collaboration” in which public partners support the outreach and quality of private schools. This model, as represented in the work of the education foundations, was uncommon in the Pakistani context. Dr. Bari strongly urged more experimentation in the area of PPPs for improved education, as successful models for urban Punjab might not be the “silver bullets” for rural Balochistan.
Tanya Khan of the Rural Support Programmes Network, while discussing the broader issues in PPPs, shared the experiences and ‘lessons learnt’ of the private sector in PPPs in the education sector in general and of the RSPs in particular. She stressed that the direct role of the community was becoming extremely important in strengthening PPPs in Pakistan. She said although the concept of PPPs had prevailed in Pakistan during the 1990s, the concept actually dated back to the 1980s. She emphasized that some of the issues, which came out of those PPPs experiences, needed to be addressed to help this concept to flourish. She noted that although in the recent years the PPPs were gaining momentum in Pakistan, the concept still faced many constraints. “The government was still controlling certain areas, which discouraged the emergence of effective and meaningful partnerships between the private and public sectors” she added. According to Ms Khan, the key issues included: the involvement of all stakeholders; ownership of the project at the private and government levels; resistance from both private and public institutions on various grounds; co-ordination between stakeholders; clarity of roles, reporting structures; financial issues; the capacities of both public and private institutions and above all the acceptance and participation of community members, for whom there have to be clear roles and responsibilities.
Dr. A. H. Nayyer of SDPI presided over the Seminar and noted that under the 1973 Constitution, basic education was the fundamental right of the children of Pakistan. However, successive governments had failed to meet this obligation and millions of children have been denied the right to schooling. Apart from that, the quality of public education remained extremely poor.
During the question and answer session, the participants raised numerous concerns, which included the dual education system; unequal opportunities; the absence of national standards for quality education and the elimination of political interference from the education system.
While declaring it an ambiguous, contradictory and direct violation of the law of the land, representatives and experts from civil society organizations completely rejected the Government’s proposed draft Code of Conduct for NGOs, which was seen as a politically motivated move by the government to distract public attention from other important national issues facing the nation today.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali of the Centre for Philanthropy (CPC) said that circumstances suggested that the motive for introducing the Code of Conduct was basically initiated from within the inner circles of the government to achieve political objectives. The draft Code of Conduct was unnecessary and redundant, and thus was not acceptable to civil society. She questioned the intent behind it and demanded that the government should make the consultation process broad-based, transparent and participatory, allowing all stakeholders to give their input before finalizing such an important document .
Harris Khalique of Strengthening Participatory Organizations endorsed this view and added that the CoC was not only politically motivated, but was also to further confuse and cause conflicts between the various existing laws and regulatory bodies governing the not-for-profit/NGO sector, citing the SECP, Social Welfare, Trusts, Companies Registrar, Cooperatives, Industries and Wafaq-ul-Madaris for Madrassahs. He strongly objected to the draft language (English) of the CoC, which was only accessible on the Internet, although the majority of rural NGOs/CBOs have neither electricity nor access to computers or the Internet. He added that the CoC was prepared by UK-based consultants from The Charities Commission and was thus not an indigenous exercise.
Mohammad Tahseen of the South Asia Partnership, Pakistan informed the audience that there was no objection to a Code of Conduct in principle; rather, the intent, manner, process, implementation mechanism and the rationale behind the government’s drafted CoC were being questioned. Furthermore, he voiced the concern that the draft CoC would be the precursor to a new Bill to curtail the NGOs’ freedom. He reminded the audiences of the three previous attempts to introduce the same kind of draconian Bills under successive governments. “Each time the vigilant NGOs have rejected these mala fide moves and ulterior motives of those successive governments,” he added. “Since the NGO federations, forums and coalitions have already drafted their own voluntary Code of Conduct, and were abiding by it, we neither need nor accept the government’s move and reject the draft CoC.”
