AAWAZ Response Fund 1 Analysing the Importance of Service Delivery in Manifestos of Political Parties JINNAH INSTITUTE May 2013
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AAWAZ Response Fund 1
Analysing the Importance of Service Delivery in Manifestos
of Political Parties
JINNAH INSTITUTE
May 2013
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Contents
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................4
Background .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Methodology ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 6
Service Delivery Models in South Asia: Experiences and Lessons .............................................8
Kerala .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
Karnataka .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Sri Lanka ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Salient Observations from Case Studies ......................................................................................................................................... 13
Importance of Service Delivery in Election Manifestos 2007-08 ............................................. 15
Approaching Education and Healthcare in the Punjab: the PML-N Manifesto ............................................................... 18
Improving Services in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: the ANP Manifesto ...................................................................................... 19
Local Bodies and Service Delivery in Election Manifestos...................................................................................................... 20
Present Assessment of Service Delivery in Pakistan ..................................................................... 22
Devolution of Power and Localisation of Service Delivery ..................................................................................................... 22
Figure 1: District-level Local Government Organogram ......................................................................................................... 25
Figure 2: Tehsil Municipal Administration Organogram ........................................................................................................ 26
Figure 3: Union Council-level Administration Organogram .................................................................................................. 27
Figure 4: Key Post-Devolution Incentives for Efficient Service Delivery ......................................................................... 28
Post-2008 Transformations in Service Delivery Mechanisms .............................................................................................. 28
Delivery Status of Education, Health, Water and Sanitation Services by Local Bodies .............................................. 31
Education .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 31
Health ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 35
Water & Sanitation .................................................................................................................................................................................. 38
Existing Service Delivery Apparatus in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ................. 39
Service Delivery in the Punjab............................................................................................................................................................ 40
Service Delivery in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ..................................................................................................................................... 41
Current Mechanisms to Improve Quality and Efficiency of Service Delivery ..................... 43
Figure 5: Coordinating Multiple Compact Relationships for Improved Public Service Delivery............................ 43
Political Parties’ Outputs on Service Delivery .................................................................................. 51
Implementation Status of Service Delivery Plans in Political Parties’ Manifestos ....................................................... 51
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The Role of Political Parties’ 2007-08 Manifestos in Affecting Service Delivery .......................................................... 55
Developing Political Parties to Ensure Efficient Service Delivery ....................................................................................... 57
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 60
Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................ 63
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 65
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Introduction
In democratic societies, political party manifestos are core documents through which the electorate is able
to make an educated and informed decision about their vote. In these manifestos, political parties enunciate
their stances on various social, economic and political issues and devise national policies. Crucially, the
manifesto contains promises made by political parties to the voting public, and the ways these will be
fulfilled if the party receives a sizeable mandate to administer/govern the country or a province.
Alternatively, manifestos may also be utilised for the purposes of carrying out a performance analysis of
political parties in terms of their delivery on promises. Such an evaluation allows the electorate as well as
the parties themselves to adjudicate their successes, their failures, and the reasons thereof.
Hence, it is important to measure the value of an election manifesto in terms of an electoral contest between
political parties. It is also important to evaluate the content and substance of a political party’s manifesto,
not only in terms of its stance(s) on issues or its vision for the polity, but also in terms of the mechanism(s)
it proposes to achieve its goals as stated in the manifesto. For an educated and/or undecided voter, a party’s
stance on any given issue is as important as the mechanism(s) or stratagem outlined for solving the
problem(s). The stances and ideological inclinations of established political parties are easier to assess when
compared to the policy strategies that are presented in their manifestos. It is unlikely that a political party –
incumbent or aspirant – would avoid mentioning the existing or projected problems faced by a country in its
election manifesto. Ideally, a comprehensive and coherent manifesto should devise an attractive blueprint
for tackling the nation’s problems, as well as mechanism(s) for improving the existing system of
governance and administration. An objective and extensive analysis of a given party’s performance in the
legislature and/or administration of a polity (or a subsidiary unit of governance), using the party manifesto
as a baseline, is crucial for the development and evolution of political parties, as well as for sustaining the
political process of a democratic country.
Background
Pakistan’s chequered democratic history has diminished the importance of party manifestos to a great
extent. Manifestos do not play a vital role in determining the electability of a political party in Pakistan.
Moreover, political parties, civil society groups, and the public in general, have yet to measure the
performance and progress of parties in the federal or provincial legislature using its manifesto as a baseline.
In developed democracies, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom, this practice is
undertaken at an intra-party level as well as at an academic level. The Norwegian Social Science Data
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Services established a Manifestos Research Group (MRG) in 1979, which has been carrying out
comparative analyses of political parties’ manifestos from 55 European/OECD countries, covering political
developments and electoral processes from 1945 to 2011. The MRG/CMP project employs a coding
procedure to analyse political parties’ manifesto content, election programming, and policy preferences by
developing cross-national time-series statistics on political parties’ policy positions: this allows for greater
understanding of “political party performance as well as the structure and development of party systems”.1
Assessing the performance of a political party voted into power on the basis of its electoral manifesto for a
relevant period is particularly important for developing an educated and informed democratic society whose
voting choices are based on party promises.
Undertaking an objective and comprehensive analysis of a political government’s performance in terms of
its election manifesto is possible only when the manifesto contains coherent and implementable policy
strategies in addition to the enunciation of its stance and its promises to the electorate, which often become
victims of rhetoric. Election manifestos in Pakistan usually concentrate more on the stance or ideological
position(s) of the party, rather than devoting content to cogent policy solutions for multifaceted problems
that the country faces. After an introductory section, the party manifesto is often divided into various
sections dedicated to a specific issue. These sections elaborate the party’s specific stance as well as the
particular policies or promises that the party makes to the electorate as regards that issue.
Political parties in Pakistan attempt to gain votes from a populace that includes a large number of
uneducated people, many based in rural areas. Party stances are echoed by candidates and party leaders,
thereby diminishing the importance of a manifesto document for the electorate. Pakistan’s political history
also shows that manifestos are overshadowed by party leadership and constituent politics that attach crucial
importance to a candidate’s kinship network, and by the amount of ‘development works’ undertaken by the
party or the candidate2.
The Pakistan People’s Party has conducted a self-evaluation of its two governments in the 1990s – however,
this has been done in terms of the policies that the party instituted while in power (December 1988-August
1990 and October 1993-November 1996), and not compared to what it promised in its manifestos.
