A mural by Pakistani artist Asim Butt. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan , Sep 27 2013 (IPS)

It took fifty-something Sameer*, father of two, 25 years of marriage and deceit to eventually break free and come out of the closet three years back.

Living with Ahmed*, a budding actor half his age, he says it had come to a point when living a life of “lies and more lies” had become suffocating. Now, the Karachi businessman tells IPS, “It’s like a load off my back; I can finally be myself.”

It is difficult to pin down exact numbers, but Pakistan has a sizeable lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. One very well-guarded LGBT website boasts 25,000 profiles from all over Pakistan, with 8,500 from Karachi alone.

“These obviously include only the tech-savvy,” says Akbar*, a 36-year-old medical practitioner who is in a relationship with 31-year-old advertising professional Ali*.

“There must be a huge number who are either not computer literate or want to stay closeted,” he tells IPS.

Pakistan’s conservative Muslim society considers homosexuality a sin. Article 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code prescribes up to 10 years in jail and a fine for those caught engaging in what are referred to as acts “against the order of nature”. There have been no prosecutions so far, though.

The larger community is mainly tolerant of gay men as long as they and their lifestyle operate under the veneer of social conformity. “Many ministers indulge in homosexual acts,” says Ahmed. “I have myself been the recipient of their attentions!”

This is perhaps why the gay men IPS spoke to did not recount any incident of witnessing or experiencing homophobia. “As long as you stay in the closet, do not ask for your rights, you are safe,” says Akbar.

However, sometimes the pressure to be discreet gets too much and gay men feel increasingly constricted in terms of places to hang out at. As Sameer says, “We can’t even be seen together at a café; there are no public spaces where we can be ourselves.”

While there are some well-known gay hotspots in Karachi, like around the much-revered tomb of Abdullah Shah Ghazi and the gardens around Frere Hall, Akbar says the haunts keep changing.

The more affluent gay men travel abroad or organise private parties. Email and text messages have made life much easier. “It is now possible to get together at the click of a button,” says Akbar.

The homosexual relationship, though, is a complex one, and not necessarily high on fidelity. While Sameer and Ahmed profess to be in love with each other, neither sees it as a monogamous relationship. “Everyone in our community has sex with others,” says Sameer.

Akbar too confesses to the odd one-night stand despite being “in love with Ali.”

“At least we are not cheating on our partners as some straight men do,” says Akbar. “Almost every straight married man I know is having an extramarital affair. They have no qualms about being unfaithful given the opportunity and guarantee of not being found out.”

When IPS repeats this to a straight married banker who does not wish to be named, he says, “I am surprised these people, who complain of being suppressed by society, seem to be as judgmental about us as we are about them.”

Senior finance professional Ali Aamir, on the other hand, concedes there could be some truth in what they are saying. “Society and religion have given marriage a sacred hue, but behind the marital façade, all this could be happening,” he tells IPS.

Ahmed says he knows a number of people who maintain the façade of a married life and have a gay lover on the side. He himself is open to the idea of a heterosexual marriage.

“A vast majority of marriages are arranged, not built on love; I’d be up front about my status before marriage!” he says, disclosing that many of his women friends do not mind the idea of being married to a gay man.

“I know many gay men who treat their wives well, even perform well in bed,” Ahmed adds. “In fact, we are more attuned to women’s needs, and can therefore make better husbands.”

However, while Ahmed is open to having the best of both worlds, marriage was a prison for his partner Sameer.

It is easier having a homosexual relationship when you are young, says Sameer. “Going to an all-boys’ school, having male friends over or even spending the night never raises alarm bells,” he adds. “It’s only when you reach marriageable age that the pressure begins to build.”

“Even where families have a fair idea, they hitch you up thinking marriage will cure you of this passing phase,” says Akbar. It’s taken for granted a man will have a family, regardless of sexual orientation.

Akbar also feels frustrated that he has been with Ali for the last eight years, yet cannot tell people what his relationship with him is, even though both their families have accepted their sexual bent. “I’m sick of having to say he’s my cousin or my friend. I want to tell the world that we are a couple,” he says.

The implications get serious when it comes to getting insurance or medical coverage, as Akbar discovered when he went to buy a life insurance policy and was told he could not nominate Ali as a beneficiary. “It had to be a blood relative or a spouse.”

Nor can Ali avail himself of the benefits Akbar and his family are entitled to. “It can only be a wife, children or parents,” Akbar adds.

