8 Concerns
Flexibility to respond to political
events.
103. The political situation in Pakistan
where events change almost daily—since starting this inquiry
there have been political demonstrations in Islamabad, a march
in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and a warrant issued
for the arrest of the then Prime Minister by the Supreme Court
due to corruption charges—makes us very conscious of the
need for DFID to maintain the flexibility to respond to significant
change. The World Bank's Country Assistance Strategy found that
a key lesson learnt from past programmes in Pakistan was that
there needed to be enough flexibility in programmes to manage
these political risks. The strategy also said that programmes
needed to be realistic and not overambitious. Michael Green, who
highlighted this report to us, was not confident that DFID's current
programme for Pakistan was flexible enough and he was concerned
it was over ambitious.[137]
104. The Secretary of State said she
knew that DFID needed to "make sure that we can react to
changing events and changing priorities".[138]
Moazzam Malik argued that DFID's Pakistan programme was flexible:
in the real world it is not possible
to have a Plan A, which is the master plan, and a Plan B, and
it is not the case that one falls and the other rises. It is about
having a portfolio that spans ambitious change, and being ready
to slow down things when they do not work, but equally to accelerate
and scale up where things do work. It is by having that flexibility
and working with those opportunities, but being robust about the
results and the accountabilities and following our money, that
we hope to achieve real change.[139]
105. We recommend that DFID ensures
that its programmes have sufficient flexibility to respond to
future political events especially following the elections due
to be held in May this year.
Politicisation of programmes
106. Political parties in South Asia
tend to be dynastic. For example, in Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari married into the Bhutto family dynasty which controls
the Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP). Zulifiqar Ali Bhutto led the
party until his execution in 1979. Then the PPP was led by his
daughter, Benazir Bhutto—twice Prime Minister of Pakistan—
until her assassination in 2007 when her husband, Mr Zardari,
became co-chair of the PPP. Similarly the Sharif family, politically
powerful industrialists from Punjab, have also played a central
role in Pakistan's politics by leading the Pakistan Muslim League
(N), the main opponent of the PPP. The eldest Sharif brother,
Nawaz, has twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan until removed
in the coup organised by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999. The
younger Sharif brother, Shabaz, is currently Chief Minister of
Punjab Province, a post he also held from 1997 to 1999 until deposed
in the Musharraf coup.
107. Dr Matt Nelson said that the Punjab
programme ran the risk of DFID "simply playing in the Sharif
patronage pie."[140]
Due to the use of teachers at local level during elections he
said that "the large push for teacher recruitment will not
be overlooked by the political calculations of the Sharifs in
the context of any election".[141]
108. Similarly Dr Ahmad said:
You have a good programme, the conditional
cash transfer. Unfortunately it is called the Benazir Income Support
Programme, and it suffers from [...] clientelism. It is [...]
the mechanism—which is funded partly by DFID—to make
friends and influence people. This is the re-election campaign
of Mr Zardari, which is funded by DFID. Well done.[142]
109. The Secretary of State argued that:
they are both examples of very important
programmes in Pakistan that, in my opinion, in a good way have
been identified by politicians—and this is a democracy,
and therefore these are the people who will be taking decisions
going forward—as being extremely valuable.[143]
110. We are concerned that DFID funding
for the Benazir Income Support Programme and the Punjab Education
programmes may lead some in Pakistan to believe that DFID is working
unwittingly for selected Pakistan political parties, albeit these
major programmes support different parties. In its response to
this report, DFID should state how it will dispel such perceptions
before Pakistan's forthcoming elections.
Gender and violence against women
111. During the inquiry we heard about
the extent of violence against women and girls in Pakistan. The
attack on fourteen year old school girl, Malala Yousufzai happened
shortly before our visit and was raised when we met Prime Minister
Raja Pervez Ashraf. The shooting of Malala, the attacks on girls'
schools, honour killings, acid attacks and the killing of women
immunisation workers in the last six months has galvanised public
opinion.[144] This
opportunity to gain momentum on women's rights in Pakistan should
not be lost.
112. Members of the committee met parents,
teachers and students at the Girls Higher Secondary School in
Haripur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The parents and teachers said the
shooting of Malala Yousafzai had had a profound impact—forcing
Pakistanis to face the issue of violent discrimination against
women and girls and reinforcing their belief in the importance
of education for girls. The students at the school put on a physical
education and drama display in which two students acted out the
story of discrimination against girls' education and the need
for women to speak out for their rights. The committee also met
women from NGOs and UN agencies while visiting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
including Dr Mariam Bibi, the inspirational Director of Kwendo
Khor, a women's rights NGO in the Federally Administrated Tribal
Areas. Dr Bibi holds a doctorate from the University of York and
was recently rewarded an honorary degree by the university in
recognition of her promotion of women's and girls' rights. She
explained that she and Kwendo Khor seek to influence men who are
opinion formers, such as Imams. She patiently lobbied one over
several months about the importance of women's inheritance rights
and urged him to speak about this in the Mosque. Eventually
he did, and he explained to Dr Bibi that it had taken time because
first he wanted to change his will so that his wife would inherit
his property. He said it would do no good to preach unless he
practised what he preached.
