More EU, Dutch Aid for Pakistani Flood Victims

More EU, Dutch Aid for Pakistani Flood Victims

People pass through a flooded street in Pakistan.
The European Union and Netherlands have
increased their aid for flood victims in the country.
Photo by: Vicki Francis / DfID / CC BY-NC-ND

The European Union and Netherlands have increased their aid for flood victims in Pakistan.

For the second year in a row, Pakistan is devastated by flooding. The most recent has affected 5.4 million people.

The European Commission announced Oct. 17 that it will provide an additional €6.5 million ($8.9 million) in humanitarian assistance to the South Asian country, bringing the total EU flood aid for Pakistan this year to €104.5 million.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands has made another donation of €4 million also for Pakistani flood victims. It earlier contributed €400,000 to the International Red Cross for a similar cause.

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Oct. 14 that it had to use money from existing programs to fund the fresh donation as all the 2011 budget for emergency assistance had been spent due partly to the famine in the Horn of Africa.


Courtesy: Devex - Eliza Villarino 

a Global Disorder

A global disorder

By Irfan Aamir

One needs to have a deep understanding of Pakistan’s current political and economic direction, which despite the looming global economic and public debt crises still appears driven more by rhetoric and random decision making rather than planning and policy. However, one may not have to undertake a deep study to understand this impasse as most numbers are disappointing and challenges appear ominously skewed against Pakistan’s economic and political managers. How dismally Pakistan has performed on many global performance indexes across the various categories of governance can be easily browsed, though it may be hard to digest.

Pakistan’s political and economic news still read no different than they did 8 years ago, with monetary deficit, dearth of foreign investment and a looming power crisis as the main highlights. Past governments as well as the one today have stood committed to address all these challenges, which is exactly what the current incumbents have been saying since they took power almost 4 years ago. Government’s domestic debt, despite the recent rather generous slash in discount rate, still looks like a fallacy about to fall and bubble ready to burst. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) governors may come or go, but the government will continue to borrow by printing currency at the rate of a billion dollars per month and keep handing out monetary policies with 2 months shelve-lives, if not less.  Such is the adolescent treatment to things that require serious responsibility and a much higher maturity level.

On the international economic scene ‘things’ don’t look so great either, in fact they haven’t looked this grim in the recorded history of human economics. As some economists and thinkers are putting it, the only thing that looks certain is more uncertainty. “Un-known unknowns” as the former US Defence Secretary would probably love to brand this imbroglio. The inevitability of an uncertain but evident change in global economic order is kicking some serious clouds of doubts and fears, making the entire system jitterier and lacking positive sentiments.

When the global finance managers and economic leaders were able to deliver some recovery in late 2009-10, ostensibly by pressing their governments to pump in trillions of dollars and euros for interventions and bankrolling the multibillion dollar corporations in the West, many thought that the global economic crisis had been contained. Recent developments, nevertheless, indicate that ‘financial market volatility’ is here to stay for the foreseeable future. What is becoming more apparent is that the recent short-term macroeconomic or regulatory policy initiatives in a number of economies across the world, especially the West, have failed to provide the desired confidence while the planners appear sans any plans for a long-term economic growth. Is it time to scramble?

Recently released Global Agenda Survey 2011 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) only confirms the varied fears and doubts everyone has about the current unending economic uncertainty. Global Agenda Council members were asked to identify ‘the’ most important international trends and how they would impact the global economy, society and environment in the next 12-18 months. The presentation, which identifies 20 trends that can and will impact the way people do business, how societies co-exist and what the Global Agenda Council members have to say about the trends can assuredly trigger some nerves and it is about time that they did. 
Of the trends highlighted in the WEF Global Agenda Survey 2011, analysts believe many are already at work at home in Pakistan.



Public Debt Crisis and Weakening Job Market are ranked as the ‘most important’ global trends and challenges. As bizarre as the relevance may appear, in case of Pakistan both these trends are not only visible but look fairly unmanageable at this point.  A country which borrows more than it has the capacity to earn or service, and is facing a mounting debt crisis that it is scrambling to service with no donors or Friends of Pakistan around reaching for their cheque books. What is even more serious is that the economy is not producing jobs either. By the admission of the Planning Commission itself, Pakistan needs to produce 1.5 million jobs each year consistently for the next few years. The economy, however, is producing only 0.3 million by government’s own estimates.
 
