Shaping humanitarian and ethical governance in Pakistan

Pakistan’s ongoing political instability, inter-institutional rivalry and economic failure are three major factors that are fast changing the role of local state and non-state actors in the country. On the economic front, according to a recent report of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics , Pakistan is at the doors of hyperinflation as the annual inflation rate surged to 35.4% in March — the highest in last five decades. The food inflation in rural areas was over 50%. As a consequence, the central bank may use the new inflation rate as a base to further increase the interest rate. As the prices of almost all goods are increasing exponentially, the real value of Pakistani rupee is fast depreciating and common man is in the grip of worst economic crisis. Pakistan is close to a stage where people may lose their confidence in local currency altogether and switch to stable foreign currencies. The situation demands a de novo approach towards shaping the parameters and determinants of humanitarian and ethical governance in Pakistan.

There is no denying the fact that institutions are long run determinants of economic growth in a country. However, the working and informal culture of governance in developed and developing countries is very different. In developed countries, one could hardly see any inter-institutional confrontation. If it is there, it always has a strong legal and moral basis. But in developing countries, like Pakistan, some institutions are directly involved in power struggle. The role of institutions and their domains remain blurred and one can’t see any mechanism or process that could right-align ethical governance in the country. The inter-institutional rivalry is so ossified that no state actor is ready to understand that the poor masses are real stakeholders and they are suffering economically.

Pakistan’s economy has historically been dependent on foreign aid. In the beginning the country received massive aid from the West in the name of socioeconomic uplift. However, the aid was not used as initial capital to kickstart the culture of business and entrepreneurship in the country. It was rather consumed as income with no business and trade planning. As the quantum of Western aid gradually diminished, the country started to exploit its natural resources like urban lands. These lands were exploited both individually and institutionally. Some institutions saw a great opportunity in land development because the demand for housing is very high. These institutions started developing their own housing societies in almost all big cities of Pakistan. Fertile lands were ruthlessly transformed into a jungle of concrete structures through over-urbanisation. The industrialists started to close down their industries and instead invested their capital in housing societies without realising that the factories they are closing don’t just belong to them. The workers and their dependent families were also associated with those factories for earning their livelihood. The overall trend of economic transformation from an agricultural-cum-industrial economy to a natural resource based economy is very excruciating and that is the root cause of Pakistan’s economic crisis.

Today, the inter-institutional rivalry is actually a war of winning control over country’s natural resources. No political party or institution could develop a culture of humanitarian and ethical governance in the country. The dictatorial approach of the heads of political parties and institutions actually lacks the element of collective wisdom and long-term understanding about the country’s future. There is no effective governance framework that could suggest way forward for the suffering of ordinary citizens who have nothing to do with the ongoing political and institutional turmoil. They only want a respectable way to meet their both ends meet.

It is, therefore, important to raise the question: why is humanitarian and ethical governance relevant in the context of Pakistan’s current political and institutional crisis? It is because the lives of people are endangered, as reflected in the stampede and killing of people at the flour distribution sites, and they are rendered destitute because of politico-economic collapse, institutional tug-of-war and the fight of the powerful for control over natural resources. Politico-institutional turbulence in Pakistan is actually reimagining and reorganising humanitarian governance patterns in the country. The accountability and advocacy processes are also fast changing because of active involvement of media and civil society. The ongoing politico-institutional crisis will indeed change the governance patters in the context of state-society-aid relations. There is, therefore, a need to develop a Pakistan-based model of alternative humanitarian ethics by reimagining and reorganising human governance patterns in the ongoing politico-institutional conflict. One of Pakistan’s leading universities could consider kickstarting a research project on reshaping humanitarian and ethical governance model in Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan must provide funding for such a project. This is a better way to avoid identical political crisis in future.

A similar project has recently been launched by the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University, with the financial support of European Research Council. The project Humanitarian Governance (Hum-Gov) seeks to develop models of alternative humanitarian ethics, for example centering on solidarity in addition to humanitarian principles. The Hum-Gov project raises three basic questions: 1) How is humanitarian governance imagined and organised in the interplay of different actors? 2) How do accountability and advocacy processes of aid recipients and civil society actors alter governance relations ‘from below’? 3) How do different patterns of governance emerge in different types of crisis and contexts of state-society-aid relations? Similar questions need to be raised in the proposed project in Pakistan’s context. The heads of political parties and powerful institutions are exercising powers in their respective domains but they are unable to draw a clear boundary where politico-institutional conflicts occur. The proposed project must provide the principles defining these blurred lines. That means a greater focus on processes rather than just framing policy.

Economic instability and unprecedented inflation in Pakistan is the long-term outcome of the country’s conventional dependence on foreign aid and natural resources. Unless a new framework of humanitarian and ethical governance is shaped, the institutions and political parties will continue to engage in power struggle in future. There has to be an end to this sadistic power struggle so that economy and business entrepreneurship could be right-aligned. Pakistan will have to ultimately shun foreign aid and natural resource based development and revert back to industrialisation and business entrepreneurship as a long-term strategy to attain sustainable economic growth rate.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2023.

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