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Nascent recovery
THE IMF has expectedly announced a staff-level agreement with Pakistan
following a smooth completion of the first review of the short-term $3bn
bailout package, propping up the already buoyant stock market to a newer
high and cheering up the rupee as the news somewhat lifted pressure on the
exchange rate.

The programme goals and stipulations remain the same as agreed at the time of the
approval of the bridge facility in July. The IMF has also sought greater transparency in
the operations of the Special Investment Facilitation Council and the management of the
assets under the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

The new demand betrays the lender’s concern that the recently constituted body, with
powers to override any policy or decision and recommend fresh legislation to facilitate
the promised investments from the Middle East, could cause distortions in the country’s
investment regime and create a group of preferred investors.

The statement issued by the IMF mission at the end of its visit commended the progress
made by the authorities and improvements in the macroeconomic fundamentals under
the Stand-by Arrangement (SBA), arguing a nascent recovery — anchored by the
stabilisation policies under the SBA, buoyed by the international partners’ support and
signs of improved confidence — is underway.

In the same breath, the Fund has warned Pakistan against potential susceptibility of its
economy to the “significant external risks, including the intensification of geopolitical
tensions (in Gaza), resurgent commodity prices, and the further tightening in global
financial conditions”. It adds that timely disbursement of committed external support
remains critical to support the policy and reform efforts.

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There is no doubt that the feel-good factor has returned in recent weeks if the recent
takeover of the stock market by the bulls and currency appreciation on the back of army-
backed administrative action against illegal dollar trade are any indicators. The headline
inflation is also dropping, though very slowly. Pricing reforms in the energy sector, and a
few baby steps in other areas, are also encouraging.

Nonetheless, the present ‘macroeconomic stability’ is superficial and fragile, only a small
shock away from falling apart. The underlying economic conditions remain stressed.

The import controls and public development spending cuts might have helped the
government meet its fiscal targets and keep the current account deficit in check. Yet it has
suppressed demand and economic activities, led to job losses, and eroded the earnings of
lower- to moderate-income households.

While the recent gains under the SBA need to be consolidated — in spite of the costs to
people — over the next several months as underlined by the IMF and others, the
sustainable reversal of the economic crisis will hinge on a bigger, longer-term IMF
programme, and the return of a democratically elected government with a credible public
mandate to do what needs to be done.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2023

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Rinse, repeat
PAKISTAN’S ‘national’ leadership seems to discover a new eloquence
whenever it sets foot in Balochistan. Every new claimant to the Islamabad
throne comes bearing grandiose solutions to its many problems. But what
has ever come of the big promises that are made to the Baloch people every
few years? Little or nothing, as conditions in the province attest. It is
unfortunate that, in recent years especially, most Baloch lawmakers have
seemed content playing second fiddle to those sitting in cities far away
instead of fighting for their constituents. Their constantly shifting alliances
have come to be seen as a leading indicator of the fate of whoever controls,
or wishes to control, the government at the Centre. What is happening now
suggests that nothing has changed from the past. The PML-N’s top leadership
recently concluded a two-day trip to the province to round up support for
Nawaz Sharif’s bid for a fourth stint as prime minister. Before departing,
they did what all other politicians do to show they ‘care’: they announced
mega development projects and promised, for the umpteenth time, to bring
the province “on a par with Punjab”.

If the past is any indication, these promises will likely be forgotten quickly once the
expediencies of power get in the way. Over the past five-odd years, one of Balochistan’s
more independent leaders, Sardar Akhtar Mengal of the Balochistan National Party, went
first with the PTI and then with the PDM hoping that one of them would have a solution
to the problems his people face. He returned empty-handed both times. The truth is that
no political government at the Centre really has it within its means to address
Balochistan’s ‘real’ issues, like the routine disappearances of Baloch youth and the
widespread disenchantment with the state. Successive leaders have tried to throw money
at what they see as a ‘development problem’ in the hope that this will resolve the
multifarious problems faced by the province. However, given the lack of meaningful

