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Published Date: Feb 1, 2009

Natural Resource Allocation in Balochistan and NWFP: Reasons for Discontent(W-111)
By: Abid Qaiyum Suleri , Dr. Babar Shahbaz

Meezan Z. Khwaja, Abid Q. Suleriand Babar ShahbazWorking

November 2009

 

The two
provinces of Pakistan where there is much contestation over the access and
benefit sharing of natural resources are Balochistan and North West Frontier
Province (NWFP).  The key issue is the
underlying relationship between natural resources and conflicts, the latter
often emerging as a result of unequal access and benefit sharing to the former.
The central thesis of this paper is that the natural gas royalty issue in
Balochistan (Western Province of Pakistan) and the water royalty issue in North
West Frontier Province (NWFP) have not been granted adequate attention at the
federal level in Pakistan leading to what can be called the politics of
discontent and the fuelling of separatist nationalist movements gradually
resorting to militancy in the provinces from which these natural resources are
captured. Greater provincial autonomy that partly
translates into uncontested access to benefits accruing from their natural
resources has been the demand of major political parties (that are termed as
nationalist parties in local context) in Balochistan and NWFP and the issue of
royalties plays an important role in electoral politics in these provinces.

Natural resource
based political conflicts are not only unique to Pakistan, but are now quite
visible in many developing and transition countries and this topic has also
caught the interest of development researchers and political policy analysts.[1],[2] Various root causes of resource related conflicts have been
documented in the literature. Some of these are for example, scarcity of
natural resources[3],[4], access to, and entitlements for these resources[5], quest for sustaining national energy needs by the state,[6] unclear and inequitable policy, population growth, vested political
interests, distrust between different actors[7], unequal power relations, and unjust resource sharing/distribution
paradigm[8]. Development researchers and practitioners agree that, for deeper
understanding of resource based conflicts, a thorough analysis of people’s
reliance on the resource[9] and historical perspective of the access to and command over
resources in the context of poverty and inequality is needed.5 On these lines, this paper presents and explores the link between
the struggle for access to natural resources by the state, poverty and local
resistance in Pakistan. This paper specifically discusses how political
instability or armed conflict result from, and/or are exacerbated by,
competition for natural resources. We focus on examples from Balochistan
province (over natural gas royalty issue) and the North West Frontier Province
(over water royalty issue).

[1]
Nie, M. (2003) “Drivers of Natural
Resource-based Political Conflicts,” Policy
Sciences, 36, pp. 307-341.

[2]
Mukherji, M. (2006) “Political Ecology
of Groundwater: The Contrasting Case of Water-Abundant West Bengal and
Water-scarce Gujarat, India,” Hydrogeology
Journal, 14, pp. 392–406.

[3]
Brown, K. (Jan. 1998) “The Political
Ecology of Biodiversity, Conservation and Development in Nepal’s Terai:
Confused Meanings, Means and Ends,” Ecological
Economics, 24(1), pp.73-87.

[4]
Turner, M. D. (Sept. 2004) “Political
Ecology and the Moral Dimensions of “Resource Conflicts”: The Case of
Farmer–Herder Conflicts in the Sahel,” Political
Geography, 23(7).

[5]
Moore, DS. (Oct. 1993) “Contesting
Terrain in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands: Political Ecology, Ethnography and
Peasant Resource Struggles,” Economic
Geography, vol. 69, no. 4, Environment and Development, Part 2, pp.
380-401.

[6]
Nie, M. (2003) “Drivers of Natural
Resource-based Political Conflicts,” Policy
Sciences, 36, pp. 307-341.

[7]
Shahbaz B. et al. (2008) “Trees, Trust
and the State: Analysis of Participatory Forest Governance in Pakistan and
Tanzania,” International J. Development,
20, pp. 641-653.

[8]
Ahmed, Iftikhar et al. (2007)
“National Finance Commission Awards in Pakistan: A Historical Perspective,”
PIDE Working Paper 33, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE),
Islamabad, Pakistan.

[9]
Twyman, C. (2001) “Natural Resource
Use and Livelihoods,” Economic Geography,
vol. 69, no. 4, Environment and Development, Part 2 (Oct., 1993), pp. 380-401
and “Botswana’s Wildlife Management Areas,” Applied
Geography, 21(1), January 2001, pp. 45-68.

 

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