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VIEW: In the earthquake’s aftermath —Syed Mohammad Ali

The government needs to become less authoritative and more willing to listen to what people want before launching schemes on their behalf. Yet the rehabilitation strategy unveiled at the recent donor conference was evidently not prepared in this spirit

The population in the northern parts of Pakistan has lived for decades without access to many infrastructural and social services, which a state is meant to provide.

The prevailing neglect and remoteness of the scattered settlements in the earthquake zone made them very vulnerable to the sudden natural disaster. There were no local institutions to offer support. Instead of providing refuge at the time of calamity, public buildings themselves collapsed and caused damage. Leaving aside the political set-up of Kashmir, even the district government, connected to the federal government in the NWFP, could hardly rise to the occasion. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, only resilience of human beings could be relied upon.

The earthquake did not just reveal the hazards of reckless and haphazard construction but also the consequence of the seemingly less serious negligence of environmental destruction. Massive landslides in particular were caused by rapid deforestation in the area. It is now important that reconstruction does not cause further deforestation. The government has taken note of this; it is trying to supply gas to local communities to prevent further deforestation for the sake of fuel and construction.

The United Nations Environmental Programme has pointed to the even bigger potential threat to forests posed by the timber mafia, which has enough clout to make regulatory authorities irrelevant. Any laxity shown towards such profiteers will enable an unprecedented and irreparable plunder of forestry resources.

Last week’s impressive donor pledges also need to be viewed more soberly. In our immediate neighbourhood, for example, Sri Lanka received less than half the aid promised to it after the tsunami. Even reconstruction pledges of $4 billion following the politically motivated destruction in Afghanistan have not materialised. It is also unfortunate that much of the incoming aid implicitly requires sending goods from foreign countries, instead of purchasing them from Pakistani producers.

The donor pledges made to Pakistan will not materialise instantaneously and the risk of misappropriation will linger until the disbursed amounts have been spent. International organisations like Transparency International already consider Pakistan a corrupt country. Given such perceptions and the peculiar political set-up under the current regime, a parliamentary committee may not be able to ensure transparency. It would be a good move to include some development stakeholders in an oversight committee. What is needed is an oversight of the development process rather than myopic scrutiny of financial accounts.

At the end of the day, it is vital to remember that bulk of the money coming into the country is going to be loans, which must be returned someday even if the money has been lent on soft terms. Oxfam International fears that loans provide a short-term solution for long-term needs. Yet, borrowing is perhaps better than diverting already meagre development funds from other parts of the country to deal with the emergency.

There is some current debate about accepting only grants and avoiding expensive and conditional loans like those being offered by the IMF. Pakistan already has an unsustainable external debt, which is likely to increase with the incoming flow of funds. It is vital that the resources being made available now are used to build up our human capital otherwise this aid will merely add to the unproductive debt burden that already claims a big chunk of the national income each year. In this context, development think tanks in Islamabad have cautioned the government to use the relief and reconstruction aid carefully.

While assistance from lending agencies like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank has lent legitimacy to the needs assessment following the disaster, this does not mean it is necessary to follow all donor prescriptions blindly. As Qaiser Bengali recently pointed out, the government itself should not have remained so aloof during the donor’s needs assessment exercise.

The track record of development aid reaching down to the poorest is hardly impressive. There is no need to make internationally prescribed project designs sacrosanct. Yet, to assert itself in making development projects more effective, and in ensuring that the benefits outlast direct programmatic assistance, the government should concede more say to the affected people, directly involving them in the development processes.

Unfortunately securing participation is not as simple as it sounds. Many development stakeholders have claimed they employed participatory approaches although they did little besides allowing the poor to help implement prefabricated schemes. The people never determined what types of schemes were most useful for them.

The National Volunteer Movement is based on this same cursory model of participation. The recommended adoption of communities also seems rather ominous from the perspective of participation. The government needs to become less authoritative and more willing to listen to what people want before launching schemes on their behalf. Yet the rehabilitation strategy unveiled at the recent donor conference was evidently not prepared in this spirit.

While disbursing the housing grants is a good gesture, this strategy would have been more effective had a participatory set-up already been in place. It is also important to realise that civil society is not represented by a handful of quasi-government or donor-patronised NGOs. If there are not enough community-based organisations in the affected areas, let them be created. This is as good a time as any.

The author is a development consultant and an international fellow of the Open Society Institutes network. He can be reached at syedmohdali555@yahoo.com

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