Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) now account for the major share of employment in Pakistan. At the same time, the rate of unemployment remains high and a substantial proportion of the population suffers from absolute poverty amidst increasing inequality between the rich and the poor.

Given this context, the making of social and economic policy rests on two main responses. As expected, the responses echo the broader tension between development and growth (or between human and state security).

First of these responses -- the older one -- stresses public action for right to decent work. This demands at least an equal importance to expanding opportunities for decent work, along with employment creation and economic growth. The alternate response, the neo-liberal one, is a market-based approach which places the priority on employment through growth.

This paper reviews donor positions on job creation. This is important because the government is highly indebted and therefore leans heavily for advice on the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The International Labour Organization (ILO) provides the main counterpoint to policy advice by the two banks. Its position is, therefore, contrasted with that of the banks.

The government policies are framed by the ADB and the WB, through technical assistance and other lending programmes. Specific policy directions are also given in other country documents, such as the concept paper for the labour policy study, under preparation at the WB. Broader policy frameworks are given in other documents, such as the Social Protection Strategy of the ADB, and A Better Investment Climate by the WB.

The Asian Development Bank

The ADB contributes the major share of external financing to Pakistan. This alone makes it necessary to review its positions and assistance to understand the specific directions of state policy towards labour issues.

Bank policy for interventions in labour issues is spelt out in its Social Protection Strategy. According to the bank, employment creation is one strategy for poverty reduction, social insurance is another.

Employment generation remains the bank's priority. As a consequence of the bank's ideology, rapid market-led growth is a prerequisite for poverty reduction, with income redistribution only coming second to it. Improving labour remuneration is seen to follow from higher labour and enterprise productivity -- that is current shares of labour and capital in productivity are taken as a given.

The ADB, however, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the ILO to respect and promote core labour standards. Since the signing of MoU, the bank has called for promoting decent work environment, which even for the bank includes minimum wages, social security, etc, but generally with the caveat that such aspects of social insurance should not reduce progress towards efficient labour markets which slow down growth. This is perhaps a reason for the bank not seriously acting upon its own requirement that the users of bank funds must comply comprehensively with core labour standards.

The bank's research group has focused on labour issues in its annual report, Key Indicators. The report stresses that the goal of full employment must be include decent work environment which requires "time bound, feasible, credible, and measurable strategies (in) development plans." The bank draws attention to the fact that while "countries have achieved very high output and productivity growth rates, corresponding employment growth rates are far lower."

Quite radical for the ADB, its research group argues that under a wage-led regime -- a regime under which an increase in the share of labour leads to an increase in aggregate demand -- wage increases need not lead to decreases in employment... (hence) the challenge for policy makers is how to translate increases in productivity into higher real wages and aggregate demand." It then cautions against thinking that promoting flexibility is "a panacea for labour markets."

A cross-country study leads it to the conclusion that, in general, labour market regulations governing hiring and firing and minimum wage laws are not the binding constraint on employment generation. "This conclusion undermines the case for across-the-board labour market reforms... If labour market reforms represent only one piece -- and not the key one -- of the problem of creation of productive jobs...(and in particular for generating rapid growth of 'good' jobs), where should policy makers focus their efforts to meet the objectives of full and productive employment?"

Yet, the country advice that the bank come up with is quite opposite from what the research group suggests.

Small & medium enterprise (SME) growth is supported by the bank as a general strategy for rapid employment creation in countries such as Pakistan with high unemployment and under-employment. The ADB has, therefore, given loans and grants to emphasise SME growth strategies.

The initiatives the bank sponsors and supports include Small & Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) for developing an SME policy that includes a favourable regulatory environment for growth. The government will surely take the emphasis upon simplification and rationalising of labour laws and regulations as a signal for diluted labour legislation and even weaker implementation in SMEs, that is, for the vast majority of the existing and new jobs. Amendments to labour legislation in the Finance Bill 2006 are evident of this trend.

But no concrete targets are laid down by the ADB for progress in decent work environment goals, not even for job creation in a programme loan for SMEs. There is also no serious linkage established between optimistic targets for growth-led poverty reduction with weak redistributive policies, including the virtual absence of labour protection. It is, therefore, likely that the bank operations continue to ignore its public commitment to ILO which states that the "ADB in Pakistan is undertaking specific interventions to protect and advance labour rights".

But this general commitment gets diluted when applied to specific sectors. For instance, the bank says: "Exporters will be required to certify that they are in compliance with Pakistan labour laws in order to be eligible for financing" from a bank-created fund. But since the scope of compliance is not spelt out, eligibility will be no problem for an exporter who relies upon semi-finished materials produced elsewhere under conditions of work that violate core labour standards. As another example, reliance on schemes for self-assessment for social security and virtually no labour inspections is part of a loan provided to Punjab. The results so far offer no grounds to believe that reduction in 'harassment' of the businessmen has led to more ethical employers. Curiously, the loan 'assumptions' of programme success make no reference to workers or even of government inclination towards labour rights. But, of course, there is an explicit reference to "effective representation of private sector" in policy and implementation.

A very recent study done by the Lahore University of Management Studies (LUMS) for the ADB (SME Development in Pakistan: Analysing the Constraints to Growth) does not support the bank's position of labour regulations being a serious constraint upon growth of small enterprises. As is expected, other constraints including credit are the ones that worry enterprise owners the most.

In marketing employment creation through minimum regulatory constraints in Pakistan, the bank does not wish to appear being unconcerned with high (and growing) deficits in decent work environment. While sleepless nights are not possible, there must be some disquiet at the bank that head count figures for poverty in Pakistan may continue to be largely unaffected despite accelerated assistance. Hence the SME funding includes a Labour Protection Policy and a Labour Inspection Policy, including revisions of the Factory Act. SMEDA has begun arranging 'consultative workshops' for these policies but is not sharing their drafts widely. Neither is it seriously engaging with owners and workers of small enterprises. The bank will also fund a separate study for developing a "comprehensive and coordinated plan for social protection development", including a feasibility study for health insurance (to begin with Punjab).

In summary, the most intriguing thing about the ADB is the coming together of a perceptive description of the problem but with an advocacy for neo-liberal solutions.

The World Bank

Lagging behind the ADB in funding, the World Bank nevertheless remains a significant (and for some the key) influence upon economic and social policy in Pakistan.

Relative to the ILO and even the ADB, the World Bank position on labour reforms remains conservative -- efficiency of markets should take precedence over (or is the route to) social justice for people. Hence, worker remuneration and working conditions are seen as the economic price that impedes or facilitates existing labour markets.

The WB's annual World Development Report sets out its policy. Lucid in expression, the WB states that "all institutional structures affect the distribution of assets, incomes and costs," or that "institutions determine how resources are allocated and who has rights over resources". But what is then important for the WB (and hence the client governments) is primarily the impacts upon "the incentive of market participants and the efficiency of market transactions". Hence the limited policy prescription: "by distributing rights to the most efficient agent, institutions can enhance productivity and growth".

For the WB, labour regulations mostly impede adjustments in labour markets when flexibility is necessary due to increased competition in product markets. Most regulations are then seen to result in larger unemployment or higher informal employment where regulations are weaker.