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civilian oversight or control over the province, even such development favours a select
few rather than the people at large. The answer, as always, lies in giving the Baloch people
meaningful representation and the means to resolve their problems themselves. The first
step should be to give sincere leaders more space in the province’s politics. This isn’t too
much to ask for.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2023

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Guarding Thar’s riches

THARPARKAR, often portrayed solely as a region of drought and poverty, is
in fact a reservoir of ecological wealth. A recent study has unveiled the
staggering biodiversity of the region. With over 1,300 animal and 149 plant
species identified — including four in danger — the findings highlight the
urgent need for conservation of the vibrant ecosystem. The region’s flora
and fauna form an integral part of the local ecosystem, contributing to the
overall health of the environment and supporting the livelihoods of the local
communities. To this end, the study’s launch is not just an academic exercise
but a clarion call for action. The collaboration between various stakeholders,
including the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Sindh
Engro Coal Mining Company, and local communities, is commendable and
serves as a model for public-private partnerships in environmental
conservation. The comprehensive approach, encompassing sustainable
practices and community-based initiatives, is particularly noteworthy. The
focus on community involvement in any conservation effort is crucial. The
Thar region’s inhabitants are the primary custodians of its biodiversity.
Their traditional knowledge and practices, when combined with modern
conservation techniques, can create sustainable models of co-existence. This
is not just about preserving wildlife and plants; it’s about safeguarding the
future of the local communities whose lives are intertwined with these
natural resources.

The ecological study, while extensive, is only the beginning. The real challenge lies in
implementing its recommendations. Conservation programmes for endangered species,
seed banks for flora, and sustainable agricultural practices must be prioritised. The Thar
Million Trees Programme, bio-saline agriculture, and vulture conservation efforts are
steps in the right direction, but more needs to be done. For Pakistan, Tharparkar’s

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biodiversity is a national treasure. The responsibility to protect and nurture this treasure
falls on us all — government bodies, private entities, local communities, and international
partners. It’s time to translate research into action and ensure that Tharparkar’s
ecological wealth is preserved for generations to come.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2023

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Talking to children about Gaza

HOW do we talk to our children about what’s happening in Gaza? It’s a
quandary that most parents in Pakistan are confronting as the conflict
continues, one month and approximately 11,000 casualties later. Horrific
images bombard us day and night, on television and through social media.

Children are not unaffected; they listen to their parents’ conversations about the conflict,
they discuss it in their classrooms with their teachers, trying to make sense of it all.

The news outlet NPR has suggested some guidelines for these difficult conversations,
although they leave out assigning blame for the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks of
Oct 7.

It does detail the impact of the war on civilians on both sides, though, and notes that half
of Gaza’s residents are children under 18 years of age. This is bound to make our children
feel worried, not just for the safety of the Gazans, but for themselves.

Parents should be proactive about encouraging conversations with their children about
what’s going on in Gaza. Encouraging them to ask questions rather than expounding on
your own political views is more helpful to them. Children should be taught to be cautious
about everything they’re seeing on the internet, and be told to avoid spreading
disinformation.

They should be spared repetitive viewings of violence on television or social media,

although this is unfortunately difficult to avoid. This can be a good time for you and your
child to learn about the history of the area together, too. Most importantly, children
should be left with a feeling of hope, and the idea that peace and reconciliation is always
possible even in the direst situations.

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The tragedy of Palestine today makes our

children’s scars sting all over again.

This month, the Pakistan Learning Festival took place in Karachi at the Arts Council. The
Pakistan Learning Festival, formerly known as the Children’s Literature Festival, is one of
the most successful literacy and learning festivals in the country.

For the last 12 years, it’s been going all over Pakistan, educating and encouraging
children through storytelling, interactive sessions, direct participation in educational
activities, and having a whole lot of fun. Rumana Husain, a well-known artist and co-
founder of the festival, thought it was a fantastic opportunity to speak to the children
about the Gaza conflict.

She put out a call on Facebook to ask if anyone had access to children’s stories about
Palestine, and named a few books that she’d researched and found suitable. These books
were not available in Pakistan at all, so I decided to help by writing to the publishers and
asking if they would be able to send us a copy for the PLF. I told Rumana that I’d help her
with the session as well if she wanted, and we agreed to hold a joint storytelling session in
English and Urdu.

