The fine-tuning of NAP

The National Action Plan was formulated in the aftermath of the massacre at the Army Public School Peshawar in 2014, and it has since served as both baseline and blueprint for fighting terrorism nationally. The 20 points that constitute NAP are dynamic in that they are not static, nor have they been implemented uniformly across the country. Some have received scant attention, and hitherto there has been coordination across the 20 points that was patchy at best and non-existent at worst. Thus it is that we extend a cautious welcome to reports that the government has decided to set up a central record office in order to share information regarding terrorists, militants and other persons of interest ‘in the shortest possible time’.



The meeting that took the decision was low key and there was no press note issued, but we have no reason to doubt that it took place or its outcome. Implementing NAP was never going to be easy, if nothing else because the infrastructure of implementation at the national level either had to be built from scratch or resurrected as in the case of the National Counter-Terrorism Agency. NAP was not systemically future-proofed — and it needed to be if it was going to have the consistency and durability to be effective in a long term trans-generational battle. It also needs to be able to withstand changes in the political weather which varies from province to province, and has no consistent national profile or forecast.

The welcome we extend is cautious because if there is one thing that Pakistan is consistently poor at it is the coordination of anything. Coordination is not part of the national genetic makeup. Already political infighting has blunted the impact of NAP, as have differential budgetary applications. If the setting up of a central records office that services the wider, deeper, needs of NAP is successful, then it will have been worth the time, effort and money that brought it to being. If not it will be yet another derelict talking shop — and the landscape is already littered with plenty of those.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2016.

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