On behalf of the Pakistan NGOs Forum, its Secretary Meraj Humayun Khan endorsed the outright rejection of the draft CoC. She stressed the need to make the government itself accountable to the public, since it receives huge amounts of foreign funding every year. She added that the NGOs were bringing in development funds and were totally transparent and accountable to both the public and the government regulatory bodies. She feared that the draft CoC would empower the regulators to de-register any NGO on subjective grounds, and to interfere in the NGOs’ work and functioning. She demanded that the government acknowledge and appreciate the substantial contributions of NGOs over the past two decades.
Naeem Mirza of the Aurat Foundation categorically denied the government’s claim, which had appeared in a recent press release from the Ministry of Social Welfare, that all the NGOs in the country had endorsed the government’s draft CoC during a consultation process. “We have not supported the draft CoC in any so-called consultation process rather we were invited to the consultation where we raised our serious concerns but unfortunately the government put aside all those concerns” he added. Shabana Arif of Rozan stated that this MoSW press release only served to show the government’s mala fide intent, which would cast a shadow over any future government invitations to NGOs for participation in any workshops or seminars.
A lengthy Q&A session followed, in which it emerged that there was the unanimous view amongst all civil society participants that the draft CoC should be rejected completely.
The following points were resolved:
While highlighting the internal and regional security dimensions of militancy in the Tribal Areas, the seminar speakers urged the government to devise a comprehensive policy to initiate political, legal and administrative reforms in FATA.
Ijaz Khattak of Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, in his presentation on “Militancy in FATA and its Regional Implications” maintained that resolution of the FATA conflict was tied in with reforms, democratization in FATA and the peaceful resolution of issues between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He also urged the need for a global, forward-looking strategy, which could address global governance issues such as human rights, development and the rule of law. He added that terrorism was a global systematic issue while the US policies were only US-centric and that peace cannot be restored in a one sector if war was raging in other sectors. He said that FATA was a sub-sector of the ‘War against Terrorism’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan: these countries were two important theaters in this war in which different local, regional and international state and non-state players were pursuing their own conflicting interests. He said that the US was not comfortable with Pakistan’s position on this issue, as according to Western perceptions, Pakistan was both part of the problem and part of the solution. Therefore the US continues to urge Islamabad to do more in the war on terror, he added.
Mr. Khattak put forward certain probable developments if Pakistan was unable to deal with religious extremism, the Taliban and/or terrorists in FATA to the satisfaction of the Western powers. Those developments included direct interventions in FATA by NATO and the US and Pakistan’s reactions to such a scenario. Other possibilities discussed were the reversal of the India-Pakistan peace process and some unpredictable developments in the US-Iran relationship.
Zubair Mahsood, Faculty of Law, University of Peshawar, while giving a brief background of FATA and its administrative and judicial structures, urged the government to announce political, legal and administrative reforms in FATA, so as to establish the writ of the law in the area. He lamented that instead of initiating a genuine reform process, successive governments have been making only superficial changes adding that the FATA was today formally part of Pakistan but more closely resembled a colony whose population was living under laws and administrative arrangements that set it apart from the rest of the state. He said that Pakistan had retained the colonial administrative legal structure, codified in a special legal framework, the FCR of 1901. He regretted that the state justified its failure to meet its obligations to the citizens there on the grounds of Pashtun tribal customs and norms. “FATA is not an ungovernable territory but the state had elected to govern it through local proxies and draconian colonial-era administrative structures and law, depriving local people of constitutionally guaranteed civil and political rights and protection of the courts.” According to him it was the poor governance, combined with a long history of official support for Islamist Pashtun proxies in Afghanistan, which was feeding the growth of militancy and extremism in FATA.