“Today gays in the West are asking for equal rights for same-sex couples; in Pakistan they have a long way to go before they can ask for that,” Jumana*, a development sector consultant, tells IPS.

“The fact that they are at least willing to talk publicly about the issues they face here is the first brave step,” she adds.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

‘Chal Parha’, a popular TV show hosted by Pakistani singer Shehzad Roy, takes viewers on a virtual tour of the country’s education system. Credit: KT/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Mar 28 2013 (IPS)

Mounted on a Harley Davidson, Shehzad Roy, a popular Pakistani singer, is on a mission: to expose the country’s 176 million residents to the good, the bad and the ugly side of Pakistan’s education system.

Stopping by small villages dotting the mountainous terrain, or traversing miles of sandy desert and green valleys and plains, Roy takes viewers on a virtual road-trip for the popular television show ‘Chal Parha’ (meaning ‘Come, Teach’), aired on the private channel ‘Geo’ every Saturday and Sunday night.

The 23-part programme – part of the channel’s initiative to promote public awareness on education and literacy – highlights everything from the dog-eared national curriculum and ancient textbooks to dilapidated school buildings without water, latrines and electricity.

In his hallmark tongue-in-cheek style, Roy ends every episode by assigning the government “homework” – policy recommendations to correct the system.

The show has no shortage of scenes to cover: Roy has already shown his viewers everything from beautiful buildings devoid of teachers to three-roomed schools where a multitude of classes are taught simultaneously by one teacher.

Some episodes have covered children studying in makeshift schools comprised of nothing more than tents, after school buildings were destroyed in the 2005 earthquake. The money earmarked for reconstruction was misplaced, officials say.

For students in rural areas, studying under a tree is all they know. Many classrooms are taken over by village notables as storerooms for animals and fodder.

Things are no better in the big cities, where children can be seen cleverly sidestepping streams of sewage or covering their noses to avoid the foul smell on their way to school, while uniformed students are often crammed into classes with no electricity or ventilation, forced to learn by rote.

The programme quickly became a hit, perhaps because a “picture is always much more effective than words, especially a real one with real stories”, Baela Raza Jamil, head of the Islamabad-based NGO Idare-e-Taleem-o Agehi (Centre for Education and Consciousness), told IPS.

“I have asked my team to consider it compulsory viewing,” she added.

Pakistan lags on education targets

In April 2010, education was made a fundamental right for all up to the age of 16, after the insertion of Article 25-A into Pakistan’s constitution.

Yet, according to Roy, almost seven million children between the ages of five and nine do not go to school and those that do drop out after just a few years of schooling.

Some believe the root of the problem dates back to Pakistan’s inception. According to Haris Gazdar, a senior researcher at Karachi’s Collective for Social Science Research, “The dominant strand in Pakistani nationalism is divisive and has not presented a viable cultural model for nation-building.”

He believes that education, which in “virtually all other countries is regarded by the nationalist elite as a vehicle for nation-building, has no real value for Pakistan’s divided elites”.

Though many families “will invest in their children’s education to the best of their capacity, interest and knowledge, nowhere in the world has universal schooling been achieved through private demand alone”, he told IPS.

“There is no collective demand for education in Pakistan because there is no collective agreement on the cultural model for nation-building.“

Jamil agreed, stating that good-quality early childhood education in Pakistan was accessible to “fewer than ten percent of Pakistani children”.

Currently leading the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for Pakistan with several partners and volunteers, she was quick to support her statement with dismal figures: “Seventy percent of government-run primary schools have only one or two rooms for five classes,” she told IPS. “More than 40 percent of schools are without latrines; 66 percent do not have electricity; and children in 37 percent of schools lack drinking water facilities.

“Pre-primary classes in Pakistan seldom have an exclusive teacher or teaching-learning aids, which are required by the national curriculum,” she said.

The gross enrolment rate, including under- and over-age children, at the primary level is 86 percent, out of which 33 percent drop out. Meanwhile, only 18 percent of those who complete primary school are eligible for mid-level education.

Of those who make it to the 10^th grade, only 30 percent successfully complete high school and only three percent make it to the tertiary level.

This pattern has brought the national literacy rate to 58 percent, far below the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of 88 percent.

Enlightening and painful

Sprinkled with candid interviews with schoolchildren, and discussions with parents, teachers, government officials, clerics and psychologists in over 200 schools, the show has been an interesting yet painful experience, according to Roy.

Others, like professor A.H. Nayyar, a prominent physicist and peace activist, laud the programme as “riveting” and a much-needed step towards achieving the MDG education target in the absence of government action or proper resource allocation.

