A CURSORY glance at the development themes pursued in Pakistan during the last few decades is bound to throw up some surprises.

To begin with, the origin or subsequent expansion of priority areas in development discourse at any point in time is invariably shrouded in mystery. The primary focus on gender issues that reigned supreme during the 1980s was transformed into a near-obsession with the environment in the 1990s.

It took less than a decade before governance reforms toppled the environment from the top slot to take a somewhat cosy backseat. Last in this list of changing paradigms is the mantra of public-private partnership, the avowed antidote for all governance ailments, which appears to have recently taken centre stage emerging from almost nowhere.

The rise and subsequent plummeting of governance reforms as the prime development agenda in Pakistan in recent years is reflective of yet another aspect of the unpredictable development discourse. Technical assistance by international development agencies does not necessarily follow indigenous reform priorities all the time.

Although governance reform was the one area which started with unparalleled synergy between the government and development partners early this decade, the donor community’s shift of focus from governance has been as unexpected as it was sudden. This is so notwithstanding the fact that some provincial governments had already made impressive investments from their own sources in local governance, decentralisation and rule-of-law reforms.

Soon after 2008, several earnest efforts were made to revisit these critical governance reform areas with the objective of appropriately tweaking them in consonance with the realities of elected oversight forums. However, requisite technical assistance from the majority of development partners has been elusive for the most part.

In all fairness to international development partners, the onus of fluctuating ownership of the development reform agenda needs to be equally shared by the relevant implementing agencies in the public sector. Very often the driving force behind development or governance reforms is almost entirely confined to the upper echelons of political or bureaucratic hierarchies.

Those at the operational or grass-roots level including ‘babus’ usually sit back in their seats and view the reforms with amused detachment.

Under these circumstances, it is only a matter of time before hardened attitudes cause reform initiatives to lose steam, consigning brilliant developmental ideas to the dustbin.

The situation has been no better in cases where the development agenda has been allowed to be set by local or indigenous interest groups. Even given the opportunity of deciding local development priorities funded by public resources, the wish list has carried nothing more than a repetition of the usual demands: proper drains, street pavements and the upgrading of primary schools.

If the total length of the drains laid or streets paved during the last decade in Pakistan were to be added, the final figure could well be greater than the circumference of the earth. No doubt these issues are important and demand-driven in their own right. However, one would still expect to find these immediate and short-term development priorities balanced to some extent by a few medium- to long-term institutional reform investments.

Ineffective implementation and ambivalent mandates have been another salient feature of recent development history in Pakistan. In the case of vertical programmes, one can always argue about their utility in acting as a catalyst to channel development resources into a hitherto ignored area of service delivery, say, preventive healthcare or livestock marketing.

However, there is little empirical evidence to suggest that the successful implementation of any number of vertical programmes actually transformed the efficiency of service delivery in a particular sector on a sustainable basis. While it may not be practical to completely preclude the incidence of vertical development programmes, an element of sanity ought to dictate the most efficient and effective level for the design or implementation of development activities by superior government tiers.

These historical challenges in development practices in Pakistan are likely to further exacerbate in view of the ever-increasing resource constraints and competing sectoral demands. International development partnerships will continue to be unpredictable and susceptible to global political vicissitude. Lower-level government outfits especially where local governments are concerned may not be able to fully overcome the issues of legitimacy and capacity constraint in the near future.

Several options should be explored to overcome these challenges. They could prove a welcome departure from the historical pattern of dealing with questions of development. Sectoral reform menus or strategies may be revisited in view of changing institutional mandates and resource constraints. International development partners may be asked to identify support areas that are more or less in consonance with indigenous prioritisation.

Vertical programmes may be reconfigured as strategic interventions by the federal and provincial governments. A clear demarcation in terms of the implementation responsibilities for complex policy reform initiatives and localised service delivery projects need to be developed and honoured.

Given our predilection for jargon-based development, recourse to more simple solutions may not appeal; yet the cost of not rectifying matters may well turn out to be phenomenal.

The writer is an expert on governance and environment matters.

rizwanmehboob@yahoo.com