|
MARCH
2008
ISSUES:
Important
stakeholders in the dark about Karachi expansion plan
As
part of its long term plans, the City District Government Karachi (CDGK)
is planning to expand the city nearly three times its present size
through acquiring tracts of land of the Jamshoro, Thatta and Lasbela
districts. This is being done under the CDGK’s strategic plan for the
next 13 years, documents received by The News have shown. However, most
of the representatives from the areas where this land expansion is
expected to take place, are unaware of this plan.
It may be recalled that the Karachi Strategic Development Plan 2020 (KSDP
2020) under the Tameer-e-Karachi Program has been developed by the
Master Plan Group of Offices of the CDGK. Under the estimates given,
Karachi’s population has increased to over 16 million (2006 estimates)
and is expected to reach 27 million by 2020.
The coverage of the KSDP 2020 extends over the whole City District of
Karachi, comprising 18 administrative towns, six cantonments, and the
federal and Sindh government land holding agencies. The towns are
territorially further sub-divided into 178 Union Councils. It may be
mentioned that the area lying north of the Hub Dam, being part of the
Kirthar National Park, has been excluded from the plan area.
According to the strategic paper obtained by The News, the total land
area of the Karachi district is approximately 3,600 square kilometres,
of which about 1,300 square kilometres are occupied by built-up areas
with 15 internal towns. Then there are parts of the surrounding
districts. These include Thatta and Jamshoro districts of Sindh to the
east, and Lasbela in Balochistan to the West.
The coastline in the district is about 135 kilometres long, extending
along the Gharo Creek westward beyond Cape Monze to an estuary of the
Hub River. This is a large land mass that is now being looked at for
possible development and urbanisation. However, this is being done
without taking all the stakeholders into confidence. What is interesting
is that the chief minister of Sindh was not consulted about the plan,
but, according to the document, presentations of the plan were made to
the president, prime minister, Sindh governor, corps commander, Sindh
chief secretary, city Nazim and town Nazims. In addition, presentations
were made to the Coordination Committee on Large Cities, headed by the
deputy chairman, Planning Commission, as well as development partners
from international donor agencies and organisations such as the World
Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
However, the important stake holders have been ignored. One town Nazim
The News contacted denied any presentation having been made to him
despite the fact that his town comes under the expansion plan. “I don’t
have such information,” said Jan Alam Jamote, Nazim, Bin Qasim Town,
“they might have given the presentation to 14 towns only,” he said.
Naib-Nazim Yousuf Shah said he had no information either.
The paper further reads, “The plan in hand will be further extended to
2030 (Under the Federal Government’s Vision 2030) to cover the city’s
region that includes part of the surrounding districts of Thatta,
Jamshoro and Lasbela.” Not taking the stakeholders into confident has
made the strategy behind the plan questionable.
Easier said than done. When contacted, Malik Asad Sikandar, District
Nazim. Jamshoro, opposed any plan of acquiring land from his district,
saying that, “Karachi and Jamshoro are separate districts.” He said
that he was not informed of any such project by the CDGK and if the
matter was brought at the government level they would oppose it. “How
will we give our boundary to them?” he asked.
Similarly, the district government of Thatta district, another boundary
district, was also not contacted. Mohammad Usman Panhwar, District
Coordination Officer (DCO), Thatta, told The News that they had no
information about the proposal of the Karachi City District Government.
“We have not been communicated this, officially or otherwise,” he
said. He said that Gharo Creek, which has been mentioned in the plan by
the CDGK, was a part of the Thatta district government. Opposition bench
members at the City Council, the legislative forum for the elected
representatives of the city, has alleged that the ruling party was not
allowing an open debate in the council on this issue. Saeed Ghani,
opposition leader in the City Council, said that the CDGK did not allow
a proper debate on the floor. “The EDO came in the council and just
read a few points from a paper, which was not a complete document,
either,” he said. The opposition members were told that if they want
to see the documents related to the strategic plan, they could see them
in the council office. “How can 250 members read one copy?” asked
one member. Ghani said that, later, the CDGK provided some copies to
around 15 to 20 select members in the house and, “got the plan
approved without any debate.”
Ghani recalled that they were assured that their suggestions would be
incorporated in the plan till its completion. “If you are given a plan
for 2020 and keep including additional material and amending the plan,
then what kind of a plan it is?” he asked. So far, there are no
answers.
