Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Absolute inefficiency and lack of seriousness continues by the United Nation Development Project (UNDP) as the Pakistan National Human Development Report, 2016 (PKNHDR), will not be launched even in 2016, claim sources. The working on the PKNHDR started in November 2014 and it was originally planned to be launched in 2015.

However, due to incompetency and disorganisation of the UNDP, it was announced that the report would be released before mid-2016. In an official email in July this year, the media coordinator of the UNDP, said that “the report was scheduled to be released in October 2016 and would go ahead as planned.” Sources nevertheless say that it will, by no chance, get published in 2016. Additionally, the sources also revealed that the “Lead Authors” of the report are no more writing the report but in fact it is being written by few other researchers who are of no match to the lead authors that include Dr Adil Najam, a leading academician of Pakistan who is getting a huge sum of money for this project. Dr Adil’s unavailability is also a main factor behind the delay of the report. The handing over of the Report Writing to junior researchers shows the extent of professionalism by the UNDP in a highly serious project of national importance. While responding to this news, Shuja Hakim, the Communication Officer of the UNDP, stated that “Mr. Adil Najam, the “Lead Author”, is currently in Pakistan and working to finalise the report. It will be released in early 2017″.

Development tycoons have long been criticising the working of the UN and other international organizations stating that they spent billions of dollars, while using the slogans of development. This is quite explicit in the case of PKNHDR — how millions of dollars had been spent on this highly important project, while the UNDP’s performance is quite clear and visible. PKNDHR has been closely watched by economists and socio-political experts nationally and internationally, in a scenario when statistics regarding Pakistan’s GDP growth and other economic indicators are highly controversial and contentious.

Moreover, the mainstream economists of the country not just completely reject the government’s statistics declaring economic growth, but on the contrary they claim that the overall situation is getting miserably vulnerable and the country’s economy has been dragged to a disastrous end. Although many economists outrightly reject the approach and methodology being adopted in the National Human Development Report, still it is widely considered to be the best indicator to assess human development in a country. According to the UNDP: “The Human Development approach since its inception has served as the best method for articulating the objectives of development and improving people’s well-being. This approach is more about expanding the standard of human life, as compared to old approaches to development that concentrated on improving the standard of economy only.”

The development of people is the main indicator being adopted in the NHDR to analyse the overall economic growth of the country. The central focal point, in the report, is the development of the youth as it “looks at the role of the youth as a critical force for enhancing human development. With 64 per cent of Pakistan’s population below the age of 30, the report focuses on the significant opportunity for improving human development posed by investing in young people’s quality education, gainful employment and meaningful engagement.” The report is of vital importance as it is being followed by almost all the international governmental and non-governmental organisations. Even the government and the political leadership consider the report to be extremely important as the advisory council of the NHDR includes the Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, Ahsan Iqbal and Marvi Memon, the chair of the Media Broadcasting Subcommittee and Deputy Chairman of the Subcommittee on Defence and Internal and Foreign Affairs, along with Asad Umer of the PTI, Bushra Gauhar from ANP and Jan Achakzai of JUI-F.