Speakers at a conference on Tuesday said that multiple crises in the West, daunting poverty and other challenges at home, emerging need to have smooth economic and trade relations with the East needs paradigm shift for sustainable development in South Asia.
Half of the world's poverty-stricken population is living in Asia, which needs to redefine its approach towards poverty reduction, they said, adding that co-operation in all spheres of socio-economic activity needs a redefined regional approach. They were speaking at the inaugural session of 14th Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) 'Re-defining Paradigms of Sustainable Development in South Asia' organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
Dr Sabina Alkire of Oxford University's Poverty and Human Development Initiative stressed to measure the level of poverty, taking into account the deprivations and felt needs of the poor. She shared the salient findings of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2011 with particular reference to South Asia, earlier launched by UNDP Human Development Report Office.
According to the MPI-2011, half of Pakistani population is poor and the country needs to adopt multidimensional poverty reduction approach, besides addressing the psycho-social needs of the people like education, health and living standards that 82.7 million MPI poor face.
Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar said that all South Asian nations have common history and share future. "Instead of spending our energies on conflicts, we should cooperate, as it will benefit all countries in the region, particularly in the realm of poverty alleviation."
He regretted that the regional states remained dependent and adopted the policy of looking towards the West for development without knowing that where it (West) wants to go. "The time has come that we must chalk out a policy of looking at the East which is a viable tool for regional economic co-operation."
About MFN status to India and Sino-Pak joint ventures, he called for further bolstering partnership among the regional countries which would enable them to resolve the looming economic challenges. Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, SDPI Executive Director, launched the SDC-2010 Anthology, 'Peace and Sustainable Development in South Asia: The Way Forward'. He said that prevalent development paradigms in developed world have not been able to take care of the current generations, "what to talk of future generations".
He said the conference would help in analysing whether the perception of West is relevant, financially viable and capable of meeting the demands of people at grass-roots level or none of these factors helped in getting out of the underdevelopment net. In the session on 'Livelihood options in conflict affected situations', Dr Babar Shahbaz of Faisalabad University said that lack of awareness is one of the major factors that goes unnoticed when it comes to identifying the reasons of low socio-economic development in Pakistan.
Sri Lankan representative Gayarthi Lokuge, giving examples of grass-roots poverty in her country, said that rivalries among ethnic groups was a major cause of non-co-operation in the fishermen community and can be tackled if the government provides a working support system to them.
Richard Mallet of UK, Dr Ashfaq Hasan Khan, Pakistani economist and Safal Ghimire of Nepal, highlighted use of information technology to increase awareness about livelihood options in the region. During the session on 'Literature in South Asia: building bridges through fact and fiction', Ameena Hussein, writer and publisher, Sri Lanka, Sushma Joshi, writer and film-maker, Nepal, Ayesha Salman of SDPI, Harris Khalique human rights activist and development practitioner, said the literature works as a means of expanding minds and providing deep insights on social and political issues that must be expressed to attain the greater goal of human development.
During the session on 'Analysis of land rights situation in Pakistan' jointly organised by Mehnaz Ajmal Paracha, of Oxfam GB and chaired by MNA Sharmila Farooqi, Nasar Hayat, Independent consultant, Fatteh Marri, researcher and Zulfiqar Shah of Institute of Social Movement gave their expert insights.
They said that land right issues in Pakistan are directly linked to poverty, food insecurity, unsustainability and social unrest. The size of land and productivity, judicious access and supply of water resources are equally important with the land rights. The experts agreed that the last three land reforms in Pakistan did not comprehensively address all paradigms of land ownership issues and there was a dire need of formulation of National Land Policy and defining the land reforms contextually. The effective land reforms with judicial land distribution system were considered to be an answer to the prevailing challenges in the country.