“The national education policy of 2008-9, promised a higher allocation for education, but that promise was never met,” he told IPS. According to official data, Pakistan spends just two percent of its national GDP on education.

The travelling TV show also offers glimpses into other reasons youth stay away from school, such as poverty, child labour and early marriage.

The use of corporal punishment is also a strong deterrent. Roy recently exposed the story of eight-year-old Malaika, whose teacher threw a pen at her eye, damaging her cornea and leading to the detachment of her retina. The teacher claims Malaika was “not paying attention”.

That episode prompted three provincial assemblies to pass a resolution scrapping Section 89 of Pakistan’s penal code, which allows “guardians” to punish children in “good faith”.

Additionally, a bill on corporal punishment that had been languishing in the National Assembly (NA) gained fresh impetus after the show was aired. Tabled by legislator Attiya Inayatullah back in 2010, it was unanimously passed in the assembly on Mar. 13, which, she told IPS, was quite “historic”.

When the bill officially becomes a law, individuals involved in abusing children will be sentenced to one year in prison, a 500-dollar fine, or both.

Another episode traced the life of a young girl with no hands who, despite learning how to write using only her feet, had been pushed out of school due to poverty. A few days after the show aired, Fehmida Mirza, the speaker for the NA, presented the young girl with a check for 5,000 dollars in order for her to continue her studies.

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Mar 23 2013 (IPS)

Fifty-six-year-old Perween Rehman had dedicated her life to humanitarian work. As head of the Orangi Pilot Project’s Research and Training Institute (OPP-RTI), she spent years working in one of the largest informal settlements in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, helping to overhaul a primitive sanitation system that was expected to serve Orangi’s 1.5 million inhabitants.

Though many have lauded her efforts in overseeing a successful community-driven sanitation programme, which is being replicated in parts of South Africa, Central Asia, Nepal and Sri Lanka, others felt her work was more deserving of punishment than praise: on Mar. 13, she was gunned down in a killing that, to date, no armed group has claimed responsibility for.

As Karachi’s 18 million residents struggle to survive a wave of violence, extremism and targeted killings, a new and terrifying pattern is emerging — those engaged in humanitarian work are now considered fair game.

Few believe the authorities’ claim that the chief suspect involved in Rehman’s murder  was killed in a police “encounter”.

Those close to her suspect she was killed by one of Karachi’s many powerful land-grabbing groups who have a vested interest in acquiring state land on which informal settlements have cropped up.

Prior to her death, Rehman had received death threats for her attempts to document the land mafia’s practice of illegally annexing land, in collusion with political parties, then selling it to Karachi’s millions of  people in need of housing, thus creating a dependent and destitute voter constituency.

Calling Rehman a “true heroine”, Hoodbhoy added, “In a country awash in weapons, and with a state machinery that is precariously weak, a grab for resources (land) will surely result in such atrocities occurring again and again.” Indeed, almost 60 percent of Karachi is comprised of informal settlements that lack basic services.

Senior journalist Najma Sadeque believes Rehman “stepped on the toes of powerful criminal elements”.

“Where big money is at stake, such as real estate, there is danger. I was surprised that she spoke openly about the problem — perhaps she never saw herself as a threat,” Sadeque told IPS. “There are too many groups involved, internal and external, confusing the situation.”

In December, militants shot dead five female workers vaccinating children against polio, forcing the government to suspend the vaccination drive here.

Police say 2012 was the worst year as far as the body count is concerned, with over 2,000 people dead in targeted killings and bombings in Karachi.

But the violence is not just restricted to this city — across Pakistan, aid workers are attacked, polio teams hunted down and teachers killed.

Earlier this year, gunmen killed seven teachers and health workers, six of them women, in the Swabi district of Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“On one side are crazed religious fundamentalists with guns, driven into a state of madness by mullahs using mosque loudspeakers and televisions. They kill women administering the polio vaccine and shoot schoolgirls for wanting to study,” Hoodbhoy told IPS. “On the other hand, there is the…equally diabolical murder of (humanitarian workers) like Perween Rahman.”

With Pakistan ranked among the top five most dangerous countries in the world for aid workers, according to a 2012 report by the group Humanitarian Outcomes, many see the space for good Samaritan shrinking rapidly in Pakistan.

Attacks on aid workers worldwide climbed to 150 in 2012, up from 129 in 2010; 308 aid workers were killed. A vast majority of the attacks — over 72 percent — took place in just five countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Pakistan.