According to the WB, reforms can produce "a vibrant and dynamic private sector...for new job creation, technological change that raises labour productivity and wages...especially when labour market regulations are not onerous and do not inhibit adjustment". The way to achieve all this is through "lifting the heavy hand of regulation, especially on the small businesses that often provide the poor with employment".

This single-minded focus, however, does not deter the WB from cautioning that "the benefits of deregulating labour markets should not be overstated. Often labour market regulations are not well enforced, especially in the informal sector, so relaxing them would have little effect on employment opportunities for poor people".

But this caution aside, it is quite unlike the WB to suggest "promoting core labour standards" as a way of sharing the benefits of general economic reforms with poor people, or proposing that "core labour standards" (are the) minimum framework for a sound labour market. This becomes explicable with the qualification that while "these standards are important, worthy targets for economic development...there is no consensus regarding the best way to achieve the labour conditions envisaged by these core standards."

All said, if the countries want the blessings of the WB for doing nothing, they can refer to the Washington prescription which says "simply adopting core labour standards will not guarantee their realization."

The thrust of the B information, analysis and advice is "that labour regulations can be a major or severe constraint on firm operations...some curtailment of incentives can be justified by social goals. But ill-conceived approaches can exacerbate poverty by contributing to unemployment and swelling the size of the informal and unprotected economy". The government should, therefore, "encourage wage adaptability, ensure (that) workplace regulations reflect a good institutional fit, (and) balance workers' preference for employment stability with firms' need to adjust the workforce."

Only grudgingly is attention paid to informal economy -- that too not by extending legislative protection but rather by special schemes such as workfare (with praise for countries that offer public work for less than official minimum wage) social funds and special transfers.

But the Most puzzling is the WB analysis that "in developing countries, problems in meeting core labour standards may be a consequence of poverty." As if mass and persistent poverty is not itself a reflection of state failure to uphold standards of decent livelihoods. The WB often states that it respects and promotes "voices of the poor". It is also credited with stating that "labour markets can also be made more effective by improving relationships among labour market partners...by strengthening collective bargaining and contracting". Yet, it offers little operational support to expanding freedom of association and collective bargaining for labour.

Since the WB does not commit itself to rights-based development, it cannot but prescribe that core labour standards should not be "enforced through sanctions", but promoted as part of a broad-based development strategy through information, technical assistance, capacity building and complementary initiative.

The WB agrees that government can take steps to reduce and mitigate risk and soften impacts for the vulnerable. If the government show willingness to take these steps it will mean changing many things for many people. This is because a broad conception of the public safety net requires both macroeconomic interventions for an adequate number of decently paid jobs as well as provision of "health insurance, old age assistance and pensions, unemployment insurance and assistance, workfare programs, social funds, microfinance programs, and cash transfers".

For the WB, however, social policy should follow the market as much as possible, disregarding the fact that markets, no matter how responsive, cannot be held responsible as governments can be. If the poor face risks of prolonged unemployment or fluctuating wages, then it is credit markets that must be made more responsive to the need for "smoothing consumption," rather than making the state responsible for safeguarding livelihoods. But, then, the WB's conception of a developmental (rather than predatory) state is "skilled technocrats and close collaboration with the business community."

The WB recommends public policies to build assets for and by the poor to cope with the risks but (direct) redistribution of assets (e.g. land reforms) is not considered. As an ILO study -- Economic Security for a Better World -- puts it diplomatically: "some have criticised the World Bank for failing to appreciate the nature of chronic risk due to inequality and concentrations of unaccountable power".

The WB itself recognises the issue when it says that "even a well-functioning labour market will not fully eliminate the risk of unemployment or under-employment...Displaced workers will need unemployment benefits to protect them from large income losses".

Yet, the WB goes on with the conservative operational prescription that "unemployment insurance is not appropriate for most developing countries because of their low administrative capacity and large informal sectors. The irregular and unpredictable earnings typical of the informal sector make it hard for workers to participate in a contributory insurance program".

A decent minimum wage is a specially bad idea for the WB. Not only because it is not enforced across the economy but also because it "makes firms and jobs with low productivity levels unviable". Similar concern for such small firms is not in evidence when the WB talks about full cost recovery for, say, energy use.

In summary, the WB's position is that regulations may be good social goals and may even be necessary in the absence of other social safety nets. But the exception is given in compliance. The governments are incapable or unwilling to implement regulations. Hence 'local realities' and 'trade offs' require that governments drop regulations seen as 'onerous requirements' by employers.

Agreeing that the SME growth will be a major contributor to growth and employment creation, the World Bank funds specific projects to facilitate the SME growth. The Country Assistance Strategy confirms continuing encouragement to the government for pursuing modernisation of labour regulations. A government committee on reforms in regulatory environment has been funded by the World Bank since 2002.

Support to the SMEDA includes collaborative studies to establish that labour regulations have impeded productivity and growth. Broader funding given in support of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper has apparently addressed issues of labour protection only indirectly, in line with the WB preference for excluding labour institutions from safety nets.

A labour policy study is under preparation but drafts are yet to be available for public review. The concept paper for funding the study, entitled 'Generating Investment and Employment Opportunities in Pakistan through Labour Market Reforms' is illuminating. The paper begins with the judgement that "labour market regulations and practices in Pakistan appear to be stringent, contributing to undesirable labour market outcomes and poverty, and hindering overall growth...strict employment protection is counterproductive not only for efficiency but equity reasons: it reduces employment and labour market flows, hinders technological innovations, pushes workers into informal sector, and hurts vulnerable groups by depriving them of job opportunities".

Authors of the labour policy study are, therefore, directed to "focus upon (i) the most binding elements in existing labour policies and institutions including laws, regulations, practices, and their impact on firm behaviour; (ii) economic costs associated with provision of protection -- i.e. the costs on employers that could actually reduce employment and even compromise growth; and (iii) analysis of the costs and effectiveness of existing labour market programs, particularly the training schemes intended to create job opportunities". They should presumably ignore the WB's own finding, or see it as an example of labour market distortions, that "real wages in 1996-2002 declined for both salaried and casual workers. This decline contributed to the increase of poverty."

As of the ADB, the central critique of the World Bank can be posed as a simple question: why should labour have to bear all, or even the main, costs of adjustments to reforms? If governance is democratic, how should the Pakistan government obtain the consent of labour, uncoerced by the threat of destitution and debt bondage?

The ILO

This section draws upon the ILO publications in two dimensions. One, for its analysis of the realisation of labour rights. Two, as the framework of labour rights within which reforms of labour regulations should take place.

A section of the ILO is dedicated to small enterprises. Through collaboration on country studies, it has influenced the preparation of the SMEDA policy papers. An initial review paper sets the tone for the country studies. Specially reflecting the ILO work for Convention 189, this paper entitled 'Small Enterprises, Big Challenges: A Literature Review on the Impact of the Policy Environment' was published in 2002.

It reads: "Overall economic policies (favour) large enterprises over smaller ones. To create a level playing field for enterprises of different size classes, regulations should be clear and the process of implementation transparent and fair. The evidence on the impact of laws and regulations on employment in small enterprises is still very incomplete". The review does not support a blanket exemption of the SMEs from labour regulations, including minimum wages. It warns against a simplification that the SME growth necessarily reflects the net generation of decent work environment, that is, the SME growth can reflect evasion strategies of larger enterprises.

