FOR a just, prosperous and secure Pakistan, defending democracy and defeating rogue outfits with obscurantist mindset are vital.

Reorienting the decadent state structure that protects and promotes parasitic segments at the cost of dynamic sections and ideas is also essential. All this naturally is a tall order and is impossible to achieve without public pressure and active citizenry.

There is an undeniable need for improving data, planning, financing, coordination, institution-building, delivery arrangements and development deals, but the experience of the first 15 years of the current millennium at our end has only endorsed the perception that tangible progress in the desired direction will need democratisation and decentralisation at both planning and implementation tiers.

This time around the federal government got the plan endorsed by parliament and made an effort to embed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in itsgrowth strategy.

It engaged not just the provinces but also the districts, as the responsibility of the social sector has been devolved in the wake of the 18th Amendment.

The engagement of the United Nations with the corporate sector also mobilised various subsidiaries active in Pakistan to incorporate some goals in their programmes. The UN and its multiple organisations are doing their bit as well.

But SDG implementation continues to be an exercise that people know nothing about. On their own initiative, some media houses cover the subject every now and then but this is certainly not enough as the word is not yet out; not with any degree of intensity.

Political parties and leaders might agree with the goals, but do not find them worthy of propagation. On condition of anonymity, a senior official said the governments led by different parties in each of the four provinces are too focussed on the general electionsdue next year to really care about any global agenda like the SDGs.

`Honestly speaking, SDGs are treated as something of mere academic value, and alien in the world I move in. I am not saying that development is out of sight. No, in KP a lot been has done in the health and education sector but all that is independent of the SDGs,` a top bureaucrat said over the phone.

Pakistan was among the first few countries in the 2000s to translate the MDGs into national goals and draw on paper a detailed framework complete with quantifiable indicators and annual benchmarks for each of the eight goals. In the concluding report in the termination year 2015, Pakistan accepted that goals were missed, some like health and climate, by a wide margin.

Sadly, the country continues to fare low on most global indices gauging efficiency, equity and sustainability. Some progress has been made, but performance is assessed to be far below actual potential.

The asset base continues to be skewed, limiting the accessibility of economic opportunities to the underprivileged. In Pakistan, one per cent farms cover one quarter of the agriculture land and 62pc comprise five acres or less. About half the rural households are landless.

According to the current Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC) report, the composition of growth tends to widen inequality: every one rupee expansion in national income places 36 paisas in the pockets of the rich and 03 paisas in the pockets of the poor.

The tax regime is regressive; 80pc of tax revenue is derived from indirect taxes. The richest 10pc pay 10pc of their income in indirect taxes against 16pc paid by the poorest 10pc.

The introduction of the Benazir Income Support Programme deserves a mention as an initiative to introduce and extend the social protection network for the poorest of the poor. According to data, moe than one-third of Pakistan`s population (39pc) lives in multidimensional poverty.

Pakistan`s slide on the Global Food Security Index from 75th five years back in 2012 to 79th currently is another disturbing factor. A World Health Organisation study suggests that 40pc of our children are underweight. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has projected that 37.5 million people are undernourished.

Almost 60pc of Pakistanis are food-insecure because of the neglect of rural economy.

The statistics in the health sector are even more distressing. People are turning to soothsayers as family budgets fail to cover the rising cost of healthcare. It is not surprising that 44pc of all children in the country are stunted and 9.6m experience a chronic nutrition deprivation. Pakistan`s ranking in the Maternal Mortality Ratio Index has slipped to 149, recording a pretty high ratio of 276 deaths per 100,000 births.

The situation is comparatively good in education but nowhere near the performance of our counter-parts in the region. Millions of children are deprived of education. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2015 survey found that 20pc of children aged 6-16 years were not in school and the rest were not learning much for lack of quality. Despite several initiatives to strengthen the legal framework for gender parity on Gender Gap Index, Pakistan is ranked among the last few.

Access to clean drinking water is limited, and hygiene and sanitation facilities are considered the privilege of those residing in better city areas.

Pakistan is identified amongst the most vulnerable countries to climate change. It threatens food, waterand energy security. The devastating avalanches, earthquake and floods have failed to shake the government to pay the required attention and divert resources to respond to threats and risks.

In the last budget, the allocation of less than one per cent of PSDP reflects the weight the government assigns to the issue. Pakistan signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change where signatories pledged to reduce carbon emission by 15pc of the current level. However, the government has since encouraged coal-fired power projects that, by its own admission, would worsen environmental pollution.

The plight of work force in a labour-abundant country that experienced deindustrialisation is too obvious to escape the attention of anyone interested. Limiteddecent work opportunities and several hundred people chasing each job opening have compromised the bargaining position of workers and have made them vulnerable to exploitation. The demise of trade unions has also left them with no option but to turn to their clans and bradaris for support.

According to relevant research studies, Pakistan needs to create two million jobs annually to absorb out-of-job youth over the next three decades. The country desperately requires reviving and expanding the manufacturing base to address the employment challenge. If investment under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in infrastructure helps divert private capital back to manufacturing from short-term quick-return investment avenues, it could change Pakistan`s story.

The country has yet to learn the benefits of sustainable practices and lifestyle and the value of scientific and technological capacity-building. The level of wastage is depressingly high in Pakistan. Be it agriculture produce, water, energy and much else, we have proved to be reckless.

Recently it was disclosed at a government forum that we use 1,070 litres of water for each dollar worth of GDP compared to the Asian average of 128 litres.

The energy efficiency is 128 megajoules (MJ) per dollar against the Asian average of 16 MJ.

The SDGs represent a universal set of 17 goals, 169 targets and 200-plus indicators that UN member-states are expected to localise and implement during 201530. According to sources in the know of developments in Pakistan, the work to embed the SDGs in the longterm development framework, Pakistan Vision 2025, started in 2013; two years before they were formally launched by the UN.

The first national monitoring report from member countries will be due by the end of 2018. In Pakistan, the Planning Commission is supervising and coordinating work on SDGs between line ministries and different tiers of governance.

It is said to be a huge challenge, particularly for Pakistan, which is facing a certain degree of diplomatic isolation and is clearly indecisive about the path it wishes to take for going forward. The tension in varied pillars of power in a society divided along all conceivable divides makes progress still harder. •