Zubair Qureshi
Owing to lack of functional and effective local body infrastructure, particularly in Punjab, it seems that the government is failing to reach out and providing relief to poor and marginalized communities in the rural areas amidst Covid-19 crisis.
The next wave of the pandemic in Pakistan could be rural areas and to protect the agri-worker and the rural economy, the federal government must ensure effective coordination through Council of Common Interest (CCI) and ensure preparedness at tehsil and union council levels.
This was the crux of the online policy dialogue titled “Rethinking Development amidst Covid-19 Crisis” organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here Wednesday.
Dr Daanish Mustafa, Faculty Member at Department of Geography, King’s College London while stressing the need for efficient public administration said that the government should involve the local people in policy making as local knowledge is essential to bring effectiveness in policy response for longer time. He urged the government to adopt problem solving approach to deal with disaster management by taking local government and people in to the loop.
Executive Director, SDPI, Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri said that the government is not effectively utilizing the potential of Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination and constitutional forum of Council of Common Interest (CCI) in this time of crisis and hence failing in effective coordination and collaboration. He said that our National Command and Control Authority may help overcome the national level operational challenges but may not be able to resolve the political differences among center and provinces, which can only be resolved through CCI.
Joint Executive Director, SDPI, Dr Vaqar Ahmed said that it was our collective failure, because we all fail to assess the Covid-19 crisis and unable to prepare ourselves to cope with in advance. He said a large part of solution lies in developing our understanding around local body system to work. Dr Vaqar said Covid-19 pandemic is also seen an opportunity at huge scale for research community to witness how challenges are evolving and researchers are being forced out of their own comfort zone to think how to help policy makers in responding those challenges. In the context of rethinking development, Dr Vaqar stressed the need for rethinking through the channel determined by SDGs, and National development plans should reflect these goals.
Dr Nousheen anwar, Head of Karachi Urban Lab said that in response to Covid-19 pandemic the world has diverted it focus on environment from mega development. She said, previously, issue of health wasn’t priority at all which now comes in a bigger way and raise concern on how will this pandemic can affect the broader context of climate change agenda.