Some other rather disturbing trends and challenges for the next 18 months listed high on the top ten in the Global Agenda Survey 2011 are Economic Inequality and Social Unrest, crucial areas where Pakistan has demonstrated a lower level of excellence consistently. What is as annoying is that the state in which Pakistan and its economy is today isn’t the doing of ‘enemy nations’ but mostly of those civilian leaders who allegedly want to work for the people and those military leaders who were politically elected to decide the fate of our country. Promises and unending rhetoric is the most consistent thing about a very inconsistently managed country and its leaders. The question is, how long can they continue to befool or mislead?

The writer is a Karachi-based communication consultant.

irfan.aamir@gmail.com






With the courtesy of Money Matters, The News International

President Zardari Pledges to Disaster Prevention

President Zardari Pledges to Champion  Disaster Prevention

With his country still reeling from the effects of massive floods that inundated Pakistan for two consecutive years, President Asif Ali Zadari has pledged to become a “champion of the process of disaster risk reduction.”

President Zadari made this commitment during a meeting with U.N. Disaster Risk Reduction Chief Margareta Wahlstrom, during which the president also pledged to scale up efforts to improve Pakistan’s early warning system.

“Pakistan wants to be safe, resilient and able to respond to any type of disaster. We want to take ownership of disaster risk reduction and to empower our people to be able to respond to the risks and threats posed by natural hazards,” Zadari said.

The Pakistani president’s remarks come as an international organization warn it is unlikely for governments to meet the commitment they made to ensure the world’s safety from natural hazards and reduce overall disaster losses by 2015.

The Hygo Framework for Action is a 10-year plan adopted by U.N. member states at the World Disaster Reduction Conference in 2005.

Citing poor implementation of the plan, the international non-governmental organization Oxfam urged governments to step up their efforts to meet the HFA’s goals of improving people’s resilience to natural disasters, the Tribune reports. In particular, Oxfam urged the Pakistani government and its partners to address the growing crisis in the country and invest in efforts to prevent similar situations in the future.

“Everyone is aware of how disasters have taken their toll in Pakistan and how they are continuing to put people at the brink of desperation. Until we start preparing for these events and develop a system, the vicious circle of suffering will continue to affect millions of people,” Neva Khan, Oxfam’s director for Pakistan, said.

Courtesy Devex and Ivy Mungcal 

UN Officials Reiterate Call for Comprehensive Disaster Management, Say Floods in Pakistan, Other Asian Countries 'Predictable'

UN Officials Reiterate Call for Comprehensive Disaster Management, Say Floods in Pakistan, Other Asian Countries 'Predictable'

Two high-ranking U.N. officials reiterated the call for governments to focus on comprehensive disaster management and preparedness to save lives and livelihoods. The call was made in the wake of the devastating floods that hit Pakistan for the second year running and as floodwaters likewise wreak havoc in other Asian countries.

As she was set to depart for a three-day visit to flood-hit Pakistan, U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction chief Margareta Wahlström said Pakistan’s flood risk can be predicted by modelling systems. She noted that this year’s flooding, just like last year’s devastating floods, have been concentrated in rural areas that lack early warning systems and preparedness measures.

Wahlström called on the different actors involved to implement a ”quantum leap in disaster risk reduction in Pakistan.”

International aid agencies have earlier criticized the Pakistani government for failing to install adequate prevention measures despite last year’s disaster. As a result, floods have caused massive destruction in Pakistan anew, affecting some 7 million people and killing 400, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.

More than a month after the floods hit the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan, the floodwaters have receded, but flood victims continue to live in makeshift shelters and are at risk of hunger and diseases despite the efforts of humanitarian agencies to provide emergency assistance. Sluggish donor response has been blamed.

But Pakistan’s problem is hardly isolated. Wahlström noted the floods that recently devastated other Asian countries, including the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Cambodia, are annual events brought about by the monsoon rains from June to September each year. Therefore, these floods are “signposted long before their arrival,” she said.

“If you know what to expect then adequate preparedness measures should pay off and save lives, homes and livelihood,” Wahlström added

Vladimir Sakharov, the environmental services section chief of the U.N. Environment Program/U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Emergency Partnership, concurred.

According to Sakharov, the international community spends “a huge amount of money in response to natural disasters, instead of concentrating on a comprehensive risk management and preparedness.”

For Sakharov, governments can better address the situation by installing disaster preparedness measures such as boosting emergency preparedness training, developing early warning systems, and improving placement and structure of basic infrastructure so that they are not vulnerable to natural hazards.

