There is a dire need of
collaboration among academicians and researchers in order to determine
actionable and creative research agenda to save this country and ensure its
sustainable development, said Dr Nadeem Ul Haque, Deputy Chairman Planning
Commission of Pakistan while speaking at the concluding day of 14thSustainable
Development Conference (SDC) ‘Re-defining Paradigms of Sustainable Development
in South Asia’ organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)
here on Thursday.
He also launched SDPI’s web television, Sustainable Development Television
(SDTV) which is first of its kind initiative in Pakistan and meant to
focus the issues and aspects of sustainable development in Pakistan with
a people-centered approach. Urdu publication Dharti and life-time achievement
awards to SDPI long-serving members Ahmad Saleem, Dr Mahmood A. Khwaja and Brig
(r) Mohammad Yasin were conferred upon.
Shahid Kardar, former Governor State Bank of Pakistan said sustainability is
being affected by the macroeconomic imbalance having acquired structural
characteristics due to problems of both revenue and expenditure sides. He said
fiscal deficit, more than 6 percent budget deficit, inflation and continued
pressure on rupee cannot be addressed unless structural reforms are undertaken.
Dr Abid Suleri of SDPI gave vote of thanks to national and international
scholars and hoped findings of this conference will help the stakeholders in
finding the solutions of compounding crisis of governance, human security and
peace and social justice.
In the session on ‘Governance challenges’ the panelists were largely of the
view governance is a broader concept than the outdated idea of
merely a “Government”, and is achieved through fostering interaction between
the three pillars of societal structures namely state, civil society, and
private sector or market. They said the role of civil society to observe
government actions and induce positive developmental actions is a very critical
aspect of the overall development process. Daniyal Aziz, Governance
Institutes Network International, Kaiser Bengali, Member National Finance
Commission, Dr. G. Shabbir Cheema of East-West Center, USA, Dr. Urs Geiser,
University of Zurich, Switzerland, Tulasi Sharan Sigdel,Nepal Administrative
Staff College, Jawalakhel, Nepal and Janaka Hemathilaka, Practical
Action, Sri Lanka maintained spoke at the occasion.
In the session on “costs of economic non-cooperation to consumers in South Asia’
Bipul Chatterjee of CUTS International India shared glimpses from a research
study conduced in collaboration with SDPI. He said both Pakistani and Indian
consumers would gain hugely from cross border trade liberalization. Shafqat
Munir of SDPI highlighted a wide disconnect between traded policy formulation
and consumers resulting into imbalances in favor of business interests.
The panelists at session ‘re-imaging security in South Asia’ observed South
Asia is facing policy challenges as the current policy environment revolves
around state-centric security paradigms at the cost of people-centric
development. They said notion of state security degenerates into
enterprise which serves the interests of powerful elements. Dr Abid Suleri said
the major chunk of financial resources of Pakistan is spent on
defense followed by debt servicing and administrative expenditures whereas
governments usually cut social development spending in times of financial
crisis or to meet the first two needs. Dr Dibyesh Anand of Westminster
University, UK maintained that state security should be viewed from
the perspective of week segments of state as the traditional state security
notion is predominantly serves the vested interests of dominant classes. Dr
Sabina Alkire of Oxford University, UK was of the opinion more
people die due to hunger, malnutrition, and lack of health care than people die
in violent conflicts and battles due to states’ overwhelming focus on physical
security involving more focus on territorial security ignoring the people.
In session ‘transnational feminisms, de-politicization, international
development’, Dr. Fidaa Shehada, State University, USA, highlighted Palestinian
women’s movements and conflict ridden conditions of Palestinian state in which
these courageous and strong women were managing their daily life and struggling
for their rights. Dr. Farzana Bari of Qauid-I-AzamUniversity urged
women parliamentarians to develop more gender consciousness in a united manner
towards the struggle for women’s empowerment. Dr. Lubna Chaudhry of SDPI and
State University of New York, USA shared younger women tended to be pro-Taliban
due to radical programmes by Moulvi Fazlullah on radio, whereas the older women
were more against them in Swat.
