Human Development is a "Process of Enlarging Choices". Pakistan that stands 140th in the index of human development, needs to address the situation not only as a priority but as a matter of "National Security".
Late Dr Mahboob-ul-Haq who was the pioneer of human development efforts in Pakistan once said that economic growth is essential but without paying equal attention to its quality and distribution and establishing strong links to human lives on sustainable basis, development in real sense can't be achieved.
The challenge in education, health and social sectors in Pakistan were never viewed in their holistic sense, which, if combined, leads to human development in the country.
Low education attainment level, poor health coverage, exclusion of masses due to rising poverty and lack of integrated cohesive multi sectoral approach are few major challenges that need to be addressed.
By the year 2004 the literacy rate of Pakistan is estimated at 54% and the gross enrolment of children at primary level is 86% in 2004-2005, whereas net enrolment rate according to economic survey of Pakistan is 54%.
However, it is a bitter fact that 50% of enrolled children get dropped out from school before completing primary education, out of which majority is of girls. The health indicators are also not very encouraging.
The majority of Pakistan's population that lives in rural areas is subjected to very high infant and maternal mortality rates as 76% deliveries take place at home. The disease incidence in rural areas is preventive in nature and requires only change in mind set.
If we look into the details of education sector in the country the future looks bleak as according to the Ministry of Population Welfare assessment, 813,000 primary teachers will be required besides 1,000 additional teachers for college level and 155,000 teachers for elementary sector by year 2010, and the additional net expenditure in education sector will rise from current level of Rs 21 billion to Rs 47 billion. Similarly the country will require 175,000 additional doctors and 40,000 additional nurses with additional expenditure of Rs 14 billion in health sector by year 2010.
This is a mammoth task that lies ahead and it seems rather impossible that the government alone will be able to meet this challenge. In order to build the human capabilities through investment in education and health and using those capabilities fully through an enabling framework for growth and employment, the government established National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) in July 2001 as a federal statutory body.
NCHD is a fast track initiative to improve social sector outcomes at the grass roots and to act as a catalyst organisation along with existing ministries to fill the implementation gaps and improve the public sector delivery mechanism thus achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through universal primary education, adult literacy, gender empowerment programme, reducing population growth rate, improving infant and maternal mortality and capacity building at grass roots.
Dr Nasim Ashraf, the Chairman and Minster of State who heads this initiative directly links human development with national security, as limited human development leads to human deprivation resulting in our present emerging crisis of poverty, hunger, disease and persisting disparities, leading to security issues in many countries of the world.
The NCHD's challenge is multidimensional in nature. It has to meet 6 out of 8 targets laid by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015.
Pakistan is signatory of the Millennium Declaration beside 189 countries of the world. NCHD through, a federal statutory body, is a three-way partnership between the Government of Pakistan, philanthropists, UNDP and other international development partners, linking public sector delivery with community needs.
Shaukat Aziz, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who is also amongst the board of founding directors of NCHD, at the inaugural ceremony of International Conference on Volunteers and MDGs held in Islamabad in December 2004, endorsed the government's commitment towards the achievement of MDGs and showed the government's resolve in supporting NCHD's mandate through all possible efforts.
In order to improve the social deliveries National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) has scaled up its programmes to 53 districts of four provinces including AJK, FATA and FANA in the short span of three years.
With numerous success stories and the programmes popularity and acceptance at grass roots, it will be further expanded to 33 additional districts in the year 2005-2006 and the remaining districts will be covered in the year 2006-2007.
As a top national priority NCHD launched its universal primary education (UPE) programme.
This programme is based on full mobilisation of communities to support the teachers in enrolling "every child in school" and preventing school drop outs. These activities include enrolment drives and drop out prevention through involvement of teachers, parents, volunteers, use of media campaigns and motivation of influential of the society.
Through these innovative partnerships NCHD has been able to add value to the education department and has ensured ownership and sustainability of programme at grass roots thus succeeding in enrolling 1.5 million previously out of school children (age 5-7 years) in primary schools in 17 districts of Pakistan at a cost of less then $5 per child per year. NCHD's intervention has reduced the dropout rate from 37% to 8%.