The ILO's efforts to link decent work with the SME growth are illustrated by a recent study entitled 'Productivity, Decent Employment and Poverty: Conceptual and Practical Issues Related to Small Enterprises. The study says: "The challenge is to find ways to link productivity improvements with decent work in a virtuous cycle. In this cycle, enhanced productivity would lead to better wages, benefits and working conditions, while better working conditions, achieved through effective labour-management cooperation, social institutions and a broader process of social dialogue, would support higher productivity".

The study calls for a broad approach to poverty reduction through small enterprises. "Along with the availability of remunerated, productive work, decent work includes rights at work, social dialogue and social protection". According to it, the focus on adequate income would expand to include "collective bargaining on the conditions of work...for workers, security derives in large part from access to social protection against illness, disability, unemployment, old age and the death of a main income earner".

Reflecting international commitment to eradicate child labour, an ILO study emphasises the positive impact of higher adult wages and social security benefits upon reducing child labour in the SMEs. Better worker remuneration can be made possible by higher enterprise productivity, through steps that include higher job quality, i.e. better working conditions. Decent work -- that is, rights at work -- can therefore be seen as a productive factor. The study, therefore, calls for "technical assistance, including micro-finance, and other programmes (to) link assistance to a ban on the use of child labourers in family-run and other small enterprises".

It is appropriate to stress that Pakistan has ratified many conventions that define labour standards. Their significance is that all countries must acknowledge them in law and ensure their compliance in administration by all employers -- public or private, small or large -- as the rights of all workers -- adults and children, male and female, citizen or migrant. Asserted as human rights, the core labour rights deserve reiteration. They are:

• Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining

• The elimination of forced and compulsory labour

• The abolition of child labour

• The elimination of discrimination.

In addition to the abolition of forced labour, the text of other standards makes it clear that both rights at work as well as right to work are covered. One implication needs emphasis: these are rights -- that cannot be revoked -- rather than being entitlements that depend upon the recognition of being a worker by state or employer. No exclusions, therefore, can be defended on any basis, including efficient discrimination between workers under different work arrangements.

Since these standards flow from the Universal Declaration of Rights, no state may deny labour rights even if its government is unable (or unwilling) to fulfil these rights. Many in Pakistan, including the Shariat Court, believe that enforcement of these rights is also a part of the constitutional obligations of the state.

Furthermore, the core labour rights are to be seen as a whole: when one of them is ignored or weakly applied then it imperils the realisation of other rights.

The UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is of special relevance in this regard because rights at work cannot be independent of right to work. The Covenant also asserts the right to choose work freely, including opportunities to access these choices. It is quite clear in asserting universal rights at work. To be just and favourable for all, these include fair wages for a decent life, safe and healthy working conditions; reasonable working hours, paid holidays, social security and social insurance, facilities for working mothers, protection against child labour, and collective bargaining to improve upon minimum legal standards. These are parts of the right to "adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions", which are necessary (though insufficient) conditions for realising the right to a decent life with dignity.

Enterprise responsibility for social security can be a specially contentious issue between workers on the one hand, and enterprises and government (and the banks) on the other hand. A recent ILO study, 'Economic Security for a Better World', deserves particular mention in this regard. The study distinguishes seven forms of (related and complementary) economic security: labour market, employment, job, work, skill, income, and representation. The study constructs indices for country performance. As expected, Pakistan comes out poorly. In the income security index, it occupies a place along with India as "much-to-be-done countries" with low scores on outcome, input and process. This assessment does not alter on indices for other forms of (in)security, and has the same ranking for the combined economic security index. One conclusion of the study from inter-country comparisons is that "strong employment protection may enhance, and is certainly no impediment to, economic growth".

It calls for recognition of 'systemic risks' that are not easily covered by traditional social security, social insurance or other selective measures that focus on the older types of 'contingency risks'. Worsening the plight of both currently employed and unemployed are recurring and long spells of unemployment. Such 'churning' of unemployment is pointed out as a special concern of contemporary globalisation. A study on unemployment in Pakistan -- Labour Market Dynamics in Pakistan -- records transitory and short-term unemployment at 85 per cent of the unemployed, with the remainder being chronically unemployed. This excludes those who left the labour force upon being discouraged by unemployment that lasted beyond a year. The proposed criteria for reforms are also a practical way to promote social justice: policies must improve the lot of the worst-off, and they must not deny freedoms available to others.

Finance Bill 2006

The present government has now promoted retrogressive changes in labour laws, forced through the budget. Surely done at the behest of the ADB and the World Bank, this is the SME policy by stealth. Women can now be required to begin work as early as 6 am and finish as late as 10 pm. Regular and overtime work hours have been generally increased and contract workers are denied entitlement to overtime payment. The weekly holiday has been placed in doubt. Old-age benefits and workers welfare fund have been made more restrictive in application by increasing the minimum size of enterprise and profits.

The homes, the local communities and the schools have a important duty in our time, as they must teach the young generations to become more peaceful and optimistic than the older generations have been...

Peace Education

This article is about peace education. It takes up some basic and quite simple issues about human coexistence but they are not so simple in the sense that if we do not do something about them we can create a lot of difficulties for each other.

It is difficult to understand why peace education is not a centerpiece in education and socialisation of the young. Peace education is part of and a sub-discipline in peace and conflict research. Peace educationists have developed excellent programmes which can be used in schools and even in study groups for the adolescents, the youth and the older people. If we don't have these programmes, we believe any good and experienced teacher is already a good peacemaker, and he or she will be able to teach peace issues.

But do we need to learn to become peaceful, some readers may ask. Whereas we believe that all human beings are born with a feeling of what is fair and just, and what is violation of moral and ethical values, we still need to learn how to handle concrete situations. Much of the foundations we learn at home as we grow up, but certainly not all that is needed if we look around us at this particular time in history. We keep having serious disagreements and conflicts at local and regional levels. We witness myriads of wars and violent conflicts within and between states, and we have terrorists, guerrilla groups and others who out of frustration based on certain ideologies, use violence. Sometimes the reasons for their doing so are justified, or at least understood, as desperate response to decades of humiliation and frustration, with no end and positive future in sight. Still, the means of violence can never be justified. This is our stand, and we believe this is also the stand our educational institutions should take, and what we should teach our children and youth to strive towards. Never mind that we may be called unrealistic and naive!

Who believed even a hundred and fifty years ago that slavery would be outlawed? Who believed in the 1950s and 1960s that the civil rights movement would end racial discrimination in the United States of America? Who believed fifteen years ago that apartheid in South Africa would become history and, perhaps more impressively, people would reconcile and live peacefully together afterwards? There are many dreams that have come true. Let today's teachers with their pupils, parents and communities carry the torches for peace in our time and for the future. This is especially important at this time in history.

