During the 1990s, the World Bank and several donor partners provided a “surge” in external aid to support Pakistan's social sectors. Despite the millions of donor dollars spent, the program failed. Poverty was higher in Pakistan in 2004 than it was a decade earlier when the antipoverty program began. This working paper re-releases a CGD analysis of the World Bank's program, which was prepared in 2005 by CGD researchers Nancy Birdsall, Milan Vaishnav, and Adeel Malik. The analysis reports the many problems donors faced while working with Pakistan's government to improve health and education outcomes. A new preface by Nancy Birdsall and Molly Kinder identifies the key lessons from this massive donor experiment that are relevant today, as the United States and other donors prepare to increase their assistance to Pakistan to historic levels.
The bubble is bursting. I'm not talking about the Greek economy, the collapse of which has bankers and finance ministers trembling from Athens to Antarctica. Nor am I talking about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which reminds us once again that our current energy security rests on shaky foundations.
On May 6, Britain went to the polls to elect a new government, producing no clear result but forcing the resignation of Labor Party leader Gordon Brown. Within hours of taking over as prime minister, Conservative Party leader David Cameron had created a new body, a British national security council, whose first meeting focused on "discuss[ing] the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and review[ing] the terrorist threat to the UK." Apart from Britain's economic problems, these issues and Middle East policy in general will likely dominate the new government's agenda -- and its relations with Washington.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, Terrorism, International Security, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, United Kingdom, Washington, and Middle East
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
According to hitherto available data, health expenditures in Pakistan are relatively low in international comparison. Data2 published by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the year 2005 shows a lack of Pakistani health expenditures in most indicators, compared to other low-income countries (LIC). To answer the question whether these results reflect the real situation in Pakistan or whether they exist due to statistical problems, Pakistan, for the first time, developed its National Health Accounts (NHA) in 2009. Only the availability of good estimates of health expenditures allows for evidence-based policymaking and therefore for good governance.
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba—a group historically supported by Pakistan—laid siege to Mumbai in November 2008, crippling the city for three days and taking at least 163 lives. But India's response was restrained; it did not mobilize its military forces to retaliate against either Pakistan or Lashkar camps operating there. A former Indian chief of Army Staff, Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury, bluntly stated that Pakistan's threat of nuclear use deterred India from seriously considering conventional military strikes.
Defeating the insurgency not only in tactical terms, but by eliminating its control and influence over the population. Creating an effective and well-resourced NATO/ISAF and US response to defeating the insurgency and securing the population. Building up a much larger and more effective (and enduring base for transition) mix of Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Giving the Afghan government the necessary capacity and legitimacy at the national, regional/provincial, district, and local levels. Creating an effective, integrated, and truly operational civil-military effort. NATO/ISAF, UN, member country, and NGO and international community efforts. Dealing with the sixth center of gravity outside Afghanistan and NATO/ISAF's formal mission. with the actions of Pakistan, Iran, and other states will be critical to success in Afghanistan.
In a village near Sheikhupura, Pakistan, Shahid Zia and other elders discuss strategies for coping with steadily declining water levels in the tube wells long used to irrigate their rice crop. They bemoan the rising costs of renting combines to harvest their wheat, made necessary to reduce post-harvest losses from the monsoon that now arrives earlier. Their soils are tired, and their crop yields stagnant. Farmers whose fathers once led the Green Revolution on the moist, rich soils of Pakistan's Punjab, they must now rehabilitate their soils, restore groundwater, and diversify crops to remain commercially competitive. The harvest laborers whose livelihoods these well-educated landowners supported now eke out a living in the slums of Lahore.
Five events during the fall of 2009 thrust concerns over “homegrown” terrorism—or extremist violence perpetrated by U.S. legal residents and citizens —into public view: September 19: Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan citizen and U.S. legal resident, was arrested on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Zazi later admitted to traveling to Pakistan to receive explosives and weapons training and to planning an attack in the United States. October 27: Federal authorities charged U.S. citizen David Coleman Headley with planning to attack a Danish newspaper. In December, revelations surfaced that Headley may have conspired with operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani terrorist group, in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. November 5: Major Nidal Malik Hasan, U.S. Army, allegedly killed 13 and wounded 30 at Fort Hood Army Base, outside Killeen, Texas. Early reports revealed that Hasan had previously communicated with a radical Yemeni cleric connected to al Qaeda. November 23: Federal officials unsealed indictments against eight people charged in connection with the alleged recruitment of approximately two dozen Somali Americans to fight with an insurgent group in Somalia. December 9: Five young Northern Virginia men were arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan. U.S. and Pakistani authorities claim that the group traveled there to fight alongside Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
Topic:
Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, America, Somalia, and Virginia