One publisher responded: Michel Moushabek, of Interlink Books in Massachusetts. The

book Sitti’s Bird: A Gaza Story is a beautifully illustrated children’s book by the
Palestinian artist and illustrator Malak Mattar. Sitti’s Bird is Malak’s own story of her
childhood growing up in Gaza and longing to be an artist. She wrote it at the time of the
second intifada, when Israel bombed Gaza and she and her family could not leave their
home for 50 days. Michel generously sent us a PDF of the book and granted us
permission to use it for our storytelling session.

Rumana Husain made a PowerPoint presentation out of the PDF, and she added a map of
Israel and Palestine so that we could talk about the geography of the countries to the

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children.

On the day of the first session, Rumana made an announcement: “We have to be very
careful that we don’t hate anyone because of their religion or their nationality, whether
they be Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, or any other background. After all, Jews are
People of the Book as well, and there are many Jewish people who are against the
bombing of innocent civilians in Gaza.”

The children listened eagerly to our story; we read each page, first in the original English
followed by Rumana’s explanation/translation in Urdu. I did my best to read the story
dramatically, and the children were rapt as they heard of bombs falling, schools closing,
little Malak’s fear, and her loving relationship with her ‘Sitti’, which means grandmother
in Palestinian and Egyptian Arabic.

On the second day, we read the story again, to a different, smaller audience. As I looked
out at the children in their seats, a group of secondary school girls held up homemade
posters that read ‘Safe Palestine — Free Palestine’ with pictures of the destruction of
various places in Gaza.

We announced that after the end of our story, they could come onto the stage and take a
photograph with us. When they came up to the stage I saw they had put stickers of
Muslim nations on their foreheads — Pakistan, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar — and taped
over their mouths.

They stood beside us in a two-minute silent protest, as one girl held up a poster with the
name of the school they represented, as students and girl guides, in a low-income area of
Malir.

I thought about Rumana’s message of interfaith harmony and how radical it was for a
Pakistani festival. And I thought about the political awareness and agency being
demonstrated by this group of teenaged girls. I thought about how Malak’s dream of
reaching different countries through her art had come true this week. If there’s hope for
Pakistan, I realised, it’s right here.

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The writer is an author.

X:@binashah

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2023

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Understanding suicide
“No one commits suicide because they want to die”… “Because they want to
stop the pain”.

Tiffanie DeBartolo

WHILE late Asim Jamil’s tragic suicide is fresh in minds, it is important to talk about the
phenomenon by way of demystifying and destigmatising it.

I know three people in my life who took their own lives. One had been visibly in a low
mood for some time before he hanged himself. Another, an adolescent, had a fight at
home on some sticky matter and in the evening his body was found on a nearby railway
track.

Suicide, “the deliberate act of killing oneself”, indeed can happen as a premeditated act or
on an impulse. It can happen due to a stressful life situation or because of mental illness.

Sometimes people kill themselves when they reach a dead end in a crisis situation, e.g.
Hitler, and sometimes it runs in the family, for example, the famous writer Earnest
Hemingway had seven members over four generations who took their own lives. There
are also instances of mass suicides. Suicide, hence, is a diverse phenomenon in terms of
its occurrence, reasons and methods.

Mental disorders and suicide are closely related. Systematic reviews inform that up to 70
to 80 per cent of suicide deaths are attributed to a mental or substance use disorder.
Relative risk of suicide in people with depressive disorders is highest followed by bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia.

Psychological autopsy studies have shown that 40pc of suicides in China, 35pc in India,
and 37pc in Sri Lanka are linked with the diagnosis of depression. However, an important

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study published from Pakistan in 2008 by Murad Moosa Khan et al found even stronger
association between mental disorders, especially depression and suicide.

Of the 100 suicides the team studied, 96 were established as having psychiatric disorder
through psychological autopsy and 79 out of these had depression as a principal
diagnosis.

The most common methods of suicide were hanging, followed by poisoning. Firearms
were used in 15pc of these suicides. And only three of these 96 victims were undergoing
treatment, one from a psychiatrist and two from family physicians. These numbers speak
for themselves and reflect the mental health care situation in the country.