We have inequalities and 'structural wars' -- with consequences -- between the rich and the poor countries, in particular between the North and the South with as disastrous consequences as those of direct wars for the poor who live on less than a dollar or two a day. Still, our otherwise excellent teachers seem not to take up these issues clearly enough in our educational institutions. Yes, the educational authorities are part of any country's political system, and most teachers are civil servants, so they cannot make up their own curricula. However, our politicians too want peace, not war. And our educational experts have a free will too, to do what is right from a child-centered and pedagogical perspective. Thus, there is indeed room for giving much more attention to peace education in our education systems. We need to discuss the current struggle against terror and how to change attitudes to thwart the terrorists' designs. We need to teach development of positive attitudes in the youth, so that they can have hope to contribute to a better tomorrow for themselves and others.

Educational institutions must never forget the enormous responsibility they have as the main institutions in shaping the hearts and minds of our future generations. They are the custodians and messengers of idealism and optimism, and of teaching the young -- who always want to create a better future -- how to realise their dreams. Instead of focusing on negative aspects related to criticism of extremism and antisocial behaviour, which the media does far too much, we must focus on how all young people can develop positive interests and values. It isn't difficult because it is what every young person wants, everywhere in the world, and it is what all teachers want to teach their students.

Why do our politicians and leaders of our education systems seem just to let these issues drift? Why do we -- the ordinary people and the educationists -- let it pass, as if it were OK and inevitable? But it is not OK. Violence, conflicts, and wars are not at all necessary and the educational institutions must discuss and study peace and conflict issues. We must all learn to become more peaceful. Since young people will be in charge of the future and they are less set in old mindsets, they are our hope. As we mentioned above, teachers do know how to teach children. Also teachers, parents and communities know how to become more peaceful even if they are not a part of any special programme for the purpose. But, naturally, additional teachers courses are always useful. Ditto for supplementary teaching materials, radio and TV programmes.

Today, education systems do not emphasise strongly enough the importance of developing peaceful values, attitudes and skills -- and methods which can be used in peaceful conflict resolution -- in children and the adolescents. Conflicts are bound to arise but we need to learn to become better at solving them in decent ways. As a starting point, perhaps more important than teaching the young generations peace education and conflict resolution is it to teach the older ones first -- the parents, teachers and members of the local communities. They must know that there are alternatives to conflicts and violence. All of us know that the guns never solve conflicts permanently. Permanent peace can only be reached through negotiations and agreements involving all parties concerned. Agreements must be felt to be fair for all.

Again, the question arises: How can our schools be used to teach these most obvious values and attitudes, in countries in the South and East as well as in the North and West, in the big cities in the large and powerful countries, and in the villages and homes in the small countries, that is, in countries and communities everywhere? How can we do it in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and in America and the United Kingdom? As far as we know, it is only New Zealand which has a special peace education course programme used in about 50 per cent of all schools in the country. It is called 'cool schools programme'.

Minimum requirements

The minimum requirements would be that educational institutions do not act as propaganda arms for expansionist governments or intolerant ideologies, or become advocates for aggressive responses to conflict situations, which can slow down or jeopardise amicable solutions. The schools as well as religious institutions must always hold up the ideals of peace, even if the ideals may in conflict situations seem unrealistic, especially in the short run. But if every mother taught her son and daughter never to fight in war, and every teacher, every religious leader, and other leaders did the same, then there would be no wars any more! A dream? Yes, probably, but a dream that may come true if we all wish it to be true and act accordingly. And if we cannot convince all, we can convince many, and then wars and violent conflicts will become much more rare, and conflicts may possibly be solved before they become fully-fledged violent conflicts.

Every teacher's fundamental duty

As teachers, all types of teachers, from ordinary parents to scholarly experts in pedagogy, it should be our duty, today perhaps more than ever, to teach children and the adolescents values and attitudes of peace, and peaceful conflict resolution, with related skills and methods, so that we, or more precisely, the next generation, can have a chance to solve differences, disagreements and conflicts peacefully when they occur. Where the parents and the grandparents failed, the youth have a clean slate and can do better.

However, we should admit that conflicts are bound to occur in a world with enormous and growing inequalities. Why should the poor people in any country, be it rich or poor, accept gross inequalities? They should not, and today people know that this is unfair because we have lived through a media revolution for the last decade or two. We also have the resources and methods to change gross inequalities and exploitation. It has become possible to do so peacefully, not through violent uprising and revolutions as was seen acceptable in the past.

It is our duty as teachers to propagate that all human beings are born equal. Teachers must inculcate in their pupils that to fight for a better life for poor people is a duty we all have, but the fight must be through peaceful means. As teachers in our part of the world, we can use Gandhi as a unique example and inspiration, not least for young people. Gandhi called it 'satyagraha', meaning non-violent action. To struggle for peace, justice and equality must be done through peaceful means, but yet the struggle demands firmness, plans and strategies, perseverance and love for the truth and for the people. These are ideals all youth will embrace. They will find meaning and purposefulness in these ideals. Nobody would even think of violent and destructive behaviour after internalising these ideals, aspirations and common values. Perhaps the most important would be that we don't only work for the betterment of our own conditions. More importantly, we also work to uplift those who are downtrodden and in desperate poverty, those who have suffered injustice and discrimination, those who have not had the chance to fulfill their dreams and make full use of their abilities and talents.

Politics and resources

In our time it is easy to focus discussions of this kind on political and religious issues, without giving enough attention to the secular aspects. The fundamental levels and institutions in any society -- the individuals, the family and the local community -- must be given attention before we start discussing the higher levels in a country and internationally. It is at the lowest levels that attitudes and values are shaped. The sum of the simple teachings at the lower levels will certainly be important at the higher levels in society, and if taught well, people will make reference to the principles taught by their mothers, school teachers, religious leaders, opinion leaders and wise men and women in the village, or, as we say nowadays, by the 'role models'.

Various economic conflicts, access and ownership to land and other resource, salary conflicts, and so on, are indeed going to be there in the years ahead, and we need peaceful skills to solve them amicably. Injustice in such fields must be corrected, often in fair but harsh negotiations. As teachers we should support struggle for greater equality, but we should also teach that conflicts can only be solved non-violently through peaceful means and fair play, even if the rich and the powerful may not always adhere to the same rules.

Obviously, situations where serious conflicts or wars exist easily lead to all parties becoming more violent. Use of violence can somehow, almost by accident, becomes acceptable in specific circumstances or even generally acceptable and 'normal'. This way of thinking is probably the most destructive long-term outcome of conflicts. Sometimes, conflicts linger on for generations, until the young ones only have blurred recollection about what the reasons for the conflicts actually were.

Religions, cultures and ignorance

All religions must be respected, and never used as 'weapons' in conflicts, debates and negotiations about power, resources and wages. Most of us are quite ignorant about other religions and cultures -- we must learn more about 'the others' as they must learn about us. We must learn to listen more, and also to talk more, because through talking, through dialogue and discussions, we will learn more about each other. We will understand each other better, from the home level to the intergovernmental level.

Ignorance is probably the main cause for cultural and religious conflicts. It is usually the strongest part of a society which is more ignorant expecting the weakest part to learn about its religion and its culture, since it is considered better and superior. But ignorance can also be on the part of the weak. In addition, we may need to learn more about our own religion and culture before we take up discussions about it with people who belong to other religions and cultures. This point is indeed important because we want a real and accurate dialog, not just a coffee-table conversation.

