Pakistan

Seminar: Countering threats with good governances

To control water scarcity, agriculture sector should lower consumption: envoy .

Our Correspondent February 20, 2013

“We never attempted to build a system of social justice so our crisis has become deeper and deeper,” says former Ambassador Akram Zaki,

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan needs to have a strong and efficient local governance mechanism to overcome traditional and non-traditional national security threats. This was the crux of a seminar titled “Non-traditional Security Threats: Global Governance System to Combat Challenges” at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Monday.

“We never attempted to build a system of social justice so our crisis has become deeper and deeper,” former Ambassador Akram Zaki, said. “If we want to stabilize our country we need to establish a strong system of local government,” he added.

Zaki maintained that the non-traditional security threats include challenges to a state’s sovereignty such as challenges posed by climate change, food and water scarcity, energy shortfalls, migration of people and cyber crimes. He said that cooperation could be increased at the global level to fight non-traditional security threats such as climate change. But he was unimpressed with the performance of United Nations’ agencies and international conferences which he said “do not usually translate to benefits for the people”.

The answer to the issue is to go back to the grass roots, where the problem lies, he added.

He cited the National Rural Support Programme in Pakistan and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh as examples of interventions at the local level which have helped the common man strengthening their livelihoods.

Shafqat Kakakhel, former ambassador, who has represented Pakistan at international forums on environmental issues, said that the non-traditional national security threats Pakistan was facing, were manageable. He added that the climate change is a major threat and it will impact the country by exacerbating the frequency of natural disasters.

“We can only tackle the natural disasters by strengthening the resilience of our people,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2013.