113. We note that DFID states it puts
women and girls "at the centre of everything UK aid does"
in Pakistan and that it intends to do this by: supporting two
million more girls into school; preventing 3,600 women dying in
childbirth; helping 500,000 couples choose when and how many children
they have; helping around 700,000 women access financial services
such as micro-loans; and supporting women's rights in Pakistan
including tackling domestic violence.[145]
We were pleased to hear about DFID's support to: the Aawaz Strengthening
Voice and Accountability Programme; the Gender Justice and Protection
Programme; and efforts to tackle acid violence against women and
girls, through funding for the international NGO Acid Survivors
Trust International. We intend to carry out a detailed study of
DFID's approach to tackling violence against women and girls globally
through our current inquiry into this specific issue, and will
publish our report on this subject in June 2013.
114. Oxfam recognises the work DFID
in Pakistan has been doing on women's health and education as
well as the cash transfers aimed at women through the Benazir
Income Support Programme, but believes that DFID could do more.
It recommends that DFID should step up support for women and women's
rights advocates to assert rights to basic services, including
security and justice as well as improved state governance and
responsiveness. Oxfam would also like donors to encourage the
Pakistan Government to fulfil more effectively its obligations
outlined by the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women (1979), the International Conference
on Population and Development Programme of Action (1994) and the
Millennium Development Goals.[146]
115. It is essential that DFID makes
the position of women and girls central to its work and that gender
analysis and action is at the core of its Pakistan programme.
As noted in our 2012 report on development in Afghanistan, the
position of women is a key development indicator. We recommend
that DFID establish a gender advisory group made up of Pakistani
women . We believe it should include women like Mariam Bibi. The
group would advise on the impact of development work on women
and explore where DFID could do more. We will continue to monitor
the progress of women's role and inclusion in development in
Pakistan.
The Pakistan government and its
progress on reform
116. We are concerned that the Government
of Pakistan has not sufficiently bought into DFID programmes
which tend to be supply-driven by the UK. DFID claims that the
scaling up of the programmes is reliant on key reforms by the
Pakistan Government. The Secretary of State told us that these
reforms include:
The Pakistan
Government itself investing in social-sector spending
Increasing
tax revenue and better public finance management with transparency
and accountability to prevent corruption
Human
rights and democracy—not just passing legislation but also
implementing it.[147]
117. The Secretary of State said that
progress was measurable through 'metrics' on the number of children
in schools, health and proportion of tax raised in relation to
GDP, Pakistan's ranking on corruption and human rights indices.
She believed the biggest test was whether Pakistan achieved free
and fair elections this year.[148]
In response to questions about whether conditions should be set
for the increase in development spending in Pakistan, the Secretary
of State said:
My sense is that you would always
need to be careful that it was not a blunt tool. Therefore it
is not the approach that the UK Government has taken in relation
to our aid. Therefore we have invested in where we think there
is the ability to make progress, where it represents good value
for money and alongside that, yes, we have been clear on partnership
principles that we want to have in place with governments.[149]
We also asked if there was no progress
with the new Government after the election on any of the key matters
whether that would be a deal breaker and cause DFID to reconsider
its involvement in Pakistan. The Secretary of State told us:
I think donors will expect and hope
to see some fast progress in the first 100 days of a new Pakistani
Government. It will need to set out its stall about what it wants
to achieve in a really clear-cut way. That is not just important
to donor countries that are investing in programmes within Pakistan;
it is important to the international financial institutions that
Pakistan deals with, too.[150]
118. Michael Green said of conditionality:
It can be seen as being this great
solution, but a lot of conditionality is meaningless. It is things
that do not really matter, or it is not measurable, or—as
we have found in some other countries, actually—it is very
hard to respond to if a condition is broken. If we are talking
about conditionality, we have to be more granular. What form will
that conditionality take? Is it measurable, is it implementable
and can we act on that basis? If that conditionality is triggered,
what is the response? Is it just turning off the tap or is it
switching to something else and having a plan B scenario?[151]
In his Pakistan governance analysis
for DFID, James Fennell observed that that while Pakistan had
a good record of enacting legislation, implementation was the
problem. .
It becomes discretionary, because
it falls into the military/bureaucratic power bloc. Some they
like; some they do not. Some they implement; some they do not.[152]
Mr Fennell suggested support be conditional
on the implementation of legislation as opposed to just the enactment.[153]
119. If the political system in
Pakistan continues to be characterised by corruption, insufficient
tax collection, poor human rights and a failure to protect minorities,
the effectiveness of donor supported programmes will always be
undermined. We recommend that:
the
UK use its influence with the IMF to ensure that any additional
loans are contingent upon prior commitments and action by the
Government of Pakistan to meet clear conditions and targets;
the
UK Government communicate clearly to the Pakistan authorities
the conditions under which UK development assistance will either
increase or be reduced;
DFID
only increase official development assistance expenditure to the
planned £464 million per annum if there is clear evidence
that the newly elected Pakistan administration will increase tax
revenues in general and income tax, in particular, and if it subsequently
succeeds in increasing the amount of tax taken; and
If
the Pakistan Government is unwilling to take action to increase
its revenues and improve services for its people, it cannot expect
the British people to do so in the long run. We cannot expect
the citizens of the UK to pay taxes to improve education and health
in Pakistan if the Pakistan elite is not paying income tax.
137 Q38 Back
138
Q111 Back
139
Q135 Back
140
Q66 Back
141
Q66 Back
142
Q101 Back
143
Q136 Back
144
Targeted by militants, Pakistan's women push back Independent
19 March 2013 Back
145
Summary of DFID's work in Pakistan 2011-2015 June 2012 Back
146
Ev w33 Back
147
Q111 Back
148
Q112-113 Back
149
Q122 Back
150
Q128 Back
151
Q42 Back
152
Q42 Back
153
Q42 Back
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