(By
Shahid Shah, The News-13, 27/02/2008)
Power
crisis will put new govt to the test
One
of the major challenges the newly-elected government will face is the
impending power crisis this summer due to the dwindling generation of
Wapda and the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and the failure of the
KESC to improve its outdated distribution system to meet the increasing
demand. However, sources said some spadework has already been initiated
to impress upon the utilities concerned to take immediate measures and
draw up contingency plans.
According to KESC sources, the utility will be resorting to more than
six hours of staggered load-shedding, most probably from sometime in
March/April, because there would be a gap of about 600 megawatts,
causing massive disturbances in industrial production and civic life.
On Monday, 1,644 MW was available to the KESC, whereas demand had surged
to 1,805 MW, leaving a shortfall of 154 megawatts, causing more than one
hour long load-shedding across the city. On paper, the installed
generation capacity of the KESC is 1,300 MW, but actually, Bin Qasim
plant can hardly generate 850 MW, KTPS 65 MW, Korangi gas turbine 34 MW
and Site gas turbine 32 MW, which comes to 981 megawatts.
The KESC can muster an additional 678 MW from outside sources, including
80 MW from Kanupp, 113 from Tapal, 112 from Gul Ahmad, 500 from Wapda,
(which may fluctuate), 46 from small independent power producers and a
few megawatts from the Defence Housing Authority sources.There is no
indication that four gas turbines of the Korangi plant, producing 170 MW
power and a combined cycle turbine of 30 MW, would be operational by
April this year, as was promised by the privatized KESC management last
year. It is likely to be available sometime in July-August. As the city
faced unprecedented load-shedding last year, the demand had surged to
2,400 MW. If the standard 10 per cent increase in demand is factored in,
it could be something in the vicinity of more than 2,700 megawatts,
leaving a big gap in demand and supply.
The KESC is facing problems because it had not addressed the generation
capacity, which is dwindling each year instead of increasing, to meet
the growing demand.
Notwithstanding the element of alleged corruption and incompetence of
the utility’s management and workforce, the ban imposed on setting up
thermal power plants by Wapda and the KESC by General Ziaul Haq in 1987
complicated the problem. But this ban was not applicable to the KESC
after its privatization on Nov 25, 2005, and it was allowed to set up
100 MW power plants.
But the KESC management, which at that time was looked after by Siemens,
could not capitalize on this. Instead, a 19-year-old 850 megawatt power
plant from Italy was attempted to be imported. But in the face of strong
criticism, the plan was shelved.
Promises unfulfilled
In view of the unprecedented power crisis last year, the KESC management
had informed the Sindh governor in October that by December 2007,
additional power would be added to the grid. But that was not done.
Similarly, the proposal to acquire a barge-mounted power plant to meet
the contingency until additional generation capacity was added to the
utility was also scuttled without any consideration of the rising demand
graph for electricity. Although traders and the general public have
acquired generators to meet the situation, the rising price of fuel
might force people to remain without electricity for some time to cut
expenses.
The
power crisis had aggravated because the utility never considered
measures to cope with the additional load of uninterrupted power
supplies (UPS), which consume a considerable amount of power for
charging the attached batteries. The widespread use of UPS is in
addition to the proliferation of other electrical appliances.
Another reason behind this crisis was that while the load had constantly
been increasing, no upgrading of the distribution and transmission
network has been undertaken in over a decade and the system had started
falling apart.
There has always been an urgent need for new generation plants,
especially in the public sector, to meet the future demand in Karachi as
the existing transmission lines, grid stations and distribution network
have been carrying much more load than their capacity, and simply could
not carry more.
Lost in transmission
Surprisingly, the privatization agreement with the new KESC owners does
not bind them to make any investments in the transmission and
distribution network over a specified period. No investment has been
made in the system since privatization, probably because of this
exemption. Thus, the crisis will continue to deepen if the upgrading of
the network is not undertaken on a war-footing. Almost half of the
available electricity being lost in transmission and distribution could
be saved and tariffs could be brought down significantly by
strengthening the system. Sources say that the crisis is not one of
shortage of electricity; rather, it is one of poor management over a
very long period of time.
The proposal to set up power plants on a public-private partnership
basis for industries has been discussed while experts had advised the
government to speed up work on a coal-based power project to meet the
shortfall.
It may be pointed out that the government had doled out Rs12 billion to
the utility under the financial improvement plan in 2004 to bail out the
KESC management and help it overcome the crisis. According to sources,
the previous KESC management had spent about Rs3 billion over a period
of two years prior to the utility’s privatization, but no tangible
development work was seen on the ground and the crisis persisted. Had
the money invested by the government been spent on grid stations and
other projects, the crisis would not have become so intense.