Similarly, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz manifesto for 2007 states that the party was able to
1 The Macro Data Guide. (n.d.). “Manifesto Project Database”. Retrieved from http://www.nsd.uib.no/macrodataguide/set.html?id=62&sub=1 2 Waseem, M. & Mufti, M. (2012). Political Parties in Pakistan: Organization and Power Structure. Lahore University of Management Sciences, November 2012, p. 93.
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substantially implement its previous manifesto promises during its two previous governments (November
1990-July 1993 and February 1997-October 1999) – however, this is a cursory reference by the party and
far from a comprehensive analysis of its performance in light of its manifesto pledges.
It is important that political parties themselves conduct a performance assessment of their tenure(s) using
their manifestos as a baseline to assess where they have succeeded and where they have failed. Such an
evaluation is important as it shows whether or not a party has understood a particular issue, and if it has the
capacity to deal with it. Using the manifesto as a standard will also yield crucial results about whether the
party has been able to develop implementable policy frameworks and solutions or not. Finally,
corroborating performance with manifesto pledges would allow the concerned political party as well as the
electorate to determine whether the party can actually deliver on its promises. This will enhance the
importance of the manifesto document, and also increase the electorate’s interest in these party documents.
Methodology
The purpose of this report is to analyse the election manifestos of major political parties in terms of the
importance ascribed to improved service delivery in the education and health sectors. Enhanced service
provision in the health sector will also incorporate a study of manifesto commitments on water and
sanitation. The report will concentrate on the standard and development of service delivery models in the
Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. For an effective analysis of such models, the process of
devolution of service delivery in Pakistan since 2001 will also be discussed. The report will evaluate the
substantive content of political party manifestos issued for the 2008 general elections, focusing on how
political parties look at improved service delivery in the aforementioned sectors. Following a look at
manifesto content on education, health, water and sanitation, this report will evaluate the implementation of
manifesto promises in terms of enhanced service delivery, improvement(s) in state accountability, and
citizen engagement (with a particular focus on vulnerable and marginalised segments of Pakistani society,
such as women and minorities).
This report utilises a variety of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources include focus group
discussions as well as in-depth interviews with a variety of political representatives, service delivery experts
and civil society representatives. Two focus group discussions3 with different sets of key informants were
3 Focus group discussions with various key informants were held under Chatham House rules as per the consensus of discussants. These discussions were primarily attended by key informants who were present in Islamabad – those
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held to elicit crucial information regarding service delivery performance indicators in political party
manifestos. In addition to focus group discussions, in-depth interviews which were also held so as to obtain
specific inputs and feedback regarding levels of the importance given by various election manifestos to
service delivery processes, targets, and performance improvements. Key informants provided valuable
inputs and guidance for this report, and qualitatively contributed to various different aspects pertaining to
political parties, election manifestos, and service delivery, as covered in this report. The key informants
include:
Dr. Ali Cheema, Associate Professor of Economics at the Lahore University of Management
Sciences (LUMS) and Board Manager at CERP (Center for Economic Research in Pakistan);
Dr. Asad Sayeed, Senior Researcher at the Collective for Social Science Research (CSSR);
Dr. Baela Raza Jamil, Chairperson and Director Programs of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi (ITA – Center
of Education and Consciousness);
Mr. Haris Gazdar, Senior Researcher at the Collective for Social Science Research (CSSR);
Ms. Safiya Aftab, Research Fellow at Strategic and Economic Policy Research (SEPR);
Mr. Syed Ayub Qutub, Executive Director of the Pakistan Institute for Environment-Development
Action Research (PIEDAR);
Mr. Shafqat Mahmood, Central Information Secretary of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI);
Ms. Sitara Ayaz, MPA of the Awami National Party (ANP)
Mr. Malik Shuja, representative of the PML-N
Secondary research material used in this report includes academic, political, and evaluative documentation.
These are supplemented by case studies of successful service delivery models instituted in other South
Asian countries, particularly where improvements were promised in political manifestos and associated
documents. In addition, the report refers to the manifesto documents of major Pakistani political parties
issued in 2008. Finally, the report assesses the performance of existing service delivery models in Pakistan
– and by extension, the performance of political parties in power – using evaluations and surveys conducted
by a variety of institutions and organisations that focus on health, education, water and sanitation.
informants who were unable to participate in the focus group discussions provided inputs and information through in-depth interviews.
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Service Delivery Models in South Asia: Experiences and Lessons
It is pertinent to refer to cases where political party manifestos have been formulated and implemented in a
fashion that has resulted in improved service delivery outcomes, specifically in education, health, water and
sanitation. Case studies from South Asia have been identified and presented so as to understand the service
delivery models for the aforementioned sectors.
Kerala
In 1991, the Union Government of India led by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao presented two amendment
bills in parliament: the 73rd
constitutional amendment bill for rural local bodies (known as panchayats) and
the 74th
constitutional amendment bill for municipalities. The 73rd
and 74th
amendment bills were enacted as
the Panchayat Raj Act (April 24, 1993) and the Nagarpalika Act (June 1, 1993) respectively. Prior to these
amendments, states were the only sub-national units recognised by the Indian constitution. Local
governments in India previously operated as state-controlled arms of the government – particularly in rural
local governments at the district, village and municipality levels – with no real decision-making powers.
The state of Kerala in southern India consists of 1,216 sub-state governance units – 991 Grama Panchayats
(wards), 152 block Panchayats, 14 district Panchayats, 54 municipalities and 5 municipal corporations. By
1996, Kerala adopted a ‘Big Bang’ approach to devolution of power, responsibilities, and financial
resources. “Associations of local governments were placed at the centre of this strategy and became part of
an institutional framework for regular consultation on policy issues related to decentralisation and local
governance.”4
The ‘Big Bang’ approach is a rapid decentralisation process as opposed to “a technical incremental
approach towards participatory governance and decentralisation.”5 As the pace of transferring power and
authority put pressure on the local governments, the Kerala state government undertook capacity-building
initiatives alongside the devolution process on a massive scale in order to prepare local government
officials. “Capacity building was designed to promote empowerment and social mobilisation of the people
for social and economic transformation… Capacity building for democratic decentralisation is seen as a
4 Ramakantan, N. (2009). “Democratic Decentralization and Empowerment of Local Government Associations in Kerala”, Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, Issue 2: January 2009, p. 128. Retrieved from http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/cjlg/article/view/995 5 Paradza, G., Mokwena, L. & Richards, R. (2010). “Assessing the role of councillors in service delivery at local government level in South Africa”. Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, July 2010, p. 26.