Aimal Khan of SDPI speaking on “Peace Deals or Strategic Policy Blunders” maintained that military operations in the area had led to an unprecedented increase in anti-US and anti-army sentiments. Religious feelings converged with nationalist sentiments and an insurgency-like situation had emerged in certain tribal areas particularly in Waziristan. The military operations in the area not only stirred strong resistance among the public but there were also resentments and reservations within the establishment. The government was forced to devise an exit strategy to scale down the tension and to minimize the political and military costs. Striking deals with local militants was part of this exit strategy, he added. While analyzing the outcome of different deals (Shakai 1, Shakai 2 or Wana Five, Sarogha and finally the Wana Peace Accord) done under the exit strategy, he said that these deals ended up with ‘win-lose’ situation; win for militants and lose for the government. “It was a win situation for the militants because the deals legitimized the militants as a major actor in tribal areas, the militants emerged emboldened, running a parallel government and their writ was increasing in these areas. It was ‘lose’ situation for the government as these deals were widely criticized both internally and externally. Also, pressure was mounting for the revision or dissolution of these agreements; the government writ was evidently weakened; militancy increased, illegal cross-border movement remained unchecked and target killing continued leading to the visible presence of foreign elements in FATA, the consolidation of Talibanization and its spillover to settled areas” he maintained.
The speakers argued that improving law and order was a collective responsibility of the government, political parties and other civil society actors so there was a dire need for a dialogue among all these stakeholders over this issue. They demanded that the rule of law be established, the Constitution upheld, and free and fair elections be held in the country to curb increasing violent trends as a truly democratic culture in the country would improve the situation. The speakers denounced killing of innocent people for any reason and declared this an inhuman and un-Islamic practice.
Hafiz Hussain Ahmad of the MMA, after elaborating the sufferings of Muslims in Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir and Afghanistan, said that world’s sole super power, America, was destroying world peace in the name of bringing peace and stability. He said that foreign dictations, threats and dancing of our rulers to others’ tunes have worsened the law and order situation in Pakistan. He said that historically our western border had been peaceful but the wrong policies of the present rulers made it unsafe for us. He said that his party facilitated the peace accord between the local militants and government but the Americans sabotaged it, as it was contrary to their interests. He denounced the act of suicide bombing, as Islam strictly prohibited the killing of not only humans but also animals. However, he stressed the need to address the roots causes leading to such acts “It is the circumstances, which were compelling the youth to blow themselves up”, he noted.
While referring to the situation in Balochistan, he said that the Opposition and he himself had tried their best to play an effective role in normalizing the situation in Balochistan but the Agencies foiled all attempts for a negotiated settlement of the crisis. Advocating dialogue, he lamented that military solutions could not solve the problem.
Mehnaz Raffi of PML (Q) said that every Pakistani was seriously concerned over the alarming law and order condition in the country. She said that the government could not handle such a crucial matter alone and underlined the need for a sincere dialogue at different levels to address the matter. According to her, the situation in the country before 1977 was far better in this respect, but several factors had drastically affected the internal situation of Pakistan. “The Soviet invasion in Afghanistan; emergence of the Taliban and their desire to convert Pakistan according to their beliefs, negative role of some religious parties, secret role of some anti-Pakistan countries to prevent Pakistan becoming a stronger state and most importantly, the events of 9/11, have significantly impacted Pakistan’s internal situation”.
Farhatullah Babar of the PPPP noted the need to address the key issues, which were creating a worsening state of law and order in the country. He lamented that there was no respect for law and the Constitution, which was the biggest reason for the worsening law and order situation. “Where law exists, there is no order and where order exists, there is no law” he declared. Discussing other reasons, he said that crimes of law and order were increasing because of so-called ideological grounds, the weakening of the civil service structure, politically motivated amendments in the Police Order 2002, and the mishandling of some critical issues such as Balochistan and FATA.
Agha Murtaza Poya of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek suggested upholding the rule of law and the centrality of human perspectives in all policies as being useful in resolving the weakening law and order situation. He also said that the absence of the rule of law and disrespect for the Constitution under subsequent martial law regimes, compounded by external factors such as the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, the prolonged Iran-Iraq war, the unjustified occupation of Kashmir by India; discriminatory American policies at the global level and its unwise support to Israel have been contributing factors towards shaping the current conditions in Pakistani.
Dr. Inayatullah of the Council of Social Sciences (COSS) said that instead of talking about the law and order situation in a given country, we should focus on protecting humankind. He said that four global issues, namely global warming, a ‘culture’ of war and violence, over-population and weapons of mass destruction were some of the most critical challenges of today.
