All posts by Raza Jaffri

Quake spending needs transparency

Economy, Natural Disasters

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

WHEN the devastating earthquake of October 8, 2005, struck Azad Kashmir and parts of the NWFP, nearly 73,000 lives were lost, 70,000 people were seriously injured and 2.8 million were made homeless. The magnitude of the tragedy was enormous and Pakistanis as well as others from all over the world responded by sending in donations in cash and kind.

Many volunteered their time and services to help the victims. The government of Pakistan rose to the occasion to extend a helping hand.

It set up the Federal Relief Commission headed by a relief commissioner with the responsibility of “overseeing relief efforts targeting shelter, food, clean water and immediate medical care” as stated by the government.
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Our profit-driven drug industry

Health

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

AT the inauguration of the Hanifa Suleman Dawood Centre of Oncology, the director of SIUT, Dr Adib Rizvi, promised to launch a movement against the spiralling prices of drugs. His concern at what can be described as the anti-social strategies of pharmaceutical manufacturers is quite valid.

The Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation in Karachi, prescribing to the maxim ‘health is the birthright of every man’, provides free medical treatment to every patient who enters its portal.

Since the bulk of SIUT’s budget comes from public donations and it is always looking around for funds, it has to be extra mindful of its spending. It is, therefore, worrying for it that 38 per cent of its budget goes towards financing the cost of medicines alone. This trend is nothing unusual. The Pakistan Association of Mental Health, which runs a free clinic for indigent patients and provides drugs free of charge to quite a substantial number of patients, spends 25 per cent of its budget on medicines. It may be noted that PAMH’s formulary includes only the lower-priced items.
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Foreign policy in the line of fire

Foreign Policy of Pakistan

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

WHEN an army general, who seized power through a coup to become the head of state, goes on to write a book — wearing all three hats at the same time — what does he produce? A book that brings him in the line of fire of friends and foes alike.

President Pervez Musharraf, whose memoir In the Line of Fire was launched with great fanfare in New York on Monday, may now find that the principle of academia, “publish or perish”, does not really hold true for a sitting president.

If anything, for a person holding high office to write a say-it-all (but selectively) autobiography can prove to be quite indiscreet given the sensitive nature of his position. After all he has several options available for letting the world know what he wants to say — the media, the diplomatic channel, public meetings, his spokesperson and direct interpersonal communication. These are better options as they do not have the air of finality about them as a book has. They also allow a leader to retract his words without loss of face. So why write a book with all the hazards that the act of putting pen to paper incurs (even if the services of the best ghostwriter, in this case Humayun Gauhar, have been enlisted)? The printed word seems to be so irrevocable.
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WAF’s long march for equality

Women

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, Fehmida and Allahbakhsh were awarded 80 lashes and death by stoning respectively by a Karachi court under the Hudood ordinances. In reaction to this savage sentence, the Women’s Action Forum was born to fight against the oppression of women.

Launched by seventeen women in Karachi, WAF has grown into an amorphous, non-hierarchical umbrella body of national dimensions that brings together numerous organisations — at times over 20 in number — seeking justice for women. Regrettably, as Anis Haroon, a founder member, observed at the 25th anniversary celebration in Karachi last week, the problems they had set out to resolve in 1981 continue to haunt the women of this country even today.
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Poverty: actions, not words

Development and Poverty, Economy

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

POVERTY is the buzzword in development economics and policymaking in Third World countries today. The problem with the strategies that are being mooted to eradicate this blight from people’s life is that planners tend to focus on the monetary aspect of poverty.

It is widely — but erroneously — believed that if a person has a comfortable income to enable him to purchase the good things in life he has pulled himself out of poverty. That is why the emphasis is on employment generation and schemes to enable people to earn a livelihood.

What is often overlooked is that a dent can be made in poverty by addressing other factors as well — not necessarily financial — that will create an impact on the poverty level of a society. It is a pity that no empirical study of its kind has been done to determine what effect interventions in the social sectors will have on poverty. A person’s economic income may be given a boost not by directly doling out cash or jobs to him.
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