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long term investment in people and their organisations.”6 The local resource persons supported the
devolution system by playing an active role in development committees, and also supported linkages
between citizen participation in decision-making processes and the corresponding roll-out of government
projects.
“This holistic approach to training was conceptualised as a long-term strategy to deepen participatory
government at the local level.”7 Local governments realised that managing rapid socio-political
transformations generated as a result of the decentralisation process required a greater degree of
administrative competence than they possessed at the time, so they responded positively and
enthusiastically to the capacity building programme.8 As a result, local communities and different actors in
the local political system were enormously empowered as well as equipped to discharge the responsibilities
and duties being devolved to them. In addition, the devolution process in Kerala was focused on
marginalised social groups such as Scheduled Castes, Schedules Tribes and women, to empower and
mainstream these vulnerable groups and to reduce socioeconomic gaps between them and other social
groups. “Democratic decentralisation and the capacity building efforts also focused on creating a responsive
system of administration at the local level and making departmental officials accountable to the elected
representatives.”9
As budgetary powers also became vested in the local governments, decisions about community
development projects were gradually tailored to a community-centric approach. “Budgeting priorities have
therefore shifted towards more money for housing schemes, sanitation and drinking water.”10
The
decentralisation process in Kerala was a success because it was sustained by powerful social movements,
mass-based organisations, and potent opposition parties – the existence of such social groups enabled state-
wide social mobilisation and participation in planning processes, and the presence of a healthy political
opposition allowed local citizens to channel their demands for development effectively. According to
Patrick Heller, the social and cultural heterogeneity of Kerala, along with its high-density citizenship,
6 Ramakantan, N. (2009). “Democratic Decentralization and Empowerment of Local Government Associations in Kerala”, Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, Issue 2: January 2009, p. 129. 7 Paradza, G., Mokwena, L. & Richards, R. (2010). “Assessing the role of councillors in service delivery at local government level in South Africa”. Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, July 2010, p. 26. 8 Ramakantan, N. (2009). “Democratic Decentralization and Empowerment of Local Government Associations in Kerala”, Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, Issue 2: January 2009, p. 131. 9 Ibid, p. 132. 10 Paradza, G., Mokwena, L. & Richards, R. (2010). “Assessing the role of councillors in service delivery at local government level in South Africa”. Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, July 2010, p. 27
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allowed for vibrant and independent civic associations, leading to numerous social movements campaigning
for education and the environment11
.
Karnataka
The three major political parties that dominate the Karnataka state legislature – the Indian National
Congress, the Janata Dal (Secular), and the Bharatiya Janata Party – refer to service delivery improvements
in their manifestos both at the Union level as well as at the Karnataka state level. These parties vow to
speed up delivery of services, reduce or eliminate corruption in public service provision, improve efficiency
of public service provision, enhance citizen engagement in the decision-making process, and empower the
local governments, among other promises. The three-tier local government system in Karnataka consists of
“Zilla Panchayats (district level), Taluk Panchayats (block level) and Grama Panchayats (village level)
collectively known as the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs)”.12
In the 1990s, the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) was established to “create networks and to allow
for synergies in addressing reform and service delivery issues”.13
Through the BATF, the city of Bangalore
experienced significant improvements in municipal service delivery – particularly self-property tax
assessments, disclosure of municipal accounts, connection of slums to power and water supplies, building
of bus shelters and leasing of buses by the transport authority – through a network-building approach.
The results of devolution of power in the state of Karnataka, as well as improvements in delivery of public
services, have been identified by the Institute of State Effectiveness14
as follows:
information flows among as well as between the different tiers of the local government system (i.e.
the panchayats) have increased, improving state accountability for public service delivery;
participatory mechanisms allowed for better, broader consultation with all relevant stakeholders on
community priorities, resulting in a representative decision-making process; and
the delivery of services has improved as a result of greater accountability and transparency.
11 Heller, P. (2001). “Moving the State: The Politics of Democratic Decentralization in Kerala, South Africa, and Porto Alegre”, Politics & Society, 29(1), p. 153. Retrieved from http://courses.washington.edu/pbaf531/Heller_MovingtheState.pdf 12 The Institute for State Effectiveness. (2012). “Karnataka: Understanding State Level Transition in India”, p. 2. Retrieved from http://www.effectivestates.org/Program%20PDFs/Country%20Transitions/ISE%20India%20Karnataka%20Briefing%202010.pdf 13 Ibid, p. 3. 14 Ibid, p. 2.
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s post-independence development experience is considered unique because in 2000, the country’s
literacy rate was 80 percent and the average life expectancy was above 70 years – despite a decades-long
civil war. The country’s rating on the human development index (HDI) was 0.735 in 1999. The main reason
for these remarkable indicators in Sri Lanka is the “welfare first and growth later”15
approach adopted by
successive governments due to a robust and vibrant multi-party parliamentary democratic system. This
approach led to advanced government welfare services in food, health and education throughout Sri Lanka’s
post-colonial history. However, with a GNP per capita of $800 in 1999-2000, the country was relegated to
the World Bank’s ‘low income’ category, since this approach did not provide enough incentives to the state
or to the private sector to perform effectively and result in the economic growth required for human
development in the country.
The devolution process in Sri Lanka started in the 1970s, with the first local government institution – the
divisional development council (DDC) – being introduced in 1971. This was replaced by the District
Political Authority (DPA) in 1973, then the District Minister (DM) system in 1978, and finally by the
provincial council (PC) system in 1987. By the 1980s, the Sri Lankan government had also aggressively
pursued a privatisation programme, which resulted in several administrative reforms in the public sector.
Some elements of the New Public Management (NPM) model were introduced in 1977, such as cost
cutting, privatisation of public enterprises, performance-related pay, customised service provision, enhanced
transparency in government operations, and most importantly, decentralisation of authority and financial
powers. Other NPM concepts that have been implemented in Sri Lanka over the past decades include
“emphasis on performance targets, indicators and output objectives”.16
The introduction and maintenance of
rule-based government is seen as focal to effective public sector reform and improvements in the provision
and delivery of important public services, especially to poor and marginalised groups.