Grim Outlook for U.S. Foreign Aid

Grim Outlook for U.S. Foreign AidGrim Outlook for U.S. Foreign Aid

Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011

by James M. Lindsay

American soldiers carry relief supplies for families affected by a typhoon in the Philippines. (Romeo Ranoco/courtesy Reuters)

The New York Times has a front-page story today on how U.S. foreign aid programs face major budget cuts. Why the Times chose today to run the story is anyone’s guess. The gloomy budgetary picture for foreign aid has been obvious for months. So while the story doesn’t break any news, it comes with nice charts. And as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Three big points. First, foreign aid spending today is higher when measured in real (or inflation-adjusted) dollars than it was during much of the 1980s and 1990s. That is because foreign aid budgets were slashed under Bill Clinton and grew substantially under George W. Bush. (Yes, a Republican president was good for foreign aid, a Democratic one not so much.)

U.S. Foreign Aid Since 1977, in Billions

Second, foreign aid has fallen as a share of the federal budget over the last three decades. So while spending on foreign aid has grown in absolute terms it has declined in relative terms.

Third, the White House will be lucky to hold foreign aid spending flat in 2012. Even the Democratically controlled Senate wants to cut its request.

The looming cuts to the foreign aid budget will prompt a lot of hand wringing, much of it justified. We will see a spate of op-eds extolling the strategic benefits of foreign aid, and the White House will likely ask military officials to help make the case for foreign aid as a way to prevent problems and take pressure off the military.

This outcry won’t have much effect, for a reason apparent in the story the Times article tells about Representative Kay Granger (R-TX), Chair of the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, which oversees the foreign aid budget:

She recalled a State Department envoy’s informing her of $250 million in relief to Pakistan after last year’s devastating floods. “I said I think that’s bad policy and bad politics,” she said in an interview at her office on Capitol Hill. “What are you going to say to people in the United States who are having flooding?”

In short, for voters, problems around here trump problems over there. So the U.S. Government will end up doing less with less.

Republished with the courtesy of the Council on Foreign Relations. View the original article.

War on error: Economic development: how?

War on error: Economic development: how?:

Economic development: how?

Even if one were to Google there are hardly any, actually no known examples neither of a country making stable economic progress while lacking good infrastructure nor in the presence of poorly functioning state institutions. Some analysts including a majority of TV media anchors may continue to believe and advocate that the world powers are uniting to render Pakistan a ‘failed state’; the real circumstances responsible for the country’s fast dilapidating economic fortunes are actually domestically skewed.

When a country’s economy is languishing with critically disgraceful ranks on the global indexes of competitiveness, there is much to analyze and criticize, especially by the media who has a galore of scandals to cover every day, review poorly performing organizations and has a non-stop stream of not-so-good news on the national economic horizon available.

Efficiency and standards of things as fundamental as infrastructure and government-owned and managed corporations and institutions are ebbing beyond acceptable limits of failure. When a country is unable to address its issues as fundamental as primary education and healthcare as in the case of Pakistan, there are reasons for raised eyebrows and frowns and not to mention the prophecies of a doomed and hopeless future.

According to the leading think-tanks and global economic development institutions, including the World Economic Forum of Davos fame and Competitive Support Fund of Islamabad origins, on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) Pakistan, out of 142 countries, is seriously lagging in several categories. Currently Pakistan is ranked at 107th in the category of institutions which amply highlights years and decades of poor planning, political and non-political nepotism and interventions. What it shockingly also highlights is the blatant absence of any corrective action. Once followed and emulated by the countries of Far East, today’s institutions of Pakistan have come a long distance, but unfortunately in the opposite direction it seems.

Ranked 115th in the space of national infrastructure also comes as a rude shock, again. For over all these decades one was given the impression that all the political leaderships spent the exchequer money responsibly on one extraordinary national development plan or the other. The people elected, the heavily mandated and even the last decade of powerful political government of military rulers allegedly spent thousands of billions if not more building the ‘necessary infrastructure for national development’ as they kept the hopes of the nation up.

The reality again is rather grim. Where the country stands today, still leaves a very long journey to be covered, a tedious and laborious trudge almost. A devastating realization can also be that while the work-scope has mounted the right teams are not running the right institutions leading to a more worrisome and shaky future outlook. Echelons of governance have failed to entice the more capable workforce and have to make do with those that perhaps have lower chances of getting gainfully employed elsewhere with a job security and ‘fringe benefits’ they seek. Sensible and more capable individuals have and will continue to be keener on leaving the country as trends have shown and those who can’t go aboard look for careers in more stable multinationals rather than government-managed organizations.