The SDPI Center for Capacity Building (CCB) provides high quality training to the public, private and NGO sector organizations and individuals to strengthen institutions and to build capacities for sustainable development. During January and February, CCB conducted the following training courses:
Environmental governance refers to the way people and the government manage the environment for socio-economic development that is sustainable. Appropriate national policies and legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks must create linkages between various aspects of good governance. This can only be done when strategic environmental issues are integrated with economic and social development programs.
The Workshop was designed for officials working in various government Departments, including environmental protection, planning and development, agriculture, public health, engineering, population planning, irrigation and power, forestry, wildlife and fisheries, as well as for civil society organizations involved in environmental issues.
The workshop objectives were to enable participants to:
Inter-personal skills are a defining feature of successful leaders and effective managers. The art of effective communication and good presentation enables project managers to give clear directions to their teams. Speakers or negotiators who can articulate their ideas are more likely to obtain favorable responses and commitments from listeners. It is therefore essential that managers learn the techniques of effective communication and presentation.
The Workshop was designed to benefit persons who have to make presentations to different kinds of audiences in the government, private and non-profit sectors, including senior and mid-level managers, designers, marketing and sales persons, educationists, engineers, and social organizers.
The workshop was designed to enable participants to:
Computers through software now work as accountants, but project-based accounting is a special type of accounting through which it is possible to ascertain the profit or loss of a specific project and to know which project components require enhanced allocation. Understanding of cost centres is a prerequisite for this task. NGOs having a portfolio of various projects need to be very specific about such accounting and their cost centres.
This workshop was designed for middle and upper middle level management of NGOs and other organizations involved in project accounting, project coordination, and monitoring and evaluation of projects in the public and private sectors. This workshop was also helpful for those who are dealing in taxation, budgets, accounts and financial matters.
The main objectives were to enable participants to understand:
EIA aims to assess environmental impact at an early stage of project planning, design and development and to build into the project alternative ways and means so as to mitigate any adverse effects. An EIA results in environmentally-friendly and cost-effective projects. It is an essential part of project design and appraisal. It has been emphasized in many private and public fora that there is a dire need for institutional and personal capacity building in this area.
Participants from public, private, NGO sector and UN organization attended the training. They also carried out an EIA of a development project for the proposed Islamabad Railway Station.
The overarching aim of this training workshop was to enable the participants to build their capacity to integrate environmental concerns into project proposals. The specific objectives were to enable the participants to:
Technical (scientific, engineering, research) reports have special requirements. If not done well, they fail to achieve the objective for which they are written. Unfortunately, technical writing for many professionals remains a weak area. It is not systematically taught in academic institutions. Individuals learn these skills through self or peer teaching by hit and trial methods, which may take many years. An inadequate expertise in this skill may mean lost opportunities and difficulties in career development. This training workshop was designed to enable the participants to improve their knowledge and acquire skills in technical writing.
An experience sharing training approach for skill development was adopted. The session plans, besides lectures, were developed around group work, practices and presentations. Based on the feedback on earlier training programmes, sessions were modified to optimise satisfaction of the participants and achieve objectives of the workshop.
The workshop objectives were to:
An efficient and effective office secretary builds good image of an organization and proves to be an asset to his/her supervisor. Information technology has brought about a paradigm shift in office working and the skills required by office secretaries. Decision makers are overloaded by information and data so they need skillfully trained office secretaries to stream line the flow of information. The more skills secretaries have, the more time their organizational heads will save and the organization as a whole will become more effective.
It was an interactive course. Participants worked individually and in groups and practiced various aspects of secretarial work. Exercises included prioritization, letter writing, organizing meetings and interpersonal communications. Role-plays and videos were used to bring out relevant lessons.
The specific objectives were to enable the participants to:
For further information on SDPI’s training program and courses being offered, please contact:
Program Support Officer
Centre for Capacity Building
Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)
# 3 UN Boulevard, Diplomatic Enclave 1, G-5, (P.O Box 2342) Islamabad, Pakistan.
Ph: ++92-51-2278134, Fax: ++92-51-2278135,
E-mail: sdpiccb@sdpi.org
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