While Sri Lanka has introduced far-reaching public management reforms, the New Public Management
‘model’ as a whole has not been implemented. “The initiatives taken have been significant and innovative,
but there have been important problems and limitations.”17
The reforms initiated under the NPM ‘model’
15 Samaratunge, R. & Bennington, L. (2002). “New Public Management: Challenge for Sri Lanka”, Asian Journal of Public Administration, 24(1), (June 2002), p. 91. Retrieved from http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN020779.pdf 16 Ibid, p. 98. 17 Samaratunge, R. & Bennington, L. (2002). “New Public Management: Challenge for Sri Lanka”, Asian Journal of Public Administration, 24(1), (June 2002), p. 103.
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cannot achieve better results – or better performance in the public service delivery mechanism – in the
presence of the administrative system that existed at the time.
In 2006, the Mahinda Chintana18
– a vision for a new Sri Lanka based on President Mahinda Rajapakse’s
election manifesto – was developed by the government of Sri Lanka as a ten-year development policy
framework. As such, it is the manifesto of the Sri Lankan government, and derives major portions and
promises from the President’s election manifesto. It also creates a performance-oriented service delivery
network based on decentralised government authority at the local level in both urban and rural areas of Sri
Lanka.
One of the Mahinda Chintana’s three main areas of focus is strengthening public service delivery,
particularly for health and education.19
The Mahinda Chintana aims “to strengthen public service delivery to
ensure quality and performance of services to meet modern development needs”.20
As a whole, the Mahinda
Chintana has a coherent policy focus on strengthening the service delivery system by providing the requisite
“physical and training facility to the regional level officers”.21
The Mahinda Chintana notes that “the current
quality and performance of services does not adequately meet modern development needs”, and as such,
“identifies the challenges and achievements in key social services”22
:
“In health, the Vision notes a number of outstanding challenges, including
insufficient implementation of decentralization, the very high occupancy
rate in some of the large hospitals, very low occupancy in more peripheral
district hospitals, and the uncertain positioning of private providers. A key
challenge for the Government would be to prioritize and operationalize an
appropriate policy response to remedy these deficiencies. In education, the
18 The “Mahinda Chintana – Vision for the Future” is the Government of Sri Lanka’s Development Policy Framework. See Ministry of Finance and Planning, Department of National Planning. (2010). Sri Lanka: The Emerging Wonder of Asia. Retrieved from http://www.treasury.gov.lk/publications/mahindaChintanaVision-2010full-eng.pdf 19 Sri Lanka Country Assistance Strategy. (n.d.) “Development Challenges”, p. 20. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SRILANKAEXTN/Resources/233046-1223267463122/ch2SLCAS20092012-2.pdf 20 Fernando, P. & Moonesinghe, S. (2012). “Livelihoods, basic services and social protection in Sri Lanka”, Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, Working Paper No. 6, p. 4. Retrieved from http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/7783.pdf 21 Ministry of Finance and Planning, Department of National Planning. (2010). Sri Lanka: The Emerging Wonder of Asia, p. 33. 22 Sri Lanka Country Assistance Strategy. (n.d.) “Development Challenges”, p. 22.
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MC aims to promote equal access and improve the quality of basic and
secondary education.”23
The Mahinda Chintana aims to improve Sri Lanka’s education system so as to create a knowledge-based
society where educational institutions produce a skilled workforce with requisite competencies and
technological skills, leading to rapid socioeconomic development. The Mahinda Chintana “recognises the
necessity of promoting equity and enhancing the quality and relevance of education, while improving
governance in service delivery”.24
For water and sanitation, the Mahinda Chintana envisages the conversion
of the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) into a “commercially profitable institution”
through the development of a “suitable tariff scheme based on the principles of recovery of the cost of
service delivery”25
and developing the customer’s ability to pay for water services so as to ensure financial
sustainability.
The Mahinda Chintana document realises the successes and failures of previous decentralisation
experiments undertaken in Sri Lanka, and carefully considers the importance of improved service delivery
for both urban and rural citizens so as to improve socioeconomic development indicators in the country. As
mentioned above, there is specific emphasis in this document as regards education, health, water and
sanitation services, so as to improve the living standards of the Sri Lankan people.
Salient Observations from Case Studies
The case studies presented in the beginning of the report highlight the importance of political parties and
election manifestos in improving public service delivery to the electorate, particularly in South Asian
countries. In order to implement manifesto pledges and to realise improved public service delivery
standards, coherent policy strategies and the political will to undertake reforms and structural improvements
are crucial prerequisites both required from political parties in administrative or legislative power. Election
manifestos of political parties must also exhibit acknowledgment of service delivery networks or the
mechanisms in place for public service delivery to the average citizen. Only when service delivery
mechanisms are identified is it possible for suggesting improvements, or developing indicators and/or
targets for efficient service provision to the electorate. Moreover, improved service delivery outputs are
ineffective without robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms in place – citizen voice and public
23 Sri Lanka Country Assistance Strategy. (n.d.) “Development Challenges”, p. 22. 24 Ministry of Finance and Planning, Department of National Planning. (2010). Sri Lanka: The Emerging Wonder of Asia, p. 113. 25 Ibid, p. 64.
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engagement are thus crucial for generating feedback and for developing an efficacious grievance redress
mechanism regarding delivery of essential public services. Citizen engagement for improved service
delivery can essentially reform existing mechanisms by targeting and tailoring service provision towards the
specific needs of communities and societies, and also by enhancing accountability and transparency in state
operations that directly affect the public. These aspects of service delivery improvements can benefit
Pakistan to a great extent, especially if they are supplemented by political will and by their incorporation in
political party manifestos as implementable promises.
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Importance of Service Delivery in Election Manifestos 2007-08
The 2007 Election Manifestos, some of which were published in 2008, were formulated in a tense political
environment. Most political parties (excluding the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League) concentrated on a
transition from military dictatorship to democratic rule.26
Therefore, political parties promised an end to
authoritarianism and restrictions on the political powers of the military. In addition, to win over the
electorate by providing policy solutions, the manifestos contained detailed sections and chapters dedicated
to different issues and areas of governance.
