In order to understand the climate change and its impact on health and population, pragmatic and relevant research needs to be conducted especially in the local context of Pakistan.
LEAD Pakistan in collaboration with the David & Lucile Packard Foundation hosted a national conference "Leadership in Reproductive Health and Sustainable Development: Linking Research with Policy" here on Wednesday with the purpose to build a cache of new and innovative research ideas and policy recommendations for bridging the research and policy making gap in the field of Reproductive Health & Population, Health & Climate Change.
The conference was attended by multi-sectoral experts who discussed future research areas in the field of CC and Health and debated upon ways and mechanisms to incorporate research findings to improve policy making process. The goal of this discussion was to bridge the gap between policy and research, ensuring that relevant research which benefits the grassroots communities.
Ahmed Rafay Alam (Lawyer/Activist), one of key speakers, said Pakistan was facing extreme weather events such as frequent disasters such as floods, extreme stress on water and food security, salt water intrusion, degradation of ecosystems and climate change induced migration.
The climate change threats in Pakistan are well-documented in the climate change policy but devolution has significantly affected the implementation of this policy. The provinces are not only unclear of what to do, but they lack the capacity as well. Climate Change Ministry is now a small division suffering from financial crunch and institutions like CDA, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Food Security and Research to whom power has been given are confused about their priorities, roles and responsibilities.
He cited the example of 2010-2013 floods and mentioned that even though the metrological department of Pakistan has forecasting models, but there was need for coherent system of information flow from the Met department to relevant provincial line departments. "This is not a failure of policy, but it is a failure of governance. The past floods and their management revealed cracks in institutions and systems."
Bringing attention to the lack of HMIS (Health Management Information System), he shared that 30 percent of the healthcare in Pakistan was provided by public facilities, but a major portion was being catered by private institutions. The HMIS is almost non-existent in the public sector and the private sector also has a dismal record. In order to forecast diseases, one needs a proper HMIS system so that policy decisions can be taken based on facts, evidence and proper information. He recommended that every department of the provincial government should have a climate change cell with a focal person and allotted budget/resources for co-ordination with other departments, which should be linked to PDMA, NDMA and local government.
Dr Qamar Zaman, Deputy Regional Director Asia, Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) & Senior Advisor LEAD Pakistan on Climate Change Programme, mentioned even though devolution had made the implementation of the climate change policy difficult, but policy makers especially the new policy makers need time to adjust to the new system of governance, taking time to realise climate change as their priority. Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, CEO LEAD Pakistan spoke about the research challenges and barriers in Pakistan. He mentioned the lack of research on CC and explained that there were no baselines or surveys that could be made a point of reference, even provincial universities lacked information and even if there was relevant information, there were no proper mechanisms of sharing information with one another.
Ali Hasnain, Manager, WWF emphasised that the scientific and development community was not doing enough to get the attention of the government on climate change. "In order to engage with policy makers we need to simplify the terms used to explain CC and its concepts. Research can only guide us in the right direction, but political will is needed for concrete changes."