This success was certainly not possible without the involvement of 43,000 strong volunteers who participated in UPE activities through social mobilization process at grass roots in door to door registration campaigns.
Functional literacy is the desired outcome, primarily to empower the marginalized segments of society, specially the women.
To fight the menace of illiteracy, NCHD has established 9,100 adult literacy centres in 53 districts of Pakistan where 113,458 learners, out of which 86% are female, have been made literate in the age group of 15-39 years.
NCHD implements its literacy programme in partnership with provincial education department involving motivated teachers within community. The specific objective of NCHD's literacy programme is to achieve 86% literacy rate by 2015 as per education for all (EFA) plan of the Government of Pakistan. Praful Patel the Vice President, South Asia Region, World Bank during his visit to Attock district was highly impressed to see the NCHD development model.
He said "now there is a model where with the involvement of the community, you can build schools where no government schools are available". NCHD is playing a critical role in mobilising the communities to establish and own such feeder schools. It is heartening to know that with present pace and availability of sources the literacy target of 85% can be achieved by 2011, through two pronged strategy of UPE and adult literacy programmes.
High infant and maternal mortality rates is also a serious challenge in Pakistan. Three out of eight MDGs relate directly to health. NCHD's health programmes are designed to improve community perception towards health and preventable diseases.
These interventions seeks to establish local health needs, restructure services of local health facilities and then meet these needs by building and utilising local resources. The NCHD Primary Health Care extension programme is being implemented in those areas where the federal lady health workers programme (LHW) has not reached.
It has also far provided door to door service to 1.1 million people in 13 districts of Pakistan under which 76,498 children under the age of two have been immunised and 1.5 million women have been trained in ORS preparation and over 300,000 women and children have been vaccinated at a cost of just. $1.10per beneficiary.
WHO has identified ORS solution as the single most life saving drug of 21st century and it is NCHD's objective to train at least one woman per household in the target districts in preparation of home made ORS, NCHD has plans to train 8.3 million women in 45 additional districts of the country in the next 3 years.
After gauging NCHD's success the provincial government now seems to have more confidence in NCHD's health programmes. The Punjab government has, therefore, signed a MoU with NCHD to help strengthen and restructure the primary health care system of BHUs and RHCs.
The Federal Ministry of Health and NCHD have also agreed to jointly train community birth attendants in 10 districts in phase-I. The programme will later be expanded to cover all districts of Pakistan.
The project aims at providing at lest two skilled birth attendants in each union council to address the issue of infant and maternal mortality.
Beside health and education NCHD views volunteerism as the biggest untapped potential in Pakistan.
Volunteerism has rich and deep roots in our culture and religion, yet most of the development programmes in Pakistan lack community participation. Volunteerism for community development (VCD) is a cross cutting programme for other NCHD interventions. With an aim of raising a corps of 100,000 volunteers across the country the volunteerism programme of NCHD takes a broader view of community development.
So far under its volunteers programme NCHD has identified 78,000 volunteers who have supported local education department in enrolling 1.5 million new children in schools and has acted as a force multiplier in attaining the objectives.
The NCHD capacity building intervention has also worked out well. The programme aims at capacity development of the district government department and officials, elected representatives and civil society organisations (CSOs). The programme fosters a nurturing and conducive environment at the district level for the human development initiatives to be internalised.
So far more then 500 district government officials have been trained on planning and budgeting in 26 districts. NCHD has also provided training to 520 participants in 35 different citizen community boards of the country.
Inspired by NCHD model the UNDP invited a 20 member high level Chinese delegation led by Hu Deping, vice President/Secretary General Guangca and vice minister of Chinese communist Party from 28th March to 04th April 2005. The Chinese studied the model for its emulation in China, which was by no means a small success and appreciation of NCHD efforts under its able leadership.
The government must support this unique initiative that stands above all political difference so that projected targets of human development could be achieved in the stipulated time frame.
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