Category Archives: Economy

Contribution of expatriates

Economy, Natural Disasters, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

IT was President John F. Kennedy who exhorted Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you…..but what you can do for your country”. This ‘do for your country’ spirit is very much in evidence in Pakistan today, especially among the generation that got the best from it in its youth. It is heart-warming to see that many Pakistanis are now willing to repay the debt they feel they owe their people. And they are doing it abundantly.

Recently, I received an email from Saquib Hameed, the honorary vice chairman and CEO of the Layton Rahmatullah Benevolent Trust (LRBT) that runs its eye hospitals all over the country and is rendering excellent and free service to those suffering from eye diseases. Saquib was my contemporary at the University of Karachi. He described his own service at the LRBT as a “payback” after retirement.

There are others who have not yet retired but are giving back to the country what they feel they owe to their motherland. Dr Azhar Salahuddin, an ophthalmologist working in the US, has been visiting Karachi for a week or so every year since 2006 to perform eye surgeries at the LRBT hospital in Korangi. He partners with a group called SEE International in the US which gives him enough supplies for 100 cataract surgeries which he brings with him.

Apart from performing a few cataract surgeries and cornea transplants, he also teaches new techniques to the local doctors. The supplies that are not used up are donated to LRBT. Dr Salahuddin is in the process of setting up an eye bank in Pakistan. His services are pro bono.

During the August floods, the financial contributions from Pakistani expatriates were phenomenal. No figures are available and it is unlikely they ever will be. Most of these donations came through private channels and were given to trusted NGOs and some charities set up spontaneously and informally to help provide relief to flood victims.

A Rotarian who sent out an appeal for funds for flood relief managed to raise a big sum of which 63 per cent came from abroad. In Toronto a Pakistani raised $420,000 from one fund-raiser. The migrants have been selflessly generous and do not expect any rewards in return as a few high-profile Pakistanis have in the past. The latter became ministers — returning home to make hay while the sun shone.

Another response to the floods came from a friend Azhar Fasih in Oaksville, Ontario (Canada) who is an engineer (having graduated from the NED in 1967 and completing a Masters in engineering from Cornell). He works for a Canadian company and has been posted in Argentina, Poland and China. Azhar was very concerned about Pakistan, as I have found most expatriates to be. He wanted to know what he and his friends could do to help the country. They had all donated hefty sums for flood relief.Azhar, along with his fellow NEDians, would like to offer his expertise as his namesake, the ophthalmologist, is doing.

I asked him what kind of services he envisaged to help Pakistan in these trying times when a large area of the country lies in ruins with 20 million people affected. Being an engineer his focus is understandably on reconstruction. But he wants to go beyond the simple act of rebuilding all the structures which he believes may face the fury of the floods in a few years again.

As pointed out by the World Meteorological Organisation, Pakistan’s floods fit international scientists’ projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming.

The ecological damage has been so severe, especially deforestation, that even unusually heavy rainfall can lead to flooding. There are few trees and plantations left in the mountainous areas to bind the soil and serve as a barrier to the torrential flow of rainwater.

Azhar describes the 2010 floods as a disaster as well as a “wake-up call” for future calamities. He emphasises the important of undertaking forestation on a large and concerted scale to pre-empt the devastation wrought by floods in future,

Azhar speaks of using the expertise of engineers for designing projects such as reservoirs, bridges, roads and houses designed to withstand the pressure of floodwater and also solar panels for heating water and homes in winter as a form of conserving electricity. barani

These are very feasible and affordable propositions. Millions of cusecs of water flowed into the Arabian Sea through the Indus River system during the floods. But with the dry season there is talk of water shortage given the absence of storage capacity.Azhar speaks of rain-filled reservoirs that have been built in some areas with “engineered earth” with an impermeable liner, mainly clay, to prevent seepage. I wonder if such reservoirs can’t be built to store the excess water in the rivers during rainy season. They would expand the irrigation network and boost agriculture. Why not plan these reservoirs in the reconstruction phase?

He is bubbling with ideas as he has seen many such projects in China where he lived for five years. I find it intriguing that the government in Islamabad should be eager to buy nuclear plants from China but not acquire something simpler for the power sector such as solar panels, which would help conserve trees that are used up as firewood for heating.

Similarly the bridges that have been washed away by the floods, Azhar points out, were too low and close to the riverbed. Their spans were not wide enough. They must be redesigned keeping the floods in view. Pakistani bridge engineers in North America could provide this expertise.

The need is to tap into this huge reserve of goodwill that Pakistani expatriates have for the country. Some coordination and organisation is needed. It would be so satisfying to see Pakistanis help out their less fortunate brethren in the reconstruction task on a self-help basis rather than our leaders going round the globe with a begging bowl in hand.

Census debate abroad

Economy, Foreign Policy of Pakistan

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

FOR the past several weeks I have been an interested observer of a controversy that has kept Canadians engaged. It pertains to the census in May next year.

For someone unaware of the important link between a headcount and the politics, economy and social services of a country this might appear a mundane issue for the media to expend so much newsprint and television time on. But in western democracies with modern economies a census is not something to be taken lightly. It provides the basic statistical profile of the population to ensure efficient, equitable and just governance.