While manifestos promised improvements in service delivery and devised new socioeconomic programmes
to enhance the public’s standard of living – with specific emphasis on the poor – the programmatic designs
of the delivery of such services (or improvements thereof) did not refer to the local government system. Nor
did the manifesto documents attend to how the implementation of promises listed therein would be carried
out at the local level. Nevertheless, the manifestos issued by political parties in 2007/08 offered a look at
how they viewed the state of the nation, the problems it faced and how they would solve them. The results
of the 2008 elections brought the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) into power at the federal level. The
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) emerged as the leading party in the Punjab provincial legislature
and the Awami National Party (ANP) secured the same position in the erstwhile North-West Frontier
Province (NWFP), now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, provincial assembly.
Before the manifestos of the PML-N and the ANP are studied – so as to focus on service delivery pledges
for the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa respectively – it would be pertinent to refer to the education,
health, water and sanitation sections contained in the manifestos of other major parties to provide an
appropriate qualitative context for comparing manifesto pledges made for these sectors.
The Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) 2007/08 manifesto27
included separate sections on education and health
in its chapter on ‘Meeting Basic Needs’. The first service delivery promise by the party in the education
sector is the installation of computer systems in each secondary school and college in Pakistan. The party
also pledged to universalise basic education by providing a stipend to every child in government primary
schools; this pledge remains to be acted upon. The party targeted universal enrolment of all children
between the ages of five and ten by 2015 – this promise has been legislated and transformed into a
26 In-depth Interview with Ms. Sitara Ayaz. 27 Pakistan People’s Party. (2008). “Towards Peace and Prosperity in Pakistan – Manifesto 2008”, p. 11. Retrieved from http://www.ppp.org.pk/manifestos/2008.pdf
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fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan under Article 25-A. The PPP also promised to
improve the quality of higher education institutions – both public and private sector universities – but does
not clarify how such improvements will be instituted. As such, the PPP manifesto remains vague on its
education service delivery promises.28
The reformation of madrassa institutions as well as the provision of
‘Apna Ghar’ free boarding schools for socially and economically disadvantaged children also remains a
promise that is yet to be implemented. The PPP manifesto outlines four basic pillars of its health policy, two
of which relate to service delivery: the party vows to guarantee access to a doctor for every citizen, to
prevent outbreak of diseases, to guarantee availability of affordable medicines, and to provide quality
medical education and training. In addition to guaranteeing access and preventing diseases, the PPP
promised to improve health service delivery in terms of medicine availability and training of health
personnel. Noting the success of the Lady Health Worker (LHW) programme, the party promised to
increase the numbers of LHWs in all provinces, to expand access to LHWs in urban slums, and to induct
10,000 male health workers for parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan.
The PML-Q manifesto for 2007/0829
states that education is the party’s number one priority: the party
makes a commitment to achieving ‘mass literacy’ in ten years and to upgrading existing educational
institutions so that they may provide learning and instruction at higher levels than they currently provide.
Education for women and girls, as well as technical and vocational education, are given special focus in the
PML-Q manifesto. The party called for modernisation of the madrassa educational system, especially in
terms of curriculum reform. The PML-Q manifesto states that sports, arts, music, languages, English and
Mathematics will be taught in all schools, and public libraries will be set up with state-of-the-art research
tools, so that the country’s educational system is tailored to individual pupil needs by involving parents as
well as teachers in the learning process to raise academic standards and put emphasis on moral values. The
PML-Q pledged to set up a National Health Service and will support sustained investment in hospitals so
that quality healthcare can be provided to the citizens of Pakistan. To this end, the PML-Q manifesto also
states that doctors will be given special incentives to work in rural areas. As a pledge towards expansion of
access and improvement in service delivery, the party promises to expand the healthcare structure of the
country to far-flung and lesser developed areas – a process which would require upgrading the existing
healthcare network with modern medical facilities. Most importantly, the PML-Q manifesto states that a
clean drinking water task force will be set up to ensure ready access to potable water – a clear pledge related
to the water and sanitation sector.
28 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema. 29 ApnaHyderabad.com. (n.d.). “PML-Q Manifesto 2008”. Retrieved from http://www.apnahyderabad.com/special/pml-q-manifesto-2008.asp
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The MQM manifesto for 2007/0830
lists the party’s promises for the education and health sectors
immediately after the section on ‘Provincial Autonomy’. The party vowed to eliminate the dual and
discriminatory system of education that prevails in the country, by raising the standard of instruction at
Urdu-medium and governmental institutions. The MQM also put its weight behind madrassa reform and
curriculum reorientation. The party manifesto states that expenditure on education will be increased, and
that provincial as well as district governments will be bound to spend at least 20 percent of their
expenditure on education. The MQM promised to make education compulsory for each child up to the
Matriculation or equivalent level, and to set up new education institutions (including vocational training
institutions) in cities, towns and villages throughout the country. The party called for raising teacher
salaries, improving transparency in the examinations system and introducing a uniform syllabus to be
adopted at the national level. The MQM manifesto promised to introduce management boards or
committees to monitor the performance of educational institutions. The MQM manifesto vowed to increase
grants for professional institutions and to regulate private educational institutions. The final manifesto
pledge for the education sector is the institution of public libraries throughout the country (similar to the
PML-Q). In terms of health, the MQM promised to increase expenditure on health, and to increase access to
healthcare by establishing a hospital in every town and healthcare centre in every village of the country. The
MQM manifesto also promised the provision of adequate staff, equipment and medicines to all primary and
secondary healthcare facilities throughout the country. The party pledged to institute medical training
institutions and to restore more than 2000 basic health units, rural health centres and other facilities that
have not been functioning. The MQM manifesto stated that mother and child care centres will be set up in
each district, that health insurance schemes will be introduced for all citizens, and that private/commercial
healthcare facilities will be accredited and regulated at the provincial level.