Stakeholders and others also see ‘foul play’ in the process of KESC’s
privatization, arguing that it was given away for Rs22bn against the
estimated value of its assets and receivables of around Rs200bn. Keeping
in view the growing demand of electricity in the city, a consortium of
the CDGK, Port Qasim Authority and a foreign firm had on April 4, 2007,
announced they would set up a power plant in the metropolis to generate
350 megawatts power.
The plant was supposed to be established at Port Qasim, for which the
consortium had reportedly acquired 20 acres of land. But replying to
Dawn’s query on Tuesday, the CDGK maintained that it has submitted a
formal request for allotment of 200 acres of land for the establishment
of the proposed plant adjacent to KESC’s Bin Qasim power plant. The
plant would have five gas turbines, each producing 16 MW with a total
capacity of 80 MW, whereas eight gas turbines of 30 MW each would
produce 240 MW.
City Nazim Mustafa Kamal had told a press conference on April 4 last
year that the plant would produce 320 megawatts electricity, which would
be sold to the KESC for onward distribution in the metropolis. “In
future, the generation from this power plant would be increased to 1,800
MW,” he had added. But there are no signs of progress in this regard.
The CDGK also signed an MOU with a California-based firm to set up a
plant for generating 2,000 MW for the city, for which the Alternative
Energy Board has already issued a letter of intent to the company. This
would add 4,000 MW capacity for the whole country, including 2,000 MW
for Karachi.
(By
Shamim-ur-Rahman, Dawn, 27/02/2008)
Education
for the poor
ONE
can safely offer three propositions about education. First, education is
among the most important sources of progress, no matter how it is
defined. Second, good education can be a big leveller (equaliser) in a
society. Third, in Pakistan, access to basic education is woefully
deficient, particularly for children from poor households. It is well
reflected in the low levels of enrolment and high dropout rates. In this
respect, differences between boys and girls should not be underrated,
nor should the differences between the urban and rural areas. The issue
then is: how does one enhance opportunities for and access to decent
basic education for children from poor households? It is well known that
even when schooling is available it may be too costly for the poor.
Therefore, on the demand side, the need is to create incentives for poor
parents to enrol their children in schools because the direct and
indirect costs of education are quite high. At the same time, on the
supply side, there is need to improve the quality of education by
investing in infrastructure and supplies, making the school curriculum
relevant, and hiring and retaining good (well-trained and motivated)
teachers.
Let us focus here on the demand side. In the present system the cost of
education must be borne by parents from their current income and meagre
assets. In addition, for these parents to put children in school means
foregoing the use of their time for labour to augment the household’s
low income and consumption.
In this context, the experience of some Latin American countries,
particularly Brazil, may have both relevance and merit for Pakistan to
consider. In these countries, governments have done two things. First,
they give cash to low-income (poor) parents in return for enrolment of
their children; it is called ‘conditional cash transfer’ (CCT).
Second, each enrolled child from these households receives free
nutrition and health care, including periodic check-ups, vaccinations,
etc. The results show that the programme increases school enrolment,
reduces the drop-out rate, and improves health of children.
Why can’t policymakers in Pakistan try this approach in some form? Let
me attempt a very tentative outline of the programme comprising four
components.
First, the programme package should include (i) a conditional cash
transfer to the family and (ii) some nutrition and basic health care for
children. The amount of cash transfer to the family for each child
enrolled in school should be large enough to change behaviour. The
nutrition component may include a healthy early breakfast at school and
basic health care to include regular check-ups, vaccinations, etc.
Targeting of households and children is the second component. All
households below the poverty level of income or consumption — however
that is determined or estimated — should be eligible for a monthly
cash transfer in return for each child enrolled in school. Parents will
not receive cash if the child drops out of school. The children to be
covered for school enrolment and cash transfer should be between the
ages of five and 15 years. However, all children below the age of five
from targeted households should be eligible for free health care as
available to the enrolled children. The third component of the programme
is its decentralised implementation. The elected officials at the local
level and representatives of parents at the neighbourhood level,
assisted by public officials, should be engaged to implement the
programme. Their responsibilities should include: identifying target
households and children for enrolment; transferring cash on a regular
basis for the enrolled children; managing schools; and giving health
care through the school system. An effective administrative and
financial monitoring system is the fourth component. To assure
accountability, the programme should be monitored (including audits) on
a regular basis, without compromise, by a third party in collaboration
with those involved in the transfer of cash and management of schools,
nutrition and health care.
