"If you are planning for one year, plant rice. If you are planning for ten years, plant trees. If you are planning for 100 years, plant people," so goes an ancient Indian proverb.
But too bad, the maxim doesn shed light on what you should plant if you are planning to hold a hyped-up Friends of Democratic Pakistan Forums investment moot in Dubai. Perhaps, ensuring that your event manager is a thorough professional and so are you.
Sadly, however, this wasn the case in this weeks FoDP moot. News reports suggest that it was an opportunity squandered - no thanks to a delayed start and a bad set of presentations that reportedly failed to provide investors a systematic reasoning as regards why they should invest in Pakistan.
But is this the only reason why the friends haven yet invested or decided to invest anything substantial? Answering with a big NO to the posed question, some blame the uninspiring results yielded by FoDP so far to the security threats and the overall law and order situation, while others put it on corruption.
Since, the whole idea behind the setting up of this forum was to help Pakistan wiggle out of crises; the notion of security issues can be easily dismissed. But, corruption! Now that can be a problem.
Although, at the time of pledging their status as friends, the leaders of these countries knew very well as to how pervasive corruption is in Pakistan, recent reports coming out from the capital - though some officially denied so far - may have raised some eyebrows.
These include Asian Development Banks recent criticism over rental power projects, while highlighting the changes in clauses after the announcement of the tender in a way that seemed to favour one party over another.
On top of this, the recurring reports about Finance Minister Shaukat Tarins resignation over certain issues may have also raised concerns. Although, these reports have been officially rebuffed, they are, nonetheless, enough to dampen confidence - just like the oft-denied rumours of President Musharraf before his actual exit.
As for the FoDP commitments, there is one small question for the authorities: does making commitments directly to the IMF construe a legal binding?