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl), or JUI-F, was the only major religious, political party to contest the 2008
elections, as other member parties of the MMA (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal) including the Jamaat-e-Islami
(JI) boycotted the general elections. The JUI-F manifesto pledged that the party would make all-out efforts
to impart free education according to a uniform curriculum that is based on Islamic traditions. The party
manifesto states that special importance will be given to the subjects of Islamiat, Islamic History, Pakistan
Studies, English, and ethics. The JUI-F manifesto states that educational facilities will be set up in villages
as well, and that technical, vocational and computer education will be introduced at the school level. In
30 Muttahida Qaumi Movement. (n.d.). “MQM Manifesto 2008”. Retrieved from http://www.mqm.org/articledetail.aspx?id=9642f202-aa36-4024-b7ac-37f70e791550
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terms of health, the JUI-F manifesto promises to provide modern medical facilities to all citizens in every
city and village of the country. The party pledged to introduce health studies and first aid studies in schools
as well as mosques so that citizens are trained and prepared to administer first aid in times of need. The JUI-
F manifesto states that the private sector would be encouraged to set up hospitals with robust monitoring
mechanisms which would maintain quality standards and keep a check on costs and charges. The JUI-F
manifesto also states that the establishment of hospitals and dispensaries in rural areas would be a focal
point of action for the party. The party promised to improve the employment terms and conditions of
doctors, paramedical staff and other healthcare personnel.
In terms of the pledges and promises made by other parties in 2007 – as summarised above – it is noted that
most manifestos for 2007/08 contain policies and programmes for increasing access to public goods
provided by the state, and consider quality education and healthcare as fundamental rights of the citizenry.31
Therefore, promises are made in terms of access, rights, policy intent, intended targets32
and fiscal/financial
apportionments33
rather than service delivery improvements. Despite promises for expanding service
delivery and improving quality, the 2007 manifestos remain vague in terms of outlining service delivery
plans, especially because manifestos do not refer to the local service delivery apparatus (except when
pledging to extend it to rural and backward areas). Pledges made by major parties in terms of local
government systems – especially in terms of holding elections to local bodies on party basis – are yet to be
implemented.
Approaching Education and Healthcare in the Punjab: the PML-N Manifesto
The PML-N manifesto for 2007/08 noted the then-government’s acknowledgment of deepening
socioeconomic inequalities in the country, and viewed them as obvious reflections of the “distortions in the
availability and quality of health, education and infrastructure services”.34
Chapter 9 of its manifesto was
dedicated to education: the PML-N’s stance was that education should become the foremost national
priority because it is a key driver of economic and social progress. The PML-N promised free education up
to the higher secondary level, maximum facilities for science education and vocational training, special
attention to the development of libraries at the national, provincial and district level, establishment of
education foundations, standardisation of national education curricula with a focus on ethics and values, and
higher salaries for teachers. The party also promised to establish a National Education Corps to provide
31 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema. 32 In-depth Interview with Mr. Haris Gazdar. 33 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema. 34 Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) International. (2008). “Pakistan Muslim League (N) Manifesto December 2007”. Retrieved from http://www.pmlni.com/manifesto.aspx
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employment to graduates who would be employed in literacy enhancement and adult education programmes
– this was a measure to promote education and expand access while tackling unemployment in a concurrent
manner.35
The PML-N manifesto also listed various enrolment targets that it would meet if it came into
power: 100 percent enrolment in middle schools by 2012, 100 percent enrolment at the secondary education
or Matriculation level by 2015, and 80 percent enrolment in higher secondary education or Intermediate
level by 2020.
Chapter 10 of the PML-N manifesto was devoted to the subject of health: the party noted that there could be
no development or progress without a healthy nation, and vowed to pursue a policy of providing quality
healthcare to all citizens. The party called for the modernisation of existing hospitals, installation of state-
of-the-art equipment, improvement in the quality of generic drugs and in their production processes,
extension of cardiac clinics to district-level hospitals, improvement in the district-level and tehsil-level
hospitals’ infrastructure and facilities for better health service provision, special healthcare facilities and
focus for senior citizens, free medical care for poor and deserving patients, establishment of special health
education centres in all districts, and making efforts for providing clean drinking water and basic hygiene
facilities to the rural population.
The PML-N manifesto discussed water in Chapters 12 (‘Reducing Poverty’) and 15 (‘Agricultural and
Rural Development’). The party viewed lack of access to water services as a key indicator of poverty, and
separately, it promised to introduce mechanisms to create new water projects, ensure full utilisation of
available water resources, and create consensus on sharing of national water resources under the 1991
Water Accord. The manifesto did not specifically refer to sanitation, except for the provision of clean
drinking water and hygiene facilities to the rural population in Chapter 10 (‘Health’) as mentioned above.36
Improving Services in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: the ANP Manifesto
The ANP manifesto “does not purport to be a detailed programme of action”, but only “seeks only to
describe the spirit that motivates the Party and the overall principles that will govern its policies, should it
be called upon to serve the people of Pakistan and the entire Pukhtunkhwa in particular.”37
35 In-depth Interview with Mr. Malik Shuja. 36 In-depth Interview with Mr. Malik Shuja. 37 Awami National Party. (2008). “Manifesto of the Awami National Party”. Retrieved from http://awaminationalparty.org/main/?cat=98
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Education was dealt as a standalone subject in Chapter 2.2 (‘Socio-economic’) of the ANP manifesto of
2007/08. The party was of the view that the state was obliged to provide free education up to the primary
level. The ANP vowed to allocate revenue equivalent to at least 6% of the country’s GDP to education, to
eliminate the “dual system of education that protects and perpetuates class and feudal interests,”38
and to
ensure that elementary-level instruction is provided to students in their mother tongue.
Health was also part of Chapter 2.2 of the ANP manifesto, and the party vowed to provide health facilities
to all citizens by considering insurance schemes, privatisation, and other policy measures. As for education,
the ANP promised to allocate 6% of GDP to the health sector. The party manifesto also emphasised mother
and child care, along with provision of clean drinking water and preventive medicine.
The ANP manifesto refers to water only in the Health section and in the Hydel Generation & Irrigation
sections of the chapter on its socioeconomic policies and programmes. Water is discussed as a natural
resource for irrigation and power generation, and no reference is made to provision of water and sanitation
services (or improvement) for the public.
Local Bodies and Service Delivery in Election Manifestos
While health and education are national subjects, water and sanitation is treated as a district-level subject
that is barely referred to in the manifesto of political parties. In fact, party manifestos make scarce reference
to the local government system, and plan to improve service delivery (or provide additional services) at the
national level, if they make such proposals at all. Some references are made vis-à-vis improving service
delivery at the local or district level, but under the auspices of a generalised and national-level policy
programme, which shows that political parties devise electoral plans at a national level, not at a sub-national
level.39
This attitude of major political parties – especially those which were voted into administrative
power in the 2008 general elections – is evident in their 2007/08 manifestos.