This demand-driven programme can work well — it will have anticipated
outcomes and impact — only if the issues on the supply side are
addressed adequately at the same time. You need to provide decent school
structures, with appropriate infrastructure and supplies, good
(motivated) teachers (well trained and well paid), a performance-based
reward structure for managers, teachers and pupils, and an effective
monitoring system for both inputs and outcomes. You can’t expect
children and their parents to benefit from a school system that doesn’t
have these essential ingredients.
The federal and provincial governments will have to give adequate
resources and technical and administrative support to make education a
satisfying experience for children and its outcome valuable for the poor
households. They will have to mobilise financial resources for the
proposed programme by switching expenditure, reducing waste and
leakages, and perhaps changing the tax structure. The resource
requirements can be estimated once basic information has been collected
at the local level and agreement is reached on the basic parameters of
the programme: families and children to be targeted; basic amount of
conditional cash transfer for each child enrolled in school; school
structures, infrastructure, supplies, and teachers; form of nutrition
(say breakfast at school) and its amount; health-care supplies and
staff; school management and monitoring. Of course, the designed
programme must be affordable and doable to achieve its objectives in a
cost-effective way.
If all of this makes sense, then the first step would be to review and
study carefully the experience — look at the information, evidence and
data — in a country like Brazil where the CCT programme for basic
education and health care of children from poor households seems to have
worked quite well since the mid-1990s.
(By
Mahmood Hasan Khan, Dawn-7, 12/03/2008)
The
poverty of opportunity
POVERTY
reduction is increasingly being recognised in Pakistan as one of the
most important tools to gauge the performance of the government
particularly with respect to its socio-economic policies. This is indeed
a welcome departure from the traditional approach, the primary emphasis
of which was on increasing the GDP with little emphasis on the
distributional aspects particularly that related to the impact of growth
on poverty reduction. It is now being increasingly recognised that
economic growth is of little use if it does not elevate the status of
the majority of people who are trapped in the vicious circle of poverty.
The measurement of poverty and its comparison over time has therefore
been of central concern, to the policy makers, international donors,
civil society and the general public. The present government has claimed
that poverty as measured by the percentage of the population below the
national poverty line has been reduced from 34 percent in 2001 to 23 per
cent in 2005.
The credibility of this estimate however is marred by the widespread
controversy surrounding the methodology that is used to compute this
rate. Dr Akmal Hussain (Dawn, Feb 20, 2008) drew our attention to
methodological flaws in the recent measurement of poverty by the
government. The controversy surrounding the measurement of poverty is
further strengthened by the general perception of the public who fail to
relate this official claim to their own standard of living that is
deteriorating day by day under the escalating prices of basic
necessities.
In view of the methodological flaws and constraints in the accurate
measurement of poverty, there is a dire need to supplement the standard
measure of poverty that is based on income and consumption with a wider
concept of poverty that includes in addition to income, some other vital
aspects of human deprivation. This is important for at least three
reasons.
First, household data on income and consumption is much more susceptible
to measurement error associated with under reporting of income and
consumption.
Second, frequent changes in survey design and methodology to compute
poverty rates restricts its comparability over time. Third and most
importantly, there is a need to understand the concept of poverty in a
much wider perspective. It is important to realise that income is an
important but only one dimension of poverty.
In reality, poverty is a multidimensional concept that goes beyond the
deprivation of income and consumption and includes several other forms
of deprivation that people face on a day to day basis such as the denial
of quality education; better nutrition and health services; security
against crime and violence; satisfying leisure hours; and political and
cultural freedoms to mention a few.
Of course, this is not to deny that with a sufficiently high income a
person is able to improve some of his non-income attributes. But income
cannot buy everything and therefore poverty ought to be viewed in a
multidimensional manner.
In broader terms, poverty is the denial of opportunities: the
opportunity to earn a decent living, the opportunity to have access to
good quality education, and the opportunity to have access to basic
health care and so on. It is important to note that it is the inequality
in opportunity that is deemed more unfair than the inequality in income.
This is because some inequality in income is tolerated as it reflects
differences in natural abilities and personal efforts. Inequality in
opportunities, on the other hand, is much less tolerable as it denies
the basic human right of the people to exercise their potential.
In order to address some of the shortcomings of the unidimensional
approach of measuring poverty that is based on income alone, Mahbub ul
Haq suggested a new measure which is much more comprehensive, called the
poverty of opportunity index (POPI) in the Report on Human Development
in South Asia 1998.