Let me add that when it comes to culture, habits, religion, and the ways in which we practice our different religions around the world, we are all quite sensitive, either we are believers or non-believers. Attack on religion, culture and ethnicity has to do with attacking someone's identity and pride. It is important, therefore, never to rank religions and claim that one religion is more advanced than others. It is wrong to term some religions 'primitive' and others 'advanced', the terms used in textbooks when we went to school. Naturally, we all believe that our own religion is 'right'.

Peaceful coexistence

After the Second World War when the United Nations was created, its main purpose was to contribute to peaceful international coexistence so that wars would never happen again. Unesco, the organisation dealing with education, science, culture, and communication, was precisely set up to contribute to the exchange of knowledge, ideas and values. Its constitution, with its preamble, underlines how people must learn to think differently in order to become able to live peacefully together, without, or at least with less cultural arrogance and egocentrism and with less feeling of superiority. They rather must learn to live with the feeling of equality and humbleness vis-a-vis other people. There should be less use for words like 'we' and 'they'. It was strongly believed that people learn to live together by living together. In other words, peace is fostered and tolerance encouraged through exchange programmes, travels, migration, and other ways of facilitating contact among people who would otherwise know little about each other.

We need to foster cultural diversity, multiculturalism and development of equality among all human beings and cultures, at local level, between men and women, between poor and rich, among people of all creeds and colors. Unesco's preamble, written in 1945, precisely wishes to avoid wars through engaging people's minds in thinking logically about everybody as equal. It states: "since wars begin in the minds of men it is in the minds of men that the defenses for peace must be created". Creating a peaceful, tolerant and open mind begins with the individual in the family, the community, the school, and other institutions and from there we will move on to the more complex national and international levels.

Good values and attitudes

When we underline that every human being is equal, we do not imply that all values and attitudes that we as human beings possess are equal. When discussing peace issues, it is obvious that there are some values and attitudes that are better than others. There are positive values as we have termed them above. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written in 1948, tries to summarise the most important standards that should apply to all of us, although the Declaration may not be totally universal and perfect. Still, it is the best document that we have until now, defining basic common values. Though we advocate diversity, multiculturalism and tolerance, we should also cherish common values that all humanity can embrace. We would have come a long way if we actually could advocate and lived by a set of minimum standards that the whole human family could subscribe to, because we know that there is more that unites us than what divides us. That much we have learned through learning to know people throughout the world, and developing friendships everywhere!

Let us add in this article that when homes, schools and local communities strive towards developing peaceful human beings, we all know that this will lead to better lives for them as individuals, families and community members and as members of the larger world. Naturally, people have differences and will always have differences. Unesco underlines that diversity is valuable and is essential in furtherance of cultures. The question is how we solve our differences, how we handle diversity, and sometimes simply agree to live side by side in mutual respect in spite of differences in some fields.

It is only natural that there are differences in today's world -- which has become a 'global village' -- where people belonging to different cultures and religions have moved in just across the street, in our own neighborhood. Diverse cultures, civilizations, religions, philosophies, and different practical solutions and reasoning to all kinds of daily chores and problems are today 'just around the corner' in the modern cities. We become richer for diversities and for learning from each other but we do not have to change either. Rather the opposite. We should be proud of who we are and our own values and change should come at its own pace through tolerance and openness. We should not be nai´ve either because disagreements and discussions will also occur. If discussions do not occur, it probably means that we live at arm-length distance from each other. In multicultural settings, hopefully our homes, local communities and schools have taught us how to sort out disagreements in a peaceful way and that we can meet other cultures in openness, trying to share and learn.

In his introductory speech to a Unesco meeting in 2001, the organisation's Director-General Koichiro Matsuura said: "dialogue among civilizations begins at home". It begins at the individual level and then it moves to the wider and broader spheres, in the home country and abroad. Incidentally, the the Unesco meeting he was speaking at was held in Japan in August 2001, before the 9/11 world disaster and it followed a preparatory meeting held in Iran a few months earlier. Interestingly too, year 2001 had already been declared 'United Nations Year of Dialog among Civilizations'. Furthermore, 2001-2010 has been declared the 'International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World'.

Let us end this article by wishing that some of these excellent initiatives will bear fruits, and that we all, unique and ordinary as we all are, will be able to implement some of the plans made and some of the dreams kept in our hearts.

As we have emphasised throughout the article, educationists have a particular responsibility in helping us all to become more peaceful. But the teacher's work is futile if the pupils are not listening. The teachers cannot force the pupils to become more peaceful which would be a contradiction. Therefore we are all responsible for creating more peaceful societies, for creating deeper exchange among cultures, for supporting interfaith dialogue and simply for trying our level best in our daily lives, in our homes, neighborhoods and workplaces, to live better lives. "It is better to say, we tried but failed, than, we didn't bother to try because in our arrogance and self-complacency we thought we were best anyway." Peace can only be learned trough humbleness and openness, acknowledging that all human beings are equal, deserving the same opportunities and respect as we enjoy. Our children will learn this in their homes, local communities and schools today and then they will create hope and optimism and make the future more peaceful for all of us tomorrow.

Atle Hetland is an international consultant currently based in Islamabad. He is a regular contributor to The News on Sunday, particularly on refugee and other issues in the social and human sciences.

When Pakistan's worst natural disaster struck on October 8, 2005, over 73,000 died -- including 30,000 children in classrooms -- more than 100,000 sustained injuries and 3.5 million were displaced, according to official estimates. The earthquake of 7.2 magnitude on the Richter Scale devastated large swathes of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and North West Frontier Province.

One of the untold stories of the disaster is that the quake hit a region in which independent local broadcast media did not exist and information was tightly controlled through the state-owned radio and television. Even 'local' newspapers were, and still are, printed outside the region, mostly in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. An open media policy allowing for private ownership of the airwaves in Pakistan, instituted by Islamabad in late 2002, had largely bypassed Kashmir.

Nevertheless the earthquake had a devastating impact on the local state controlled media in affected areas. Dozens of journalists were injured or went missing, and newspaper offices and press clubs were destroyed. The only source of mass information -- the state-run Kashmir Radio and TV -- was silenced by the earthquake: 40 of its 160 staff were killed, and its buildings wrecked. The business of local news generation came to a halt. The disaster presented the classic paradox: news about the calamity and its impact was going out to the world at large, but those affected -- at least 3.5 million people -- had no means of finding out what was going on, what to do or how to get help.

The information gap

To gauge the state of information access, the Pakistan office of Internews Network, an international media development NGO, conducted a snapshot survey two weeks after the earthquake in Battagram, Balakot and Mansehra in NWFP, and Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot in Kashmir. These were generally the worst-hit cities. According to the survey, before the earthquake about 81 per cent of households had a radio and 52 per cent had television sets. Of these, three-quarters of radio sets and virtually all TV sets were destroyed by the earthquake. When asked about their sources of information, 68 per cent of respondents said they were dependent on word of mouth, 28 per cent on the radio, 21 per cent on newspapers, 15 per cent on TV and 11 per cent on the local administration. At least 8 per cent said they were not getting any information from anywhere. No one mentioned the mosque or religious leaders as a source of general information.