“It is sad that people who can make a difference and who can help bring about change in Pakistan, are being removed,” said Nuzhat Lotia, a Pakistani development expert.

Using the hastag #ParweenRehman, various prominent personalities in Pakistan expressed similar sentiments. Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan Director of Human Right Watch, tweeted: “Slowly but surely, everyone and everything good in our country is being targeted and killed.”

“A selfish thought tonight,” tweeted Cyril Almeida, a correspondent for the daily Dawn newspaper. “I am sick at the thought of the growing number of (people) in my phone book who have been cut down. Too much death.”

Former cricket star and Pakistani politician Imran Khan tweeted that he was “Saddened to see what we are turning into”.

The situation for foreign aid workers is no better. In its December 2012 issue, The Economist wrote, “The climate for humanitarian workers has not been improved by the authorities. They have harassed aid professionals, restricting their movements and limiting visas, fearing that spies lurk among them”.

Last year, the Red Cross suspended much of its work in Pakistan after a British doctor was kidnapped and beheaded in the western city of Quetta.

Lotia is sceptical about whether things will ever improve. “The youth are losing important role models and violence is seen as the norm as that is what they are exposed to and hear about day in and day out,” she lamented.

Although the Pakistan People’s Party-led government completed its five-year term this month and will officially pass off power to an interim government until the general elections scheduled for May 11, Sadeque believes “the trend will continue” because all political parties have self-serving interests.

While despair seems to have snuck into the thoughts of even the most resilient and optimistic members of Pakistan’s civil society, Hoodbhoy urged those committed to creating a better society not to “run away”.

“We owe it to our future generations to keep telling the truth, to keep suggesting solutions, and to keep fighting,” he said.

(END)

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jan 7 2013 (IPS)

Karachi, a sprawling city of 18 million, is the country’s economic hub. It accounts for 95 percent of Pakistan’s foreign trade and contributes 30 percent of national industrial production.

If power outages don’t interrupt the day’s work, then one of the many transport workers’ strikes surely will, delaying the shipment of products abroad. When the strikers get back to work, extortionists come knocking, demanding huge sums in “protection money” from factory owners.

“If foreign businessmen cannot visit Pakistan, see our products and (engage) in joint ventures, how will our industries thrive?” asked Yasin Siddiq, president of the Sindh and Balochistan chapters of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association.

The many crises have pushed unemployment to roughly five percent, according to the World Bank’s most recent World Development Report.

The only bright spot on the horizon, experts say, is the potential impact of the European Union’s decision to grant Pakistan Autonomous Trade Preferences in 2013. The agreement allows duty-free market access to 75 textile items from Pakistan and is expected to boost production in this vital sector of the economy.

Even small shopkeepers in Karachi’s crowded marketplaces are not safe from extortion. Credit: Zainub Razvi/CC-BY-SA-2.0

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Sep 24 2012 (IPS)

The cost of doing business in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi is steep. Surviving the climate of impunity now requires more than bags of protection money – it also calls for a stoutness of heart.

“Kidnapping for ransom and extortion have become the norm here, not an exception,” a 50-year-old factory owner in Karachi told IPS. He considers himself lucky that he pays a “protection” bribe of 50,000 rupees (528 dollars) every month when others around him are forced to pay much more.

The extortionists, locally called the ‘bhatta mafia’, are often young men between 18 and 30 years old, wielding state of the art ammunition. They have the support of four major political parties – the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, the Awami National Party, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) and the Haqiqi.

Recently, the Taliban have also been demanding a slice of the Karachi extortion pie.

The bhatta epidemic started about three years ago, according to Anjum Nisar, former president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industries.

Nisar told IPS that the problem was initially concentrated in a few of Karachi’s industrialised zones like Korangi and SITE, but has now engulfed the whole city including shopping areas and marketplaces and become “quite uncontrollable”.

Not only factory owners and big industrialists but also small shopkeepers are at the mercy of blackmailers.

There are three or four ways employed to extort money, shopkeepers located in the city’s wholesale market for automobile spare parts told IPS. The fear factor is so intense that most were even afraid to speak, let alone identify themselves on the record.

“It starts with one phone call where they demand a ridiculous amount. Then they give you information about where your kids study and their regular haunts. If you resist, you will either get shots fired on your shutters or a brand new bullet sent to you along with a note saying, “this will be used either on one of your employees or even you”,” explained one of the shopkeepers on condition of anonymity. Those gathered around nodded in silent agreement.