Regardless of the causation, the incidence of suicide is increasing the world over.
Globally, around 800,000 people take their own lives every year. Seventy-seven per cent
of these suicides take place in low- and middle-income countries.

Globally, among young people between 15 and 29 years, suicide is now the fourth leading
cause of death, according to WHO. Of all suicide deaths, 58pc occur between the ages of
15-49.

They are patients, not sinners.

There is a generally accepted rule of thumb that for every suicide there are 10
unsuccessful suicidal attempts and for every such attempt there are 100 people who
harbour suicidal thoughts.

According to the estimate of Mental, Neuro­logical and Substance Use Disorders, Burden
of Disease study in Pakistan in 2019, there are 9.77 suicides per 100,000 population,
which comes to around 20,000 suicides per year in the country. Going by the above, there
would be 200,000 attempts and two million people with ideas of suicide.

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These are high numbers. In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, among 22 member
states, Pakistan has the third highest rate of annual suicides after Djibouti and Somalia.

Lately, there have been reports about high rate of suicides from northern areas, especially
in Gilgit-Baltistan and especially among young women. Some researchers have been
probing the causes but until now there is no conclusive inference.

More women are educated than men in the main cities and nearby areas in GB, there are
limited job opportunities and there are strong local traditions for not allowing young
people to exercise their life choices. These and others may be the causes, and it may be
simply that suicides are being reported more in the media from these areas because
similar causes are not less prevalent in many other areas of Pakistan.

Until this point in the article, I have avoided using the word ‘commit’ with ‘suicide’ as
‘commit’ connotes a crime or a sin. There is a history of how suicide has been considered
a crime in different countries. This was the case in Britain until 1961. P

akistan continued with it until Section 325 of the Pakistan Penal Code, a law from 1860
and a colonial legacy, was repealed in May 2022 by the Senate and in October 2022 by
the National Assembly. It was a result of a successful national advocacy and lobbying
campaign, ‘Mujrim Naheen Mareez’ launched by Taskeen Health Initiative, a Karachi-
based not-for-profit working on increasing mental health awareness, providing free-of-
cost mental health support and advocating for mental health policy change in Pakistan.
Taskeen is also an active part of Pakistan Mental Health Coalition, an alliance of more
than 100 members and organisations working to promote mental health.

Under Section 325, suicide was an offence. A person attempting suicide could be
imprisoned for up to one year and could also be fined. The state could take over the assets
of those that committed suicide. This would result in non-reporting, stigmatising and lack
of treatment. The law has changed now and needs to be fully implemented.

Patients with mental disorders, with previous suicidal attempts and suicidal ideation
need special attention. Suicide prevention is critical and complicated and professional

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help must be sought at the right time.

Suicide is also a taboo. Enlightened religious scholars especially need to play an

important role in destigmatising suicide as more than 90pc of people taking their own
lives are actually suffering from mental illnesses. They are patients, not sinners.

The writer is a former SAPM on health, professor of health systems at Shifa Tameer-i-
Millat University, WHO adviser on UHC, and member of the Pakistan Mental Health
Coalition.

Zedefar@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2023

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Celebrating 100
BIRTHDAYS are heart-warming occasions for the newborn’s family. But
when this child’s life journey spans over 100 years, the day becomes a
landmark event, especially if this person has rendered yeoman’s service to
society. That is the case with Mrs Zubeida Dossal who celebrated her 100th
birthday on Oct 15.

As is customary in Canada where Mrs Dossal has lived with her daughter Ismet since
2012, the ‘birthday girl’ received greeting cards from five high-ranking dignitaries,
starting with the governor general. The governor general fulsomely acknowledged her
contributions to wherever she lived. But the real testimony to the countless lives she has
touched came in the form of crowds of her former students who flocked to her home to
pay homage to their beloved teacher.

I feel privileged to have known her, for she was an inspiration given her succinct
knowledge and versatile personality. Whenever we have met — in Karachi or in Canada —
her unassuming demeanour and affectionate behaviour have overwhelmed me. She is
also a ‘fun person’ entertaining her friends with her interesting conversation, her
delightful Scrabble parties and the delicious eats she served.

