ShaikhKamal
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https://www.dawn.com/news/1538155
Absolute water scarcity will hit Pakistan by 2025: senator
The Newspaper's Staff Reporter
March 04, 2020
ISLAMABAD: Absolute water scarcity will hit Pakistan by 2025, disproportionately affecting women and other marginalised groups, Senator Sherry Rehman said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a Jinnah Institute event on Democracy and Inclusion, she added: “Mainstream policy agendas frequently overlook crucial statistics, and fail to create responsive mechanisms, like not convening the Climate Change Council.”
The event was organised in collaboration with DAI-Tabeer, a programme funded by aid from the United Kingdom.
“From being the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change, Pakistan has climbed ranks to the fifth most vulnerable. At least 60pc of Pakistanis suffer from food insecurity and if the dangerous nexus of poverty, climate stress and the demographic boom is not addressed Pakistan will surely fall into a prolonged destitution trap,” Senator Rehman said.
She said more concerted efforts are needed at an institutional level.
Says it will disproportionately affect women, marginalised groups
Countries face a serious crisis when their population and growth rate curves collide, a fate soon to befall Pakistan if its population growth becomes equivalent to its economic growth, she said, adding that Pakistan must review the efforts of countries in the region, particularly Bangladesh, and learn how the country has checked its burgeoning population.
Other speakers at the event discussed the value of programming inclusion into democracy practice. While important strides have been made through institutional reform and legislative action, including a host of interventions taken by the Election Commission of Pakistan and the National Database and Registration Authority to facilitate women and marginalised groups casting their votes, participants stated that these were modest steps and much more needed to be done.
Some speakers felt that this was the basic minimum that democracies should deliver for their citizens, and reporting numbers did not enable meaningful inclusion.
Participants spoke about longer term historical trajectories that have compounded democratic deficits, and prevented citizens from having a full measure of their rights. The colonial legacy turned citizens into subjects, and convincing the state otherwise has been extremely challenging.
Participants saw that the state has undertaken systemic exclusion against certain groups, and its security imperatives sustain such exclusions.
In last session of the day, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Ghazi Salahuddin, Ali Dayan Hassan and Farzana Bari said that democratic agenda is a hard sell with the state, as much as society, where women remain at the fringes of executive authority, decision making, financial independence and self expression.
They said that inclusion need not be a demand from parliaments and politicians alone, as institutions and proceduresoutside the political realm is deeply exclusionary and revealed socially entrenched attitudes that no democracy program can influence.
They said that if focus is not paid in resolving issues of people, then frustration of people will result into the rise of social movements.
Absolute water scarcity will hit Pakistan by 2025: senator
The Newspaper's Staff Reporter
March 04, 2020
ISLAMABAD: Absolute water scarcity will hit Pakistan by 2025, disproportionately affecting women and other marginalised groups, Senator Sherry Rehman said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a Jinnah Institute event on Democracy and Inclusion, she added: “Mainstream policy agendas frequently overlook crucial statistics, and fail to create responsive mechanisms, like not convening the Climate Change Council.”
The event was organised in collaboration with DAI-Tabeer, a programme funded by aid from the United Kingdom.
“From being the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change, Pakistan has climbed ranks to the fifth most vulnerable. At least 60pc of Pakistanis suffer from food insecurity and if the dangerous nexus of poverty, climate stress and the demographic boom is not addressed Pakistan will surely fall into a prolonged destitution trap,” Senator Rehman said.
She said more concerted efforts are needed at an institutional level.
Says it will disproportionately affect women, marginalised groups
Countries face a serious crisis when their population and growth rate curves collide, a fate soon to befall Pakistan if its population growth becomes equivalent to its economic growth, she said, adding that Pakistan must review the efforts of countries in the region, particularly Bangladesh, and learn how the country has checked its burgeoning population.
Other speakers at the event discussed the value of programming inclusion into democracy practice. While important strides have been made through institutional reform and legislative action, including a host of interventions taken by the Election Commission of Pakistan and the National Database and Registration Authority to facilitate women and marginalised groups casting their votes, participants stated that these were modest steps and much more needed to be done.
Some speakers felt that this was the basic minimum that democracies should deliver for their citizens, and reporting numbers did not enable meaningful inclusion.
Participants spoke about longer term historical trajectories that have compounded democratic deficits, and prevented citizens from having a full measure of their rights. The colonial legacy turned citizens into subjects, and convincing the state otherwise has been extremely challenging.
Participants saw that the state has undertaken systemic exclusion against certain groups, and its security imperatives sustain such exclusions.
In last session of the day, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Ghazi Salahuddin, Ali Dayan Hassan and Farzana Bari said that democratic agenda is a hard sell with the state, as much as society, where women remain at the fringes of executive authority, decision making, financial independence and self expression.
They said that inclusion need not be a demand from parliaments and politicians alone, as institutions and proceduresoutside the political realm is deeply exclusionary and revealed socially entrenched attitudes that no democracy program can influence.
They said that if focus is not paid in resolving issues of people, then frustration of people will result into the rise of social movements.