This is a composite measure that includes in addition to income poverty
some other non-income but tangible indicators of human deprivation such
as the lack of access to education and health. In terms of education,
POPI includes the percentage of primary school age children who are out
of school and the percentage of adult illiterates. In terms of health,
the index uses percentage of people not expected to survive to the age
of forty; the percentage of people who are deprived of access to safe
water and the percentage of malnourished children under the age of five.
The Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre computed this index for a
total of 46 developing countries and reported the estimates in its 2006
Report Poverty in South Asia: Challenges and Responses.
In the case of Pakistan, the estimate of the poverty of opportunity
index turns out to be 34 per cent which is much higher than World Bank
estimate of percentage of population below $1 a day (17 per cent) as
well as the government figure that is based on national poverty line (23
per cent). This discrepancy between income poverty and the poverty of
opportunity index turns out to be much higher in the case of Pakistan
than other developing countries.
In India for instance, the estimates of POPI and those based on $1 a day
are quite close: 31.3 and 34.7 per cent respectively. This indicates
that in Pakistan, either the estimate of income poverty is not accurate
or an incredibly higher number of people are denied opportunities than
are denied income alone. In both cases, there is an underlying message
for the government.
While the government celebrates rising economic growth and claims
significant reduction in poverty, it is important not to lose sight of
the rising deprivation in the area of health and education. The recent
Education for All Report indicates that Pakistan has the dubious
distinction of containing one of the highest numbers of out-of-school
children in the world. In the area of health, maternal mortality rate
has increased from 200 in 1995 to 320 per 100,000 in 2005. The
percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel in Pakistan
remain one of the lowest in the world (23 per cent), even lower than
that in Sub Saharan Africa (46 per cent). It is time that the
government, instead of presenting selective indicators of well being —
the computation of many of which are based on flawed and controversial
methodologies — takes stock of the comprehensive picture of wellbeing
of the people and reviews its policies accordingly.
Since a new government will soon be taking charge, it is worthwhile to
evaluate the policies of the previous government and make an objective
assessment of where they went wrong. One thing is clear and the recent
election results have made it much clearer: no matter how dumb and
uneducated our masses are, it is almost impossible to fool them with
selective presentation of facts that do not relate to the ground
realities and to the lives of the ordinary people.
(By
Dr Sadia M. Malik, Dawn, 03/03/2008)
Waterfront
project occupies more land than New York, says expert
The area of the proposed mega project of the ‘Waterfront Sugar Land
City’ initiated by the Federal Government of Pakistan with a
Dubai-based construction company occupies more area than most of the
cosmopolitan cities of the world, including New York, San Francisco,
Washington DC and Rome, said architect Arif Belgaumi.
Shehri-CBE and Dharti organized a seminar ‘Our Coast is Under Threat’
in collaboration with the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung at a local hotel
Saturday to discuss the new project. “The proposed plan of the
Waterfront Sugar Land City is not feasible as there is no harbor at the
site and it is distant from the major highways and roads that connect
other cities with Karachi and the unavailability of potable water
indicates difficulties in the future,” said Belgaumi. He used computer
sketches and maps to show that the actual land area of the project is
twice the area allocated by the government. “With the help of computer
sketches, I found that the area is not 44,000 acres but over 80,000
acres,” he said. He also stated that the project holds negative
consequences for Sindh.
WWF Deputy Director General, Dr. Ejaz Ahmad said that construction of
the ‘Waterfront Sugar Land City’ endangers the species of green
turtle. “The green turtle of the Arabian Sea is found along a
5.5-kilometer-long shore on Sandspit and the project would completely
destroy its nesting site,” he said. He also pointed out that the
Government of Pakistan was a signatory to various international
conventions, including Ramsar, a convention for the conservation and
wise use of wetlands and their resources. It is thus bound to protect
these natural sites.
Roland deSouza of Shehri-CBE said that after completion of the ‘Waterfront
Sugar Land City’ the beaches would become private, something that
constitutes a violation of the law.
Muhammad Husain of Maheegir Tehrik said that it would cause the
resettlement of thousands of fishermen from their ancestral fishing
grounds. “Controversial mega projects such as this are not for
development but for the destruction of the local fishing community and
that they would not accept such projects,” he said.
Dharti is a coalition of 17 civil society organizations working against
the construction of Waterfront project.