I have conversed with her for hours on education and the books she has written for
children that reflect her love for nature and the environment.

More than their qualifications, what mattered

were the teachers’ values.

I was curious about her professional secrets that made Habib Girls’ School one of the top-
grade educational institutions in the city. That is how I came to contact Mrs Nargis Alavi,

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who was also the principal of the same school from 2005 to 2018. She describes Mrs
Dossal as her “mentor, guru and a good friend”. Mrs Alavi is herself an excellent
educationist. She tells me that Mohammad Ali Habib, the scion of the Habib family, sent
a message to Mrs Dossal inviting her to help him establish a school for girls. She turned
down the offer, saying she would not like to work for a seth’s school. Friends persuaded
her to at least talk to Habib sahib. She finally accepted his offer on the condition that the
owners would not interfere with the academics while she would stay off the finances. The
arrangement worked. Thereafter, there was no looking back. She retired in 1987.

Mrs Dossal’s first priority was the child, who received a lot of encouragement from her.
That is why the system of recruiting teachers was so crucial to her. More than their
qualifications what mattered to her were their values. She interviewed each teacher
herself and judged her aptitude and temperament. The interview rather than the CV
determined the fate of the teacher. Once recruited, the teachers adopted the school’s
values — mainly, respect for all members of the school, whether a child or an adult, a
guard or a teacher. To ensure that this rule was observed she instituted a strong support
system for the staff so that they could work well, without stress affecting their
performance. Similarly, she engaged regularly with the parents to smooth the way for the
students.

Her firm belief in equity (not equality) for all human beings ensured that no one’s dignity
was hurt. Thus the children of the lower staff were also admitted and treated at par with
the offspring of the rich. She would explain that in this way the chi­ldren who had failed to
pick up cultured mann­erisms at home learnt elegant be­­haviour at school from their
better-endowed classmates. At the same time, the children of the affluent learnt to
understand the hardship of their class fellows who were victims of poverty.

This is possible only if the rules that are drawn up are not cast in stone. They should serve
as guidelines and should be flexible so that no principles are sacrificed.

Mrs Dossal was way ahead of her time. She did not allow any ranking of children as that
has a negative impact on the child, especially those on the lower rung of the ladder.

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Besides, ranking encourages competitiveness that is destroying our society today. Class
sizes and the number of sections were limited in order to ensure that the teachers
recognised their students. She herself knew all the students in the school by name. Small
wonder she has such a vast following of former students ready to run errands for her. Mrs
Alavi is right when she says that the dignitaries who sent her cards on Oct 15 themselves
did not change so many lives personally as Mrs Dossal did.

www.zubeida-mustafa.com

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2023

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Implementing fiscal strategy

THE federal government has rectified what successive governments in
Pakistan had overlooked for many years: announcing a National Climate
Finance Strategy to help mainstream climate change in national
policymaking processes.

The NCFS has raised the bar of Pakistan’s ambition and committed to reorient the
portfolios of key national institutions for climate finance, enable innovative instruments,
secure carbon credits and accreditation with global climate funds.

Building resilience to climate disasters for reducing economic costs for the economy is
one of four objectives of the ongoing $3 billion Stand-by Arrangement with the IMF. The
NCFS is expected to create some badly needed fiscal space while bu­­i­lding resilience.

The World Bank and IMF had earlier indicated that development and climate financing
may not flow to Pakistan in future un­­le­ ­ss national investments were aligned with
Climate-Public Investment Management Assess­ment. The C-PIMA is derived from the
IMF’s time-tested PMIA used as a yardstick or conditionality for disbursements. This will
hopefully help the government identify potential improvements in public investment
institutions and processes to build a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy.

The C-PMIA will be accomplished through a newly minted Sustainable Finance Bureau,
again at the Planning Commission, to ‘revolutionise’ climate finance. It is expected that
the SFB will reorient 20 per cent of the new PSDP schemes during FY 2023-24,
amounting to Rs925bn.

