C o n t e x t — c h a l l e n g e s a n d o p p o r t u n i t i e s
Pakistan’s political economy is underpinned by a wide variety of factors — including its geographic location, multi-ethnic and religious composition, and formal and informal rules
— that has led to an opaque, patrimonial governance system. Shifts in leadership between democratically elected and military governments have weakened public administration both at the federal level and in the provinces. Development policies have been overly biased towards public sector projects and
arbi-trary incentives impeding competitiveness and sustainable economic growth — which explains the continuing prevalence of high levels of poverty and inequality, particu-larly in the western border regions.
The pressing development and security challenges affecting the country led the federal government to adopt in May 2014 Vision 2025 as its key policy framework.
Major themes include modernisation of infrastructure, mobilisation of indigenous resources, institutional reforms and gov-ernance, value addition in productive sec-tors, export and private sector–led growth and exploitation of social capital. In par-allel, the 18th constitutional amendment paved the way for devolution of power, competences and fiscal resources to prov-inces and lower sub-national levels.
A sense of urgency for reform prevails in the province of Balochistan. This huge, scarcely populated yet richly endowed ter-ritory, finds itself in a state of crisis fuelled by nationalist and religious insurgencies, public sector failures, poor socio-economic
development(2), climate change, successive calamities, refugee flows and above all a sense of neglect and isolation. In response, provincial authorities are trying to formulate a medi-um-term development vision and launch a set of governance reforms. Balochistan was the first province to put in place the elected local government structures envisaged by the above-mentioned amendment. The aim is to strengthen community institutions, stimulate citizen participation in public affairs and gradually turn local authorities (LAs) into more responsive and accountable development actors. The Balochistan government has commit-ted itself to define a comprehensive local development policy and to drastically improve
(2) Fifty-two per cent of the households in Balochistan are classified as poor, and rural poverty reaches 75 per cent.
Of the 20 most poverty-stricken districts in Pakistan, 16 are in Balochistan.
T H E C A S E I N A N U T S H E L L
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akistan continues to struggle with pervasive development challenges, reflecting a history characterised by political turmoil, poor economic governance and a host of negative externalities. These factors have affected public sector legitimacy and performance, particularly local governance institutions. In recent years, the federal state has elaborated a more ambitious vision for inclusive development. A constitutional amendment pushed for devolution of power to sub-national levels. The poverty-stricken province of Balochistan was the first to move in this direction by creating different tiers of elected local authorities with the aim of stimulating citizen participation and local development. Since 2014, the European Union has worked in the area through a community development programme. Now a successor programme is planned focusing on rural development, community empowerment and support to the provincial government in defining a local development policy. The main implementation challenge will be to avoid relying too much on community dynamics. Rather, the way forward is to foster empowerment of communities through the establishment of a viable system of local governance (with local authorities as prime movers) supported by a coherent local development policy.public financial management systems. These are promising development, yet the formulation of these reforms will be an uphill struggle, given existing political economy conditions and capacity constraints.
A c t i o n s t a k e n
Rural development is one of focal sectors under the European Union’s (EU’s) 2014–2020 Multi-annual Indicative Programme. This priority was included to integrate the structurally poor and backward regions into the mainstream national development agenda. The EU began working in Balochistan in 2014, through, amongst other efforts, a Community Development Programme (EUR 7 million). Considering the ineffectiveness of provincial and local author-ities in terms of delivering development, the theory of change underlying this programme is to take local communities as an alternative venue. Building on the World Bank model of community-driven development, the idea is to put people’s participation and empowerment first through direct engagement with local communities. This is expected to deliver tangible development outcomes while strengthening community organisations.
Initial lessons learnt with this approach (which has also been used in EU programmes in other regions) indicate that community development can have a great impact on strengthening the social cohesion and resilience of community organisations. The focus on achieving local results directly benefiting people is key to mobilising communities. A context-sensitive, flexi-ble, bottom-up approach has the potential to restore trust, broaden participation (especially of women), increase the number of beneficiaries of public services and improve linkages with local government agencies. However, experience also suggests that while programme acceptance by LAs and security forces is critical to making this scheme work, a deeper engagement of local governance institutions is required to ensure sustainability.
Taking inspiration from this, a new EU support effort is in the pipeline, the Balochistan Rural Development and Community Empowerment Programme (EUR 45 million). This new initia-tive puts community mobilisation at its centre, but also seeks to help LAs/governments to partner with communities and to assist the provincial government with the development of a strategic local development policy framework and improved public financial management.
T h e c a t a l y t i c r o l e o f l o c a l a u t h o r i t i e s
In a context like Pakistan’s and Balochistan’s, characterised by policy and institutional fail-ures to provide development and security to citizens, there is much to say for the adoption of a community-driven approach as an alternative pathway to change. However, such an approach can over-emphasise the role of communities in local development at the expense of elected LAs. The latter may be fragile, non-responsive and with poor capacities. Yet experience in many countries clearly shows that sustainable development results cannot be achieved through community-driven initiatives without ensuring political leadership and support from the local public sector. A central tenet of territorial approaches to local devel-opment is the critical role played by LAs in facilitating such a process by elaborating local public policies, empowering communities and mobilising additional resources.
Adopting this broader institutional perspective on local development has major implications for the EU programme in Balochistan.
■ It will be necessary to work on both the demand and supply sides of the service deliv-ery equation, as recognised in the programme’s intervention logic. On the demand side, this implies social mobilisation, capacity building, mechanisms for accountability and civic oversight, as well as a greater voice for the poor. On the supply side, the focus is on empowerment of the newly elected local governments in terms of engagement with cit-izen institutions, capacity building for effective public administration and accountability.
■ LAs will need to be given a more explicit and central role in the local development pro-cess as well as in the policy experimentation the programme aims to support in order to help the Balochistan government formulate a local development policy. This would be consistent with recent changes in the constitutional and legal framework regarding LAs and the decision of provincial authorities to devolve power. It would also respond to the urgent need — for both developmental and security/state-building reasons — to put in place legitimate, effective and accountable LAs that are trusted by the citizens. It may indeed prove very difficult to restore confidence if LAs remain largely an empty shell with limited autonomy and resources. The way forward is to invest in a process of community empowerment through local governments, creating incentives for LAs to become devel-opment actors. The planned grants to communities (through a call for proposals) should be carefully designed in order to reflect this broader vision of LAs as the prime drivers of local development.
■ The focus on empowering communities through the establishment of legitimate and accountable LAs should also inspire formulation of an envisaged strategic policy frame-work on local development by the Balochistan government. This approach is fully in line with the 2013 EU communication on the developmental role of LAs.