“Because you know these threats are real, you negotiate and come to a mutually agreed amount,” a white-haired store owner on Tariq Road, one of the most popular market places in Karachi and home to over 2,000 shops, multi-storey plazas, showrooms and offices, told IPS.

“(The bribers) have got guts, they even leave messages on your cell phone; if you go to the police to trace the number, the latter usually tell you to pay up,” he added incredulously.

“And it’s not just the police, who are under-resourced anyway; even ministers or members of parliament, many of whom are known to us on a personal level, tell us it is best to settle,” interrupted his neighbour, adding that the “extortion epidemic” is now beyond anyone’s control.

Shopkeepers at the Plaza, the biggest auto spare parts marketplace in the city, say they pay anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 rupees (roughly 50 to 100 dollars) annually to each gang. There are over half a dozen gangs, all of whom operate under the umbrella of some political party or another.

“There are also random telephone calls ordering us to whip up anywhere between 200,000 to 500,000 rupees (2,000 to 5,000 dollars) within a few days’ notice,” a business owner at the Plaza told IPS.

Several others told IPS the mafia has devised a myriad ways to extort money.

“They kidnap you, make you call your family from your phone and ask them to arrange for a certain sum of money in two hours. These are speedy kidnappings and you are released within a few hours,” said a bearded man who appeared to be in his late fifties.

He refused to be identified, saying it was too dangerous. “These young men are very clever and may just come to me with this article asking why I dared to speak,” he explained.

“Our young men have found an easy way of making money,” added his friend, also requesting anonymity. “I’d say a few are educated, but what they earn (through this racket) is more than a fresh business graduate could earn in a month. And the kick they get out of holding a TT (semi-automatic) pistol, using filthy language and scaring the daylights out of people gives them a certain power they wallow in.”

According to Nisar, massive unemployment could be a factor. “About three million people entering the job market each year are unable to find employment,” he said.

“As a result these young job seekers turn to illegal ways of making easy money.”

National impact

Karachi, a sprawling city of 18 million, is the country’s economic hub, accounting for 95 percent of Pakistan’s foreign trade and contributing 30 percent of national industrial production.

“Pakistan is losing between 1.3 and two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) annually due to the energy crises and an ineffective law and order apparatus,” said Nisar, citing financial ministry statistics.

“A tax base of less than 9.5 percent, coupled with the highest interest rate for the private sector in the region (roughly 13 to 14 percent), has ruined the investment climate completely,” he lamented.

Now, extortionists are sapping the city’s economic potential even further. Compared to the economic performances of other countries in the region, the impact of lawlessness on Pakistan’s economy is startling.

“In 2002 Vietnam’s exports totalled two billion dollars; by 2012 that had increased to 80 billion dollars. South Korea was way behind us in 1965 and they used our economic model. Look at them now — their exports have reached 550 billion dollars. India’s exports are worth 300 billion dollars. We’re so well endowed both with natural as well as human resources and yet our exports amount to less than 24 billion dollars,” Nisar pointed out.

He said the cost of doing business in Karachi was much higher than doing it in other cities in the region. “We pay through our noses for private security for our factories and families – the 30,000 police deployed in the streets are just not enough to manage the city’s 18 million residents. In addition, the insurance rates have also gone up.”

The former president of Pakistan’s Automobile and Spare Parts Importers and Dealers Association, 53-year old Arshad Islam, has one solution on his mind: “Make Karachi weapon-free and these gun-toting young men will come to their senses.”

He also suggested the imposition of a night curfew. “This will act as a deterrent, as many lootings take place in the night,” he told IPS.

Until those measures are implemented, “we have demanded that the government give us licences to keep weapons,” Nisar said.

At a recent meeting called by the chief minister of the Sindh province, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, the inspector general of police and officials of intelligence agencies briefed local politicians and businessmen on the law and order situation and claimed they were not even equipped to trace the phone calls made by blackmailers.

But residents and victims of the wave of extortion are not convinced.

“I cannot believe the government machinery cannot deal with this plague, which is going on right under their noses. If our intelligence agencies can dig up and hand over hard-core militants, surely these criminals, who are very visible, can be easily caught?” a shopkeeper on Tariq Road exclaimed.

(END)

Karachi is prone to floods. Credit: Muhammad Arshad/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Sep 6 2012 (IPS)

Climate proofing this bustling port city is a daunting task for planners who must consider factors ranging from proneness to flooding and administrative malaise to the fact that 60 percent of its 18 million people live in slums.