These proj­ec­ ts will qualify Pakistan, it is hoped, for concessional finances and help it
meet targets set in the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and the Nation­ally Determined
Contributions (NDCs). Both NAP and NDCs reflect Pakistan’s sovereign commitm­ents, as

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part of the Paris Agreement, submitted to the secretariat of the climate change
convention.

Has Pakistan revised its construction

standards to reduce climate risks and costs?

The government plans to invest in resilience though 4RF (Resilient Recovery,

Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Framework that was developed after the 2022
floods), recently updated 4th NFPP (National Flood Protection Plan), and by developing
sectoral priorities.

The blueprint of NCFS has not furnished details, but the sectoral priorities will be derived
from the National Clim­a­te Change Policy and NAP. These will presumably be developed
by the sectoral ministries and departments.

In order to meet the IMF conditionalities, the policymakers have packaged many ongoing
endeavours and cobbled them together to meet the IMF demands. If successful, it will
reflect the ‘whole-of-government’ approach that is mentioned in several national and
provincial policies but seldom translated into action. The progress on NCFS will be
reviewed early next year under five heads already given in the C-PIMA: climate-smart
planning, inter-ministerial coordination, appraisal and selection of projects, budgeting
and portfolio management, and risk management.

While the government has announced its commitment, how will it create synergy to
ensure its timebound implementation? The fiscal strategy has committed that all projects
will have new templates for project concept notes, and technical feasibility studies across
the planning documents to completion certificates.

This will require the Planning Commission to revise PC-I to PC-V in order to ensure that
public sector projects also map climate risks and respond to adaptation, mitigation, and

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their development co-benefits, and the finance ministry to adopt mechanisms to track all
its climate-related expenditures.

This necessitates brass-tracking on multiple fronts, particularly: i) getting SFB off the
ground, ii) notifying templates for climate-smart PSDP projects, iii) initiating
expenditure tracking and, finally, iv) putting in place an entire ecosystem that includes
carbon trading policy, carbon inventory and its digitalisation, and the required
monitoring and validation systems.

Meaningful progress on these will serve as precursors for the two urgent objectives of the
NCFS: accessing concessional finances and leveraging private sector investments.

Pakistan’s failure to access international climate finance at scale is often attributed to

relatively limited technical capacity of the focal ministry. Instead of understanding the
deeper reasons, many ministries and provincial departments have begun to set up
specialised units to lure climate finance rather than embedding resilience in their sectoral
policies and projects.

These lacunae in governance are confusing for everyone, starting from policymakers,
multilateral and bilateral development partners and their governments, to private sector
investors and citizens. The NCFS will hopefully bring some discipline to this mayhem.

Underneath this veneer of macro-level commitments are deep layers of needed structural
and institutional reforms. The IMF is a new entrant in Pakistan’s climate change space
and it is still in the process of defining its standards and procedures.

By way of example, its term ‘climate-aware infrastructure’ has not been defined and
adopted by Pakistan, let alone implementing it on the ground. In the 2022 floods, except
for $12,969 million losses incurred in agriculture, the major amo­unt of $30bn losses were
infrastructural damages in housing, education, health, roads, transmission lines, and so
on. Has Pakistan revised its construction standards to reduce climate risks and costs?

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The IMF can take comfort in setting the direction for Pakistan’s long journey towards
resilience and tick the right boxes to enable the release of the second tranche early next
year. Alternatively, the interim government can set a realistic roadmap that balances
reform-averse government machinery, urgency of climate action, and the desperate need
to build upon the Stand-by Arrangement.

Since the second IMF review in 2024 will cover five interrelated domains (planning,
coordination, projects, budgeting and portfolio management, and risk management), it is
imperative that finance strategy implementation is synchronised by trespassing silos
within which the ministries often operate.

The NCFS is designed as an inter-ministerial and multisectoral document that would, out
of necessity, require ‘whole-of-government’ approach, and that is not possible without
exercising convening power.

After all, climate finance is a function of climate governance and climate diplomacy at
COP28. Both will need to work in tandem and to leverage one to maximise the other. This
will require the NCFS to have its own dedicated secretariat to oversee its realisation
rather than leaving it to chance.

The writer is an expert on climate change and development.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2023

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