One day Roundtable on World Development Report

Community Appraisal and Motivation Programme arranged a one day Roundtable on World Development Report 2011 in collaboration with Saferworld UK at CAMP head office, Islamabad on 17th August 2011.

Dr. Riffat Hussain, Chairman Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, chaired the roundtable while Mr. Naveed Ahmed Shinwari, CEO CAMP, Mr. Henry Smith, Director Saferworld UK, and Brig (R ) Saad Mohammad , Defence and Security expert gave the presentations on “Impact of Conflict on Development – An Analysis from Understanding FATA”, “ Current Debates on Security and Development Nexus: Case Studies from WDR 2011”, “Security and Justice Needs Including Security and Development Nexus in Pakistan”, respectively.

While giving his presentation, Mr. Naveed Shinwari said that at present, three main militant groups are working in FATA; Afghan Taliban, Al-Qaida and Pakistani Taliban and parallel to these is Pakistan army busy there fighting against all these militant groups and this definitely has affected the whole situation in FATA.  Despite all these odds people of FATA do not want to leave their area and are very receptive and want their areas to be developed. Therefore, serious efforts should be made to restore peace in FATA.

Henry Smith, while giving his presentation briefly introduced Saferworld and shed light on important aspects of World Development Report. According to the World Development Report 2011, development can be supported by peace, justice and access to security. In order to enable long term sustainable development security must be improved. The report further stresses that development agencies should change the context in which they look towards development.

‘I belong to a generation which has seen peace security and justice prevalent in Pakistani society to some extent; however, it is lamentable that over time things have gone from bad to worse. To blame this state of affairs on external powers is absolutely wrong as what we have done to ourselves; no one else can do that to us. We have been following the policies which are disastrous. The short fall in security has resulted in lack of peace, militarization, radicalization and armed conflict“, said Brig (R) Saad Mohammad.

After these presentations the house was opened for discussion. While discussing various aspects of the report and presentations participants said that when we talk about security and development we should not restrict it to a particular area or limit it to FATA and KP; we should talk about Pakistan as a whole.  It was further said that the report presents a very superficial mention of external forces of conflict and some of the conflict related figures are grossly misrepresented; that the report is very technocratic - typical of the World Bank.

While concluding the whole session Dr. Riffat Husain said that we need to convert Pakistan’s entire administration into a development administration. Without the writ of the state being implemented on the ground development can’t be achieved. Development and security nexus is two way nexus. Development models in Pakistan have been expanding the privileges of ruling elite and due to this phenomenon the whole notion of development has become controversial. Instead of blindly following western discourse of development we need to articulate our own paradigm of development and needs and we need to move away from the bourgeoisie concept of democracy where there is no accountability, no transparency.

Independent development consultants, academics, representatives from think tanks and civil society organizations participated in the roundtable. Some of the names include, Ms. Rukhsana Rashid, Mr. Ilhan Niaz, Ms. Salma Malik, Ms. Safiya Aftab, Mr. Mumtaz Tanoli, Ms. Simbal Khan, Ms. Zeenat Sharif, Mr. Shakir Bachaa, Mr. Asad Rehman, Mr. Ibrahim Shinwari, Mr. Mohammad Amin,  Mr. Irfan Younis and Mr. Tahir Dhindasa.