During the seminar, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), a civil society
organization working for rights of the Sindh fishermen community and a
member organization of Dharti objected to the resolutions passed by
Shehri-CBE. “Shehri-CBE has just demanded its concerns on certain
aspects of the proposed plan of Waterfront Sugar Land City’,” said
PFF president Syed Muhammad Ali Shah. PFF became a part of the Dharti
coalition to stop the project immediately.
During the seminar when a member of Shehri-CBE started reading the
resolutions, Shah objected and insisted on including as a main point
that the seminar completely rejected the project. “See the other
projects the government promised different plans about them but later it
was proved that the promises were nothing than just false claims,
therefore the project must be stopped immediately,” he demanded. A
majority of the participants agreed with Ali and insisted on including
the point, which was added: “If our demands are not fulfilled, we will
reject the project.” Shah alleged that Arif Belgaumi was an official
architect on the project. “He is speaking against the project but he
is actually part of it and in such conditions we cannot work with them,
therefore have decided to part with the coalition,” he said. Belgaumi
rejected the allegations, saying that he was not the architect. “I
have only six staff at my office and with such a small staff I can not
design such a huge project,” he explained.
(By
Amar Guriro, DailyTimes-B1, 09/03/2008)
Sanitation
year launched amid environment issues
The
ministry of environment on Tuesday launched the International Year of
Sanitation 2008, blissfully ignorant of the environmental disasters
spread all around. If they had cared to take a walk around the Holiday
Inn hotel where the ceremony took place, it would have been found that
Islamabad is no more ‘the beautiful.’
Right across the street from the hotel, in Eram Market, heaps of garbage
makes an ugly sight almost everyday. Farther down, under a jumble of
rusted metal roofs, that make up the slums, people are deprived of all
basic necessities including water and sanitation.
Speaking at the ceremony, secretary ministry of environment Ejaz Ahmed
Qureshi said the mean estimated annual cost of environmental and natural
resource damage on account of improper water supply, sanitation and
hygiene conditions in Pakistan was Rs112 billion which was over 1.8 per
cent of the GDP.
“For every dollar spent towards improving sanitation and hygiene,
between $3 and $34 is saved in health, education and social and economic
development. Hence, investment in sanitation is an investment for the
betterment of communities and the children,” he observed.
Despite the ministries’ tall claims of trying to make the difference,
the residents of Islamabad breathe a toxic mix of construction dust,
fumes kicked from vans and buses and under factory emissions. Thick
smog, which according to Civil Aviation Authority is dangerously causing
visibility problems, sits over the city. “It’s similar to Lahore and
Karachi where the sun sets probably 20 to 30 minutes before it reaches
the horizon.” Someone at the launch rightly put it, “Islamabad used
to be a clean city before its residents started living here.” Thanks
to the lack of foresight of the ministry and other authorities
concerned, historical monuments, forest coverage, air quality, almost
everything seems to be suffering. Even the new 7th Avenue has been
constructed without considering severe environmental hazards. “If the
ministry has failed to even keep Islamabad - city of the so-called
educated, bureaucrats, ministers and the president - clean, it can be
left to one’s imagination of how poor environmental conditions are in
other parts of the country.
The launch kicked off with the resolve of making sanitation everyone’s
business and with the commitment of halving the proportion of people
without sustainable access to sanitation by 2015 as stated in the
Millennium Development Goals.
The event highlighted that Pakistan was the most urbanised country in
South Asia, with 58 million people living in cities. This number was
increasing at 3.3 per cent, nearly three times faster than rural areas
and the country would become predominantly urban by 2030 exerting
immense pressures on urban infrastructure especially the environment.
Access to sanitation was one of the most overlooked and undeserved human
needs in the country and it was nothing less than a fundamental issue of
human dignity and human rights. More than 91 million people in Pakistan
lack access to sanitation.
While the ministry, which under IYS country plan expects to reach about
20 per cent of the population with hygiene messages, should most
certainly start from Islamabad whose residents also need to be educated
that keeping the streets clean is not the sole responsibility of the CDA
or the ministry.
Echoing along similar lines, Unicef’s chief of water, environment and
sanitation, Andrew Parker in his presentation said sanitation would help
eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, help achieve universal primary
education and promote gender equality and empower women.
“It will also help reduce child mortality. Pakistan is still one of
the few countries left with polio and poor sanitation does not help.
Sanitation will have better impact on maternal health,” Mr Parker
said.
(By
Jamal Shahid, Dawn-2, 05/03/2008)
|