In the absence of conventional sources of information, rumours abounded: such as about when the next earthquake was due, or that daubing kerosene on your tent will rid you of mosquitoes, or that bottled water was medicinal and only fit for hand-washing, not drinking. Against this background, it was imperative that a cheap and practical means of information access was established.

Rebuilding the media

Radio was the obvious answer: sets were cheap, information could be provided in local languages, and broadcasts could reach large numbers of people. Given the lack of local equipment and expertise, operators elsewhere in the country had to be called in. Acceding to lobbying for this platform by stakeholders of the emerging broadcast sector, within a month, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) responded gallantly by issuing 10 temporary non-commercial emergency licences to private FM stations just outside of the affected area. The Authority bypassed the usually lengthy process of security vetting of would-be operators (to clear them of links with India or with jehadi/militant groups), and made available frequencies usually controlled by the military. The idea was that, since the licences were non-commercial, they would be taken up only by 'serious' volunteer broadcasters committed to helping people.

Within weeks of the earthquake, Pakistan Emergency Information Project was launched to rebuild media capacities affected by the disaster in Kashmir and NWFP. This work primarily included developing the emergency broadcast sector, building radio production facilities, providing small equipment grants to emergency FM stations, training journalists in humanitarian reporting and the production and distribution of a daily one-hour news and information programme on humanitarian issues, called 'Jazba-e-Tameer' ('The Spirit of Reconstruction'). The programme was produced by a group of ten journalism students. The volunteers travelled daily across the earthquake region to report on relief efforts, including feedback from affected populations, the international and local humanitarian community and government authorities. The radio programme itself was broadcast by the seven emergency FM broadcasters that eventually went on air across the entire disaster zone.

Four months after the initial information access survey, Internews conducted a follow-up. This showed that the new community radio regime had rapidly become a major source of independent, reliable and useful information. In the initial survey, in late October 2005, 28 per cent of respondents had cited radio as one of their primary sources of information. In the follow-up survey, this had gone up to 70 per cent, and respondents mentioned at least one of the seven emergency radio stations on air at the time of the survey as their station of choice. The follow-up survey also revealed that more people were consuming more media.

There were also indications that the platform created by the Jazba programme was playing an important role in mediating opinions within the affected communities, diluting, for example, many of the least tolerant religious views regarding the presence of international relief agencies -- and of their female employees in particular -- in the earthquake zones.

Transformed public sphere

Early in 2006 PEMRA extended the emergency licences for 10 FM radio stations beyond an initial two months after the quake, in acknowledgement of their important contribution to the relief operation. Four months later the government media regulator PEMRA issued a set of full permanent commercial radio licences and invited applications for local terrestrial television channels. These developments appeared to be laying the groundwork for a more pluralistic media regime in an information environment that had been tightly an information vacuum.

In recent months, however, there have been signs that the unprecedented media space that has opened up in the earthquake zones is already under threat. The daily radio programme, Jazba-e-Tameer -- the only region-wide platform for information and debate on the relief and reconstruction effort -- went off the air at the end of June 2006 because of shortage of funds despite requests from listeners across the Kashmir and NWFP for the service to continue. The broadcasts were curtailed as donor grants limited solely to the emergency response period had expired.

In July 2006, emergency broadcasters in Abbottabad (NWFP) and Muzaffarabad (Kashmir) received a series of threatening calls from some religious groups to stop airing "Western values being spread" by aid agencies. In at least two instances, their broadcasts were forcibly disrupted by cutting off cables. In August 2006 an FM broadcaster in Balakot (NWFP) -- that aired a diversity of views on official plans to relocate the city, many of them critical -- was forced off the air. In the same month the government quietly ordered all emergency FM radio stations to cease operations by mid-October.

In the same month the religious leaders in Bagh (Kashmir) gave a September deadline to dismiss all local female staff from the city, failing which NGOs should close their operations.

Danger signs

The re-emergence of religious intolerance in the disaster-affected areas to pressurise the broadcasters and aid community and the ill-timed government decision to encourage the emergency FM broadcasters to go quiet combine to stunt the progress of a healthier public information sphere. A large information gap at a crucial stage of reconstruction and rehabilitation process will be created with the closure of the emergency stations in early November 2006 and the time it takes the commercial stations to come online and develop capacities to inform people.

The decision to shut down this reliable information regime is disappointing considering that it represents one of the better success stories of the disaster response in the quake-affected regions in Pakistan and managed to achieve the following:

* Improved timeliness, accuracy and credibility of information flow to affected population.

* Increased relevance of information reaching local populations.

* Increased reach of information to isolated, information-dark areas.

* Improved two-way communication flows between affected communities and the recovery operations.

* Increased flow of information from the earthquake zones via media to policy-makers and to the general public.

* Empowered local populations -- through the inclusion of their voices in the media.

* Ongoing international attention on the needs of affected populations.

* Increased understanding of the role of local media in emergencies.

* Increased space for independent media and professional journalism

Lessons learnt

A year after the earthquake several key lessons are becoming apparent:

* Information about relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation is critical for survival and recovery in disaster regions; and that, if the local media lacks the capacity to provide the kind of specialised information that is needed, outside help must be provided, and swiftly;

* Government authorities and the international development community lack a policy framework for the role of local media in disaster zones and need to embed strategies for local media support into the mainstream mechanisms of their relief efforts;

* Media support measures in disaster zones need to go well beyond the immediate emergency response phase and continue into the reconstruction period;

* Further research is needed on the accountability and efficiency gains of investing in media and communications support in disaster zones;

* Crises in controlled information environments often present opportunities for opening up the public sphere and allowing a diversity of voices to debate key issues central to the recovery of communities. These openings, may prove to be shortlived, however. They are more likely to take hold if external support through local and international media assistance organisations is provided on a continuous basis in the opening fragile phases;

* Abrupt phase-out of emergency stations in the absence of a parallel emergence of a commercial broadcast sector will stunt moderate messages and create an information vacuum that may be captured by extremist voices.

A healthy fall-out of the Nobel Committee's choice of Dr. Yunus and his Grameen Bank for the peace prize is that it has stimulated a much needed discussion on peace, the role of micro-credit and the social context of an extraordinary commitment to the cause of the fellow being.

The fact that the Nobel Committee has been enlarging the meaning of peace beyond the concept adopted by the founder of the world's most prestigious award has been noted. But equally important is the relevance of the new understanding of peace in developing societies, many of whom are prone to internal conflict. The emphasis on achieving peace by preventing, stopping and ending conflict between nations/states has dimmed the intra-nation value of peace. Developing societies stand to gain a great deal by identifying the essential pre-requisites to peace in the domestic domain and by recognising that peace is incompatible with poverty. That the poor's relations with their privileged neighbours are rarely peaceful and that they have little peace with themselves can easily be demonstrated. It will be difficult for anyone to deny that peace within a society is inversely proportional to the level of exploitation of its members it accepts or tolerates.