The matter has led to heated arguments and a deluge of charges and denials in Canada following the government`s decision to change the format of the census. The population is counted every five years — Canada is probably the only country in the world to do so at such short intervals. This is possible given the small population (34 million), a high level of education and the prevailing sense of civic responsibility among the people.

Since 1971 the census has been conducted by self-enumeration with Canadians filing by post or email (since 2006) the filled questionnaire to Statistics Canada, the department responsible for the headcount.

Every household receives a form containing eight questions that seek basic information on name, address, age, marital status, etc. Twenty per cent of the people — selected through scientific sampling methods — also receive, or did so until 2006, a long form that contained 53 additional questions seeking more comprehensive information on economic status, income, housing, education, etc. Since providing the required information was mandatory, everyone receiving the forms had to fill them. Those not cooperating could be penalised.

The controversy erupted when the government took the plea that the questions asked in the long form could violate the privacy of citizens, the confidentiality clause notwithstanding. So it has now been decided to replace the compulsory long form by a voluntary national household survey. Those who do not want to fill the questionnaire would not be compelled to do so.

Statistics Canada protested that this would distort the sampling and the data would not be accurate. In the rumpus that erupted the chief of StatCan, Munir Shaikh, a civil servant of great repute and integrity, resigned and a Francophone Canadian group (Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities) has gone to court describing the move to cancel the mandatory long form census as unconstitutional. It claims that since the new method would fail to collect accurate data on the languages spoken in the country, it would affect the “quality of government services in French”.

The government has come under severe attack from the media, the opposition parties and many professional groups notably the Canadian Medical Association and the Statisticians Society which benefited from the wealth of information the census yielded. Mr Paul Martin, a former prime minister (Liberal Party) has accused the Conservatives of “trying to dumb down the country” and attempting to “clamp down on information and free discussions among Canadians”. The prime minister who heads a minority government has been charged with being “secretive and closed”.

The government is on the defensive. It plans to print more of the 40-page long forms since many are not expected to be returned. This will be accompanied with a massive advertising campaign to persuade people to reply to the voluntary questionnaire. All this will cost an additional $30m. In 2006 the entire census exercise had cost $45m.

With the matter so politicised, the danger is that the real issue might be lost in the welter of accusations and counter-accusations being traded by the political parties at a time when elections are not far off. The information collected by Statistics Canada is considered to be “vital for maintaining Canada`s health and social programmes” and to help businesses “foster economic growth”. Toronto Star

The that has been in the forefront of the campaign against dropping the mandatory long form has dubbed the move as “as an echo of the paranoid impulses of America`s far right” which views a census as a “symbol of government intrusiveness”. If proof were needed of how much information the Canadian census — rather the mandatory long form — yields one should have seen the double-page spread the paper carried of the demographic portrait of the country drawn from the census.

As seen by Environics Analytics, a Toronto-based marketing company, Canadians fall into one of the “66 neighbourhood lifestyle clusters” based on 1,800 variables derived from the census. From this one can learn of the income groups ranging from the `Cosmopolitan Elites` who have university education and earn an average annual income of $466,032 to the `Survivre en Ville` whose average income is $40,052 and are school leavers.

What has struck me about this debate is how it stands in stark contrast to our own approach to the census. I cannot help but think of the cavalier manner in which the census in Pakistan has been treated. After the first four censuses the exercise ceased to be a regular exercise. After 1981, the next census came after a gap of 16 years. As for the census to be held in 2008, it has become a victim of politics. The war on terror and now the flood have also served as a pretext to push the issue into the background.

Had we attached more importance to the census, our information on the damage to life and property wrought by the floods would have been more accurate. At the moment in the absence of reliable data on the population — we are not even sure about how many people lived in different towns and villages that have come under water — we can only make a guesstimate of loss of life and destruction of property. No wonder the figures being given vary so much that probably what we shall learn in the end will be rough estimates.
Tag: Economy, Foreign Affairs

Economic worth of a woman

Economy, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

FOR long it has been debated by women`s rights activists and economists arguing for social justice that if the value of women`s unpaid labour — read housework — were calculated the GDP of a country would shoot up.

According to studies done by various international groups, it is estimated that in some developing countries the contribution of women`s unpaid labour accounts for nearly a third of GDP.
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Champion of haris’ rights

Economy

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

IN today`s post `end of history` era, someone demanding an end to the oppression of factory labourers and the tillers of the soil risks being called a misfit.

But how can one turn a blind eye to the fallout of capitalism and the inequities that have brought new exploitation and oppression for urban and rural workers whose ranks seem to be swelling? There is the need for someone to champion their cause.
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Change for the better?

Book Reviews, Economy

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

THIS little book is the story of the `Third Estate` of the world. Borrowing the term from French history, Prof Jamal Naqvi uses it to refer to the Third World, that is the poor countries that were decolonised in the post-war years.

They shared the characteristic of being underprivileged, deprived and oppressed as were the masses in pre-revolutionary France who were dominated by the clergy and the nobility.

Prof Naqvi was deeply involved in the politics of the Left in Pakistan until 1990. He has not attempted to trace the history of Asia, Africa and Latin America in the ideological context in the book under review.
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