Other areas where Pakistan has been identified as a country which needs to pay grave and urgent attention include primary health and education. Pakistan currently stands at the 121th position out of 142 countries. Regrettably, both these areas that are identified as the fundamental pillars of competitiveness assessment continue to receive fewer resources in each budget in comparison to mounting military spending and bank payments. Indeed making the entire narrative sorely dismal for Pakistan and its economic growth potential.

The pillars on which the global competitiveness ranking are measured are: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health, primary and secondary education and training, goods and labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

Pakistan stands at the lowest level, probably not even at the acceptable level of national growth. Considering the vast opportunities that keep coming its way and its geo- political significance, Pakistan’s performance by many is considered dismal and for all the right reasons. If such is the status in the most basic categories, less should be said at this point on how the country is performing in other areas of competitiveness.

There is hardly a news story on the national TV which goes without admonishing the political leadership for poor governance. Economic policies are criticized and at times horrific possible scenarios of social unrest and mayhem are vociferously shared. Such is the degree of passion with the new found ‘freedom to express’ that even things less researched are callously shared while more grave issues are overlooked routinely. Masud Alam, a senior journalist based in Islamabad, put it well when he said: “Pakistani media is increasingly getting better at being the story than covering one.”

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ETHICS DAY CELEBRATED IN PAKISTAN

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ETHICS DAY CELEBRATED IN PAKISTAN

The first International Media Ethics Day observed in Pakistan by the Karachi Press Club in collaboration with the Center forInternational Media Ethics (CIME) and Mishal Pakistan. The Day has been created by CIME to engage the media community throughout the world to have an open dialogue on media ethics.

The aim of the Media Ethics Day is to mobilize the journalism community and provide journalists around the world with an opportunity to discuss media ethics issues, examine case studies, and participate in role-plays and debates related to the various ethical dilemmas they might expect to face on the job.

AamirLatif, President Karachi Union of Journalist stressed on the need to highlight the ethical challenges faced by the Pakistani Journalists and sees this day as an opportunity for the journalists to work together to make their own judgments and identify their own strategies.

CIME aims to prepare and infuse journalists with the energy and support they need to make their own ethical decisions in reporting and negotiating with anyone or anything that might be trying to obstruct their own sound decision-making. The International Media Ethics Day events are especially important because local organisations volunteer to do it for local people and CIME provides support and expertise to help them said Suzanne Harris, Associate for the Center for International Media Ethics.

PurueshChaudhary, CIME Ambassador to Pakistan and the Director Content for MishalPakistan underscored the need for a joint code of conduct to agree upon basic guidelines for reporters and cameramen and encouraged the journalist community to take on a proactive role in defining ethical practices through the choices and decisions made at work on a daily basis.

The Center for International Media Ethics and Mishal Pakistan believe that it is essential for the local journalists to collaborate with one another on a national level, to express their opinions and become actively involved in enforcing ethical media practices. Mishal Pakistan, a strategic communication policy design social enterprise in collaboration with the Center for International Media Ethics is observing the International Media Ethics Day at the Karachi Press Club as part of the Agahi Initiative. Agahi, aims to utilize institutionalized, sustainable media structures in Pakistan to raise the bar of journalistic standards through training to increasing responsible, balanced reporting and investigative journalism.

Senior journalist Amir Zia said that a reporter while reporting on a terrorist attack should keep in mind not to glamorize militancy. He said that the western media served as a yardstick, and during the 9/11 attack, the bodies of people were not shown on television, and the privacy of the victims was respected. However in Pakistan, reporters and photographers barged into emergency wards when doctors were struggling with their patients.

Mishal Pakistan Chief Executive Officer, Amir Jahangir on the occasion said that, media in Pakistan is passing through a transition, it is accumulating a lot of information, making Pakistan an information society, however the synthesis of information into knowledge has still to be evolved. Initiatives like this would lead to better understanding of communication challenges, especially in terms of Dignity, Journalism and Leadership. 

The objective of the Center for International Media Ethics’ International Media Ethics Day is to mobilize the journalism community and provide media professionals with the opportunity to partake in local workshops. By participating in discussions conducted in their own language, local journalists can feel more comfortable and more enabled to talk about such a complex subject as the ethics of their profession. The center’s driving emphasis is that journalists together have the power to formulate and enforce a tacit code of ethics as a status quo of their profession.

The event was attended by leading journalists from print and electronic media along with representatives of media entities and civil society organizations.