A proper appreciation of the nexus between a society's choice of socio-economic order and the level of tranquility it can guarantee its members opens up a critical debate on development values. The Nobel Committee's decision to recognise Dr. Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below raises a question whether microcredit really contributes to social and economic development. There does exist a school of thought, by no means small or unimportant, that finds equating mitigation of poverty, however laudable, with development somewhat problematic. The difficulty in accepting the view that reduction in the pressure of want amounts to empowerment of the people is fairly obvious. The view that microlevel reduction of poverty and suffering of the poor is not preferable to macrolevel efforts to liberate large masses of people of poverty and social deprivation may have been pushed back by the knights of neo-liberalism but it is not dead yet.

These debates were common in the milieu in which Dr. Yunus grew up. What does enormous credit to him is the fact that he moved away from the debate over the best possible development model for Bangladesh in the mid-seventies and also from dependence on the state and chose to temper his idealism with pragmatic activism. As a trail blazer in the field of social service his success is complete and unexceptionable. He has not only demonstrated individual's capacity for enterprise but has also evolved a method of promoting social good.

The peace award for Dr. Yunus has done Asia proud, especially South Asia. The people of Bangladesh can rightly see Dr. Yunus's success as a national achievement. But can they not claim a bit of the credit due to the banker to the poor?

Although Dr. Yunus's work falls within the definition of economic activity, it is much more than that and of a higher order. It is characterised by a passion for the under-privileged's uplift. Radical thinking and management expertise are no doubt his major tools but the kind of mission he has carried out also demands commitment to what one believes to be one's duty. Where did this commitment come from in the case of Dr. Yunus? Was it in any way rooted in Bangladesh people's saga of suffering and sacrifice they had opted for in their quest for freedom?

The Bangladesh intelligentsia displayed a robust spirit for public good on the morrow of independence, which manifestly was a measure of the people's involvement in the 1971 struggle for liberation. It will not detract from the credit due to Dr. Yunus to recall that he has had distinguished peers. The spurt in civil society initiatives in Bangladesh during the first decade of independence was quite remarkable and it was due entirely neither to rich donors' keenness to help a war ravaged people rebuild their lives nor to activist professionals' alienation from a state that was apparently unequal to the tasks confronting it. In a good measure this was due to the Bengali people's discovery of their role as makers of their destiny and the legacy of their history of resistance to tyranny and injustice over quite a few decades if not centuries.

Bangladesh was fortunate in that at independence vacancies in the administration were not numerous enough to drain society of its talent pool (as had happened with Algeria, Vietnam and even Pakistan). As a result, civil society had considerable intellectual capital left to itself which proved its merit in NGO work in areas of rural development, public health and people's education. The Bangladesh civil society's newly defined culture of self-amelioration provided a congenial context for the Dr. Yunus phenomenon and that guarantees the people of Bangladesh a part of the credit accumulated by it.

At some stage it may be useful to probe the failure of post-colonial states to mobilize the forces generated during freedom struggles for state-building in accordance with public aspirations. An inquiry into civil society's survival in a period of state's regression should be a most rewarding exercise, regardless of one's choice of any South Asian state as the model for analysis.

The federal government has given a go ahead for yet another controversial project in Karachi, inviting a lot of criticism on how policies are made in Islamabad without involving provincial and local governments. The project purports to develop two islands off the coast in Karachi into a modern city a la Dubai.

It's not a coincidence, therefore, that a Dubai based company, Emmar, is entrusted with the project called 'Diamond Bar Island City'. According to an agreement singed by the federal government and Emmar, the company will develop infrastructure for the project by investing $43 billion. The completion period for the island city is 13-15 years and the money needed for it will come from Emmar (85 per cent) and the authority running Port Qasim (15 per cent).

Emmar is a known name across the world in real estate development and has operations in many countries. It has joint ventures and projects across Asia in countries like Egypt, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Tunisia. Even in Pakistan, the island city is not the company's first project. It is already involved in projects like 'Highlands and Canyon Views' in Islamabad, 'Crescent Bay' in Karachi and 'Sheikh Zayed Center' in Lahore.

The agreement between Emmar and the federal government for the development of island city was signed in May 2006, though it became known only a few weeks ago after the Economic Coordination Committee of Cabinet and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz approved the project in September.

And not just people and media were kept in the dark about it. The provincial government of Sindh, too, came to know about the project only recently and that too through media reports.

The agreement is, apparently, just a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Emmar and the Port Qasim Authority for land development in Karachi. But, by all indications, it is not an ordinary deal. President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and United Arab Emirates' Vice President, Prime Minister and the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, were all present when Emmar Chairman Mohamed Ali Aabbar and Ports and Shipping Minister Senator Babar Ghauri signed it.

Though the project is being called 'Diamond Bar Island City', it is yet to get an official name. It will consist of residential and commercial components, retail and leisure facilities as well as hotels and lifestyle amenities including parks. It will also have an 18-hole golf course.

Though all projects involving Emmar in Pakistan are gigantic by local standards, the island city has the distinction of being the biggest of them all. A summary of these projects will show why.

'Highlands and Canyon Views' in Islamabad was launched on May 31, 2006 as part of a $ 2.4 billion investment by Emmar. Spread over 1,500 acres, it offer 9,000 luxury single-family town homes and villas. It is located within the limits of Defense Housing Authority Islamabad (DHA).

'Crescent Bay' in Karachi was also launched on the same day. It is a 75-acre development project featuring high and mid-rise towers for residential and commercial use, a shopping centre and a five-star beachfront hotel. The towers will contain approximately 4,000 residential apartments. 'Crescent Bay' is located within the limits of DHA in Karachi in close proximity with the DHA golf course.

'Sheikh Zayed Center' in Lahore will have three residential apartment buildings of 20-25 floors each and one of the biggest and most exclusive shopping complexes in the region.

'Diamond Bar Island City' on the other hand will be spread over two entire islands with an area of many square kilometres.

A look at the place where the new city is being proposed to be built shows that the project endangers more than just a rare unspoilt part of land near Karachi. One of the islands to be taken up by the project is variously called Bundal or Bunddar and is one of the biggest and highest islands along the coast in Sindh. It's about eight kilometres long and about four kilometres wide in the north. In the south, it is about one kilometre wide.

According to the World Union for Conservationists (IUCN), the island is high priority area in terms of marine life. The union says in one of its reports that Bundal island is the breeding ground for the green turtle. Its sandy beaches are the only areas where the endangered green turtles breed, the report claims. The island also lies along the 'Indus Flyway' and as such serves as an important breeding, roosting and feeding ground for migratory and resident bird species. The migratory birds include pelicans, flamingoes, cormorants, cranes and the resident species comprise of herons, waders, terns, egrets and kites. Both the islands set aside for the project have a mangrove forest cover of about 10,000 hectares.

It's because of these reasons that the allocation of the islands has touched many a raw nerve in Sindh. The first reaction by the provincial government, after it came to know about the project, was to reject it. The city government, too, initially showed complete lack of information about the project. Though, for the time being, the provincial and local government opposition to the federal government's decision to go ahead with the project seems to have died down, it has the potential to flare up again if and when the political situation changes in the province and the city.

The likelihood of this taking place is already manifested by the vociferous response that the project has generated among a number of political and civil society players, including the opposition parties and local fishermen.