During the session on ‘Indus river watershed: adapting, mitigating, and
sustaining the social ecological change’, Dr. Iqrar Ahmed of University of Agriculture
Faisalabad maintained that sufficient storage structures have to be built
in the country to deal with increasing floods. Dr. Nuzrat Yar Khan of SDPI
stressed on the need of education and its relevance with livelihoods. Faryal
Gohar underlined the need for an inclusive national policy for addressing
agriculture and water issues.
In the panel on ‘Celebrating literature by Rabindranath Tagore, Faiz Ahmad Faiz
and Ustad Daman, Ahmad Saleem of SDPI, Humaira Ishfaq of Islamic International
and Dr Niaz Zaman highlighted different aspects of their lives and the
contributions of these historic personalities.
In the session on ‘rethinking education for pluralism: representation of
religious minorities in public and madrassah education’ experts recommended
government to negotiate with madrassah umbrella organizations to discuss
madrassah reforms and also to allocate funds for financing the process of
change. Afsheen Naz of SDPI expressed that ruling elite have encouraged a
particular mindset with using curriculum, which has instilled obscurantist
vision in general masses in the name of advancing the ideology of Islam in
order to protect their own vested interests. Peter Taylor of International
Development Research Centre, Canada said poverty, unemployment,
disruption of social settings, weakening of Sufi traditions and sense of
deprivation, alienation and outrage were some of the key social and economic
reasons promoting hatred and militancy.
The panelists at ‘energy and sustainability: exploring efficient alternatives
in South Asia’ panel unanimously maintained alternate energy sources and
energy efficiency as the only option to address the energy crisis in the
country. Bilal Ahmed of GIKI University recommended hydrogen fuel which is an
environmental friendly solution because of no carbon emissions. Dr. Muhammad
Bilal Khan of NUST University urged liaison between major stakeholders of
energy production, industry and academia and suggested small hydro power
station, wind energy, solar energy and bio-fuel to meet the energy crisis.
Nafeesa Irshaad of Fatima Jinnah University
stressed government to provide incentives to major energy intensive industries.
Farzana Yasmin of SDPI underlined implementation of an in-expensive way of
solar radiation management method using white roofs on large scale to combat
climate change and energy crisis in Pakistan.
In panel
“climate change: readapting forest management in South Asia”, the experts
identified issue of land ownership in forest covered areas as the key reason
for forest degradation leading to unemployment and livelihood problems for
local communities and food insecurity and poverty elevation globally. They
highlighted the need of revision of sectoral policies, participatory and
integrated forest management. Dr Parkas Taiwari from India, Dr Bashir Wani
and Dr. Sultan Rome from Swat expressed their expert opinions.
In the session ‘Regional cooperation for water governance, it was said that all
South Asian countries immediately should sign the ESPOO convention.
They said Siachen glaciers should immediately be declared as peace-park without
any conditions or prerequisites and particularly without any ground demarcating
on the ice. Syed Imtiaz Gillani, VC UET, Peshawar concluded there is
an instant need to execute the decisions of the International Court of Justice
regarding implementation of trans-boundary impact assessment. They said there
is an immediate need to rehabilitate degraded watershed in Kashmir for
sustainable flow in the rivers so that paradigms of sustainable development in
South Asia can be redefined and added our future is dependent on this and India has
to open Indian-held Kashmir for Pakistanis to strengthen the
peoples-to-peoples contact.
In the session on ‘Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
plus (REDD), Ahmad Hussain of Planning and Development Division, Islamabad,
emphasized there exists an enormous opportunities to manage natural and
productive forests following the precepts of this new mechanism of REDD which
has global significance in terms of climate change debate as it is a cost
effective mitigation measure. Dr. Muhammad Afzal, Director of Punjab
Forestry Research Institute, Faisalabad highlighted the need for a
national level carbon databank of all forests which will help foresters and
policy makers in enhancing the carbon stock through sustainable management of
forest in the context of climate change. Mehwish Ali of Institute of NUST emphasized
on the importance of carbon sequestration as an effective means for alleviating
the effects of greenhouse gas emission in the atmosphere and recommended remote
sensing method is an effective and reliable approach for carbon stock
estimation in forest. Eak. B. Rana of ICIMOD, Nepal urged benefits
for poor in such a process.
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