'Pakistan is not short of talented, top quality technocrats and administrators,' Head of DFID Pakistan

George Turkington is Head of Pakistan Office for the UK's Department for International Development. He is leading the Department's largest development programme in any country, with a budget of £1.3 billion until March 2015. Prior to this, George was Head of Office in DFID Uganda, and has previously managed programmes for DFID across Africa and Asia, particularly in Somalia, Ethiopia, Cambodia and Nepal.
BR Research: What is the development perspective of DFID towards Pakistan?
George Turkington: It's really an exciting time for DFID to be in Pakistan. Pakistan is a priority for UK's aid and assistance programmes. Over the next four years, our development programme in Pakistan is going to double, potentially becoming the largest DFID programme globally. This is going to be great for the countries and the peoples of Pakistan and the UK.
People outside Pakistan think that the glass is half empty. However, the international community based in Pakistan sees the glass as half full, with the potential to fill up the rest. If you are a development professional, Pakistan is where you want to work because the country has huge potential. In my development experience, the most talented people I have worked with are the Pakistanis. I have found Pakistani diplomats to be the best negotiators. Pakistan is not short of talented, top quality technocrats and administrators. The current economic team is very accomplished, and the country's bureaucratic system is capable of getting things done.
BRR: What is the current level of assistance and what are the kinds of programmes you are running in Pakistan?
GT: Primary and secondary education is our flagship programme in Pakistan. It's a priority that has to be addressed because more than 50 percent of adult Pakistanis cannot read or write. There are challenges of population growth; young people are going to need jobs, for which they need education. Almost half of our fresh resources will be devoted towards that. We aim to support up to 4 million Pakistani kids in primary schools.
We are also working on health, particularly in the area of health services for women and issues in the maternal and new-born health. Pakistan has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths, and we are working to reduce that. Besides the basic services, we also have a strong programme to support growth and jobs. We hope to provide microfinance to some 1.5 million borrowers over the next five years, preferably to women.
We have been helping Pakistan with the development of its growth strategy. We are also looking at how we can provide social protection in Pakistan. We are looking at economic development opportunities in Southern Punjab. We are also working on a whole set of issues to promote good governance. We are working with the civil society on the capability agenda, how to build relations between the communities and the state. Our programmes for microfinance and financial inclusion, and our partnership with the State Bank are also very encouraging.
We have had good progress and we are able to demonstrate that with good results.
BRR: Why does the DFID not fund higher education programmes in Pakistan?
GT: The challenge is to cater to the primary education first, because of the huge incidence of illiteracy. Having primary education would mean children have the opportunity to move up to the secondary education. Moreover, awareness will also increase with basic education.
BRR: Please tell us more about the vocational training programme?
GT: We are working with the Punjab Economic Opportunities Programme. One component of the programme is the livestock sector, helping the farmers in Punjab increase the yields of their livestock. The other component is vocational training. It's a partnership between the government and the private sector. The private sector is being encouraged to come forward and conduct trainings for young people. Firms from the engineering, health and hotel sectors are now training the people who are going to have the skills for jobs in these sectors.
The programme is still in its first year. We are trying to train 180,000 kids. The Punjab government is matching the DFID's grant, and allowing the private sector to make decisions.
BRR: How has your experience been working with the provinces?
GT: DFID has made a fantastic start in education, working in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Our ambition is to get our education programme on a national level. We started with a strong focus in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa because we have long-standing institutional relationships with the governments of these provinces. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the education plan for next five years is a really good planning document that we think we can work with. In Punjab, the Chief Minister is really pushing the education reforms forward, something which other provinces can look at. It is important that the provinces keep speaking to each other and share their experiences.
BRR: What challenges do you have to confront while pushing for your programmes?
GT: The UK is currently going through a period of economic challenges, and the budget for public health and education has been cut significantly. So, there is a huge focus on value for money, optimum results and effectiveness for assistance to developing countries in these crunch times. There is a huge focus that the money gets to the beneficiaries and corruption doesn't get in the way of that.
There are a number of challenges in Pakistan. Pakistan is significantly off-track from the progress on MDGs of maternal health, food security, gender and education. Getting Pakistan on-track for the MDGs by 2015 is a big challenge. There are a number of institutional challenges, too. To provide education to all, Pakistan needs to have resources for it. Pakistan is under-investing in education, with the education budget being just 2 percent of the GDP, lagging behind the region. The health budget is even less than that.
There needs to be more investment in the social sector. And it's not about putting more money; this has to be a result-oriented effort with effectiveness and efficiency. A lot of money presently goes to teachers' salaries, but teaching and learning conditions need to improve. Those are the kind of challenges we are working in Pakistan with.
Responding to the Malakand IDP crisis and the 2010-11 floods devastation was challenging. The UK response to the floods was the single largest ever in the UK humanitarian response anywhere in the world. We managed to help millions of families with food, shelter, sanitation and water. That was indeed a tense time for the people of Pakistan, and I think it was also a tense time for the DFID office to manage such a large response to the super crisis. I must say that the recovery from the two floods has been really impressive.
BRR: Do you see Pakistan entering a new IMF programme in the next six months?
GT: That's something that the government of Pakistan and the IMF have to decide. But clearly, there are a number of economic challenges for Pakistan that it needs to get to grips with. First, Pakistan has got huge potential, not being tapped currently; with the population growth rate projections Pakistan needs to be growing at 7-8 percent per annum to create jobs for this fast-growing, young population: The current growth is not sufficient. Secondly, Pakistan's investment in the social sector is clearly not enough to meet the MDGs. More needs to be done on social protection nets. We know that meeting these challenges with a tax to GDP ratio of ten percent is not possible.
Moreover, the industry is not getting power and energy. It looks like there will be an election in twelve months, and it would be great to have these sorts of issues become a part of political narrative and debate in the run-up to the elections. I think people know what the solutions are! But, there has to be a political consensus for them to be implemented.
BRR: What is your perspective on how this much-needed political consensus can be achieved?
GT: Everybody knows what the problems are: pretty much everybody knows what the solutions are! It's not difficult to fix the tax collection system or address the problems in the energy sector. But, some of the political economy is into those issues, which makes it challenging. The way these issues can be resolved is by having public debate about them. There is no magic trick fix cure, you can't fix things in a week, and you need a long-term plan to do that.
The political consensus is really important, because the will for reforms is needed to drive the future growth agenda. Some things have to be so fundamental, like fixing the economy, that there's got to be some broad consensus on the answers to the issues. I'm really hoping that there will at least be some debate in the future about such issues.