Media reports have quoted legal expert barrister Zamir Ghumro as saying that the federal government does not own any land in any province. He is of the opinion that all land falling within the jurisdiction of a province belongs to that province alone. If the Port Qasim Authority (a federal entity) has acquired the area proposed for the project from the Sindh government, it has done this for port-related activities alone and not for real estate development, he is reported to have argued.

Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) has held a consultative meeting and a national conference to show that there exists consensus among many political as well civil society organisation on the proposed project. The forum believes they are all united against the project.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttehida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) have also supported Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum in its campaign against the construction of the new city.

In fact, PPP Sindh President Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that his party would launch a movement against the construction of the city after Eid. MMA leader Asadullah Bhutto has vowed his party would raise the issue in the parliament. Supreme Court advocate and a PPP member of the National Assembly, Mujeeb Pirzada, is getting ready to challenge the construction of the new city in the court if and when the work on it starts.

That the opposition to the project is broad-based is confirmed by prominent Sindhi intellectual and writer Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo. He says people should resist the projects which are being imposed on them. He is of the opinion that only those projects should be allowed to go ahead which are sought by the people.

Besides PPP and MMA, almost all nationalist parties in Sindh including Awami Tehreek, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party, Sindh Qaumprast Party, Jeay Sindh Mahaz and Sindh Nationalist Party are suspicious about the project. They are joined by civil society organizations like Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) and several labour unions which see the project as a conspiracy against fishermen and environment.

It is in the context of this opposition to the proposed island city that a recent national conference on the negative impacts of mega projects sponsored and supported by International Financial Institutes (IFIs) has agreed to form a national commission comprising civil society organisations, political parties, intelligentsia and writers to initiate a movement against the funding of these projects. The commission will resist all those development agreements which are signed without consultation with and approval of local communities.

With Pakistan's fourth defence exhibition, IDEAS 2006, due to be held at the Karachi Expo Centre next month, it is time for the Ministry of Defence, and the state-owned defence-production enterprises working under it, to give serious thought to associating private sector firms in selling indigenously produced defence equipment to friendly countries and finding new export markets for it.

The Pakistani defence industry has made a lot of progress in recent years and is now producing a wide range of increasingly sophisticated equipment of top quality at prices that are often well below those of western and other foreign manufacturers. Yet Pakistan's defence exports currently add up to less than $ 200 million a year.

One of the main reasons for this low level of exports is that Pakistan's state-owned defence production enterprises are hampered by bureaucratic red-tape and other inhibiting factors in their efforts to sell their products to other countries.

In January 2001, the government set up the Defence Exports Promotion Organisation (DEPO) to boost exports of arms and other defence-related equipment and products. While DEPO has worked hard to promote defence exports and has achieved a measure of success, a lot more needs to be done to realise the full export potential of Pakistan's growing defence industry.

The changing nature of the international arms market makes it imperative for Pakistan to involve its private sector firms in the marketing of Pakistani defence products abroad. As the experience of many other countries has shown, private sector firms would be able to carry out this export marketing function much more efficiently than state-owned enterprises.

The government also needs to promote the concept of partnerships between private sector firms and state-owned enterprises in manufacturing and marketing operations, and also open up the defence sector to investment by foreign firms. The large sums of money needed to boost the production capacity of the country's defence industry in order to put it in a better position to compete in overseas markets can realistically only come from foreign firms.

As Andrew W Hull and David R Markov of the Washington-based Institute for Defence Analyses note in their paper on the changing nature of the international arms market, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War has produced a sea change in the way countries go about developing and acquiring weapons.

They note that the drastic reduction in military orders from US, Russian and Western European governments has forced defence firms to look externally for business and survival. Firms are also entering strategic trans-national business alliances for technical, financial and competitive reasons.

This globalisation of the arms industry springs from a variety of complex and often interrelated reasons. According to Hull and Markov, these include: (1) sharing costs and reducing risks of developing and producing new systems; (2) gaining access to innovative foreign technologies and one-of-a-kind systems or unique R&D facilities; (3) achieving economies of scale; (4) developing and penetrating foreign markets that might otherwise be closed to the partners acting individually; (5) keeping production lines 'hot' through exports and (in the process) keeping those lines available for future domestic orders should the need arise; (6) enhancing military interoperability and increasing combat effectiveness among military allies; and (7) exploiting unprecedented opportunities that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the eroding of barriers that once foreclosed collaboration between Western and Eastern firms.

Hull and Markov note that a number of important trends have emerged in the international arms market over the last decade as a result of the growing importance of exports and declining rules over what may be exported and to whom. "Indeed, today's arms market is almost totally unlike that of the Cold War period," they argue.

For one thing, an external focus has replaced the traditional domestic orientation of most arms producers. GICAT (an association of French ground force equipment producers) claims that about 44 per cent of the sales of its members now come from exports. A discussion of this issue on the GICAT Internet website even goes so far as to assert that exports "govern the survival of this industry."

Second, arms are now just another commodity, Hull and Markov note. Once, arms transfers were seen mainly as tools of foreign policy whose primary value was political. As such, arms transfers during the Cold War were judged primarily from a national security perspective. This has changed radically since the end of the Cold War. Generally, arms are now seen as just another commodity in international trade, except when proposed sales would go to United Nations embargoed states, involve long-range ballistic missiles and/or the transfer of weapons of mass destruction.

Third, the defence business is more highly competitive than ever before. Consequently, it has become a buyer's market. As Hull and Markov note, because many customers are now offering hard cash to acquire foreign weapons (as opposed to accepting foreign military credits, foreign aid or low-interest loans from the seller as in the past), they can now demand the very best, even if it is not proffered by the seller. The day of the 'stripped down' export model is a thing of the past.

Cash can even overcome policy considerations. The United Arab Emirates, for example, demanded that the US reverse long-standing policies by offering AMRAAM air-to-air missiles on the 80 F-16s offered by Lockheed Martin to meet the UAE's $ 8 billion fighter programme. UAE officials insisted that they would not even consider the F-16s without AMRAAM. Eventually, the US government agreed to this condition, despite strenuous objections from Israel.

Fourth, a wide array of ever more sophisticated defence and dual-use products are being offered in the international market place. International arms shows are now displaying (and in most cases offering to sell) a potpourri of sophisticated technologies that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago, the authors note. They note that selected examples of such 'blockbuster' technologies include: (1) explosive reactive armours and active tank defence systems; (2) laser 'dazzlers'; (3) low-observable technologies; (4) counter-stealth systems for detecting low-observable aircraft; (5) countermeasures to ballistic missile defence systems; (6) guided warheads for tactical ballistic missiles; (7) GPS (global positioning system) jammers; (8) commercial satellite photography; (9) military surveillance satellites; and (10) cryptological equipment.

Fifth, there is a growing trend towards the hybridising of weapons. As the authors note, the conventional arms market is coming to resemble the automobile customising business, with the customer being able to get a system built to his specific military requirements by choosing a unique set of components and subsystems to fit out a generic airframe or armoured vehicle. The Chinese, for example, are now the systems integrator for the FC-1 fighter whose airframe and engine are drawn from Russian designs; its avionics will come from Britain or France, and it is being built primarily for an export client. Similarly, French night vision devices were added to Russian infantry fighting vehicles i