The Economist Intelligence Unit in its latest global survey of living conditions released in August rated Karachi as the seventh least liveable city, placing it 134th in the world out of a list of 140 countries.

Farhan Anwar, an engineer and urban planner, argues that the recently notified Climate Change Policy for Pakistan directs attention mostly to agriculture, forestry and water resources and glosses over the special needs of urban settlements.

Anwar, lead author of the report, ‘Karachi city climate change adaptation strategy: A roadmap’, published in April, warns that if urgent action is not taken Karachi may turn into a cauldron of “social and ethnic tensions”.

Anwar believes that climate change preparedness for Karachi starts with an understanding of its political economy, its vulnerable and threatened communities, assets and biodiversity. This would require a detailed and comprehensive mapping of land use and ownership, utilities, transport networks and constructions.

“Unresolved political conflicts and turf battles over control of city assets and services that lead to, among other things, fragmentation and decay in terms of legitimacy, credibility and functional effectiveness of the critical institutions of governance such as city government, land control agencies, civic utilities” are some of the ills that have befallen Karachi, Anwar tells IPS.

Although the city’s management infrastructure is teetering and its over-stretched civic services are at breaking point, Karachi accounts for 95 percent of Pakistan’s foreign trade and contributes to 30 percent of the national industrial production.

Karachi, the report said, is prone to flooding, thanks to overflowing rivers, rainwater and choked sewers. Except for a 12-mile embankment along Malir river, most of the city remains defenceless against inundation.

According to an Asian Development Bank report, ‘Addressing Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific’, released in March, Karachi is at high risk from sea-level rise, prolonged cyclonic activity, and salt-water intrusion.

In 1977, severe floods occurred in the flood plains of the Malir and Lyari rivers, resulting in 267 deaths with more than 30,000 people made homeless and 100,000 temporarily dislocated, according to Karachi Development Authority records.

Despite the known dangers, no effective policy exists to prevent settlements in the riverbeds and encroachments on drainage channels, and already this is adversely impacting flood prevention and management.

It is not just the poor and vulnerable squatting in flood prone zones and Karachi’s fishing communities that suffer. “Sensitive national installations are exposed to tidal flooding,” Anwar’s report said.

There is no provision to store the flood waters and no effort has been made to promote water conservation, waste-water recycling or rainwater harvesting practices, the report says.

Karachi also has no effective policy in place to deal with disasters and there are critical gaps and shortcomings in emergency response systems such as trauma facilities, fire services, law and order, evacuation plans and facilities.

Anwar says city planners and managers must have a “focused plan” within the context of a ‘climate change adaptation strategy’ that can act as a planning framework.

“However,” he tells IPS, “in the long run, climate change related policies and plans” would have to be embedded within the internal working of relevant institutions to give sustainability to the process.

Part of the problem why this sprawling urban metropolis has such poor governance is because of highly decentralised administration when it comes to control over land and provision of services.

Karachi’s squatters not only live on land they do not own but also steal water from the mainline through suction pumps run on power tapped illegally while the city police looks the other way.

At the upper end of the social strata, the affluent of Karachi have found a way around collapsing urban infrastructure by paying extra for water, electricity and security.

With just seven percent of vegetation cover; factories and vehicles spewing thick, black smoke; heaps of unmanaged garbage piling up and rivers turning into sewage disposal channels, Karachi is rapidly turning sick.

“In order to borrow from the Asian Development Bank, our city planners build, neglect and rebuild,” said Arif Pervaiz, a Karachi-based environmental specialist who has worked extensively on climate change. “They try to fix management problems through brick and mortar solutions.”

“For example, to address traffic congestion,” said Pervaiz, “flyovers and underpasses are built, but what is not considered is the broader traffic management issue.”

“I think one major unified authority that coordinates the running of the city is imperative,” said Pervaiz, who finds Anwar’s report a timely reminder to policy makers of the urgent need to implement climate change adaptation plans.

“It’s frustrating. Residents of Karachi do not know which government department to approach for redressal of civic problems in their area,” he said. “Sometimes, even officials in a particular department do not know where its jurisdiction begins and ends.”

While terming Anwar’s report “hugely important,” Ali Tauqir Sheikh, Climate Development and Knowledge Network’s Asia director, told IPS that it fails to “build upon the Karachi city government’s capacity and experience.”

“I am also not sure about the usability and benefit of the report unless the city government’s institutions and other stakeholders are consulted,” commented Sheikh who heads Leadership for Environment and Development, a prominent non-government organisation in Pakistan.