The PML-N manifesto for 2007/08 makes references to the ‘local bodies’ system in certain sections,
specifically in the ‘Good Governance’ and ‘Tolerant and Pluralistic Society’ chapters. The party viewed the
2005 local government elections as corrupt and rigged, and believed that the local governments “undercut
mainstream political parties, left widespread corruption unchecked and shifted power away from the
38 Ibid. 39 In-depth Inteview with Mr. Haris Gazdar.
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provinces as a means to bolster military rule.”40
The PML-N manifesto stated that in order to ensure good
governance and separation of powers, it would “set up a high level Commission to look at the entire
governance structure including the devolution/decentralisation process and to suggest amendments in laws
that recognise the ground realities in each province and are also suited to the needs of the people.”41
They
proposed that elections to local bodies be conducted on the party basis through provincial election
commissions in the respective provinces, and promised to make such bodies autonomous as well as
answerable to the people through the assemblies and through the judicial system.
40 Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) International. (2008). “Pakistan Muslim League (N) Manifesto December 2007”. 41 Ibid.
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Present Assessment of Service Delivery in Pakistan
This section will address the devolution of administrative power in Pakistan over the last ten years, and
their impact on service delivery mechanisms. The devolution process has localised service delivery to the
district and sub-district level, where specialised departments are made responsible for the effective delivery
of public services. This process of devolution, what it entails, and how it has transformed the service
delivery landscape in Pakistan, will be outlined in this section. Moreover, transformations in the local
governance system since 2008, and the pursuant impact on service delivery at the local level in the Punjab
and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, will also be considered in detail.
Devolution of Power and Localisation of Service Delivery
Pakistan has a federal system of government with a bicameral legislature at the centre, and legislatures in all
provinces. Legislative assemblies also exist in the autonomous regions of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and
Gilgit-Baluchistan. Administrative power has always been vested in the federal and provincial governments
and is exercised through respective cabinets. It is pertinent to note that all three experiments regarding the
establishment of local government systems in Pakistan were undertaken during military regimes: in 1959,
then in 1979, and finally in 2001.
According to the Local Government Plan42
prepared by the National Reconstruction Bureau in 2000, a
system of grassroots governance was developed to decentralise administrative authority as well as to
devolve power to the local level. The Plan was designed to:
Devolve political power so that three tiers of elected government have their own vision, mission and
goals;
Decentralise administrative authority so that district-level departments have more operational
autonomy;
Distribute resources to the districts, including fiscal transfers, and the power to raise taxes,
Diffuse the ‘power-authority’ nexus so that citizens are involved in policy-making as well as
monitoring the implementation of development work; and
‘De-concentrate’ management functions so that meritocracy and performance-based concepts are
introduced into public service.
42 National Reconstruction Bureau, Government of Pakistan. (2007).“The Local Government System 2001”. Retrieved from http://www.nrb.gov.pk/local_government/default.asp
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Elections according to this plan were held in December 2000 and September 2001. The setup was legalised
by the Local Government Ordinances, promulgated by all provinces in August 2001. The most important
aspect of these elections to the local bodies were that they were held on a non-party basis – even though
politicians having affiliations with political parties contested and won elections to various local government
offices. A three-tier local government system was established for the district, tehsil/taluka and union levels
for a five-year term. The second election under this system was held in 2005, and local governments
continued to exist (if not function) until 2010, after which elections to local government bodies were not
held. It is pertinent to note that women were allotted 33% seats in the local bodies. The responsibilities of
the district mayor, or ‘Zila Nazim’, were previously vested with the Divisional Commissioner, Deputy
Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners for district-level and sub-district-level administrative units,
who exercised these powers in the absence of representative, elected local governments. The LGO 2001
created a new set/cadre of bureaucratic officers at the district and sub-district level, who would perform
administrative functions and report to the elected chief executive of the district/tehsil/town/union council
administration.
“The electoral system is mixture of direct and indirect elections. Members
and nazims of the union council are directly elected, with one-third of the
seats in these councils reserved for women, peasants and minorities; two-
thirds of the members of district and tehsil councils are the union council
nazims of that particular district and tehsil respectively and hence are
directly elected as well, and the remaining seats are reserved for women,
peasants and minorities, who are elected indirectly by an electoral college
consisting of all union councillors. Importantly, district and tehsil nazims
are also indirectly elected by the elected union councillors, and therefore
need not command a majority of the public vote to hold office.”43
Under the LGO 2001, the Zila Nazim performed the functions of the chief executive of the district
administration, with the District Coordination Officer (DCO) reporting to the Nazim. At each tier of the
local government, an elected Nazim headed the district, tehsil/taluka or union council administration, and
43 Hasnain, Z. (2008). “Devolution, Accountability, and Service Delivery: Some Insights from Pakistan”, The World Bank South Asia Region Poverty Reduction Economic Management Department, Policy Research Working Paper 4610, April 2008, p. 5. Retrieved from http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/04/28/000158349_20080428135337/Rendered/PDF/wps4610.pdf
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all officials of the district responsible for general administration and public service delivery were
answerable to the Nazim, who was the elected chief executive of that administrative unit. Administrative
officers from the bureaucracy were appointed as DCOs and Tehsil/Town Municipal Officers (TMOs) to
function as administrative heads of the respective tier of government, and reported to the Nazim of that tier.
In implementation, the LGO 2001 vested the responsibility of service delivery in the district governments:
specifically, departments for agriculture, community development, education, finance and planning, health,
information technology, law, literacy, revenue, and works and services were created44
. These departments
are headed by Executive District Officers (EDOs), who report to the DCO of the district. EDOs are assisted
by District Officers (DOs) and Deputy District Officers (DDOs) for carrying out departmental functions.
The DCO is also assisted by DDOs for Civil Defence, Coordination and Human Resource Management. “In
effect, responsibilities for the delivery of social and human development services, such as primary and basic
health, education and social welfare, now rests at the district level, whereas municipal services, such as
water, sanitation and urban services, were delivered at the tehsil level.”45
The following organogram46
explains the district-level local governance structure as envisioned by the LGO
2001:
44 In-depth Interview with Mr. Haris Gazdar. 45 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), pp. 151-152. Retrieved from http://www.ue.edu.pk/jrre/articles/52005.pdf 46 National Reconstruction Bureau, Government of Pakistan. (2007). “District Government”. Retrieved from http://www.nrb.gov.pk/local_government/figure_2.gif
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Figure 1: District-level Local Government Organogram
At the tehsil/taluka level, service delivery for water supply, sewerage and drainage, sanitation and solid
waste management, roads and street lighting, parks and playgrounds, and fire-fighting were solely vested in
the Tehsil Municipal Administration’s (TMA) Infrastructure and Services Department. The TMA was
headed by an elected Tehsil Nazim, and the TMO was the chief officer of the TMA. Town Committees,
Municipal Committees and Municipal Corporations functioned under the TMA. The Infrastructure and
Services department also assisted in the efficient and holistic delivery of other services, as it is under its
mandate to provide aid and assistance to ‘any other service delivery function’ than the ones solely vested in
the TMA. The following organogram47
depicts the organisation of the TMA as the middle tier of the local
government system:
47 National Reconstruction Bureau, Government of Pakistan. (2007). “Tehsil Municipal Administration”. Retrieved from http://www.nrb.gov.pk/local_government/tehsil_mucipal_admin_organagram.htm
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Figure 2: Tehsil Municipal Administration Organogram
At the lowest level of the district government is the Union Administration, which governs the union
council. As a corporate body, Union Administration governs the rural as well as urban areas of the entire
district. The organisation of the Union Administration is explained by the following organogram48
:
48 National Reconstruction Bureau, Government of Pakistan. (2007). “Union Administration”. Retrieved from http://www.nrb.gov.pk/local_government/figure_4.gif
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Figure 3: Union Council-level Administration Organogram
The following table49
represents the status of districts and tehsils/talukas in Pakistan (except Islamabad
Capital Territory, agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or FATA, and military cantonments)
as of August 2002:
PROVINCE
S Districts
City
Districts Total
Tehsils/
Talukas City Towns Total
Punjab 33 1 34 116 6 122
Sindh 15 1 16 86 18 104
NWFP/KPK 21 1 22 71 2 73
Balochistan 23 1 24 34 4 38
TOTAL 92 4 96 307 30 337
“Devolution changes the accountability relationships and the relative importance of various actors—most
notably politicians and policymakers—associated with service delivery.”50
Devolution provides a variety of
incentives to local government officials to improve public service delivery, such as enhanced citizen voice
and engagement leading to provincial efficiency incentives, and motivating public service providers through
managerial power to improve service provision. The following figure explains these sets of incentives for
49 Paracha, S. A. (2003). “Devolution Plan in Pakistan: Context, implementation and issues”, Open Society Institute, Budapest – Hungary, (August 2003), p. 17. Retrieved from http://www.saadparacha.com/documents/IPF%20Final%20research%20paper.pdf 50 Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development & World Bank. (n.d.). “Devolution in Pakistan: An Assessment and Recommendations for Action”, Devolved Service Delivery Study (DSD), p. 22. Retrieved from http://transition.usaid.gov/pk/opportunities/HSS/13_ADB_Devolution_in_Pakistan_Assessment_Recommendations.pdf
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both elected officials and subservient bureaucratic officials, and links them to citizen’s voices and client
power on part of the electorate/general public, for improved service delivery:
Figure 4: Key Post-Devolution Incentives for Efficient Service Delivery51
However, in their study of education decentralisation in Pakistan (published in 2011), Khan & Mirza state
that “all objectives of decentralisation were set at a central level, which ultimately ended in creating
discrepancies between responsibilities people were given and the rights and powers to act these
responsibilities.”52
“Devolution in Pakistan has significantly changed the provincial and sub-provincial
government structure, with the main responsibility for the delivery of education, health, water and
sanitation, roads and transport, and agriculture services devolved to local governments.”53
Post-2008 Transformations in Service Delivery Mechanisms
The LGO 2001 was given constitutional protection by the controversial 17th
amendment to the Constitution
of Pakistan. After the 2008 elections, major political parties worked to overturn this amendment, and from
51 Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development & World Bank. (n.d.). “Devolution in Pakistan: An Assessment and Recommendations for Action”, Devolved Service Delivery Study (DSD), p. 4, Figure 1. 52 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 161. 53 Hasnain, Z. (2008). “Devolution, Accountability, and Service Delivery: Some Insights from Pakistan”, The World Bank South Asia Region Poverty Reduction Economic Management Department, Policy Research Working Paper 4610, April 2008, p. 5.
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2008 on, three new amendments to the Constitution have been made. “After 31 December 2009, local
governments were at the disposal of provincial governments” as the constitutional protection given to the
LGO 2001 and its variants in the provinces had expired.54
After the 18th
amendment to the Constitution of
Pakistan was promulgated, local governments were formally put under the control of provincial
governments.55
Article 140A of the Constitution authorises provincial governments to devolve political,
administrative and financial responsibility and authority to local government institutions.56
Once the 18th
amendment became law, provinces gradually developed their own local government
‘mechanisms’ instead of holding elections to the highest offices of the district-level local government
system. In 2008, the Punjab restored the office of the Divisional Commissioner.57
The six former divisions
of Baluchistan province were reinstated in 2009, with the power to appoint commissioners and collectors
vested in the province.58
Sindh officially restored the commissioner system in July 2011.59
In December
2012, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial cabinet approved the restoration of the posts of commissioner at
the division level, and deputy commissioners and executive magistrate at district levels.60
The residual
power structure from the provincial level to the local level – in terms of the duties, responsibilities and
jurisdiction of each officer functioning between those levels of governance – therefore varies from province
to province.
In effect, there are four tiers of government functioning in each federating unit: at the provincial, divisional,
district, and sub-district level. Service delivery is focused within the jurisdiction of the three district-level
local government tiers (the district level, and the tehsil/taluka and union council level, which constitute the
sub-district level). While the 18th
Amendment empowers provinces in terms of financial autonomy as well
as legal authority, service delivery remains within the domain of the district governments.61
Therefore, each
provincial government administers the district government through the DCOs, who function as district
54 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 151. 55 Ibid, p. 151. 56 Article 140A of the Constitution of Pakistan. Retrieved from http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution/part4.ch3.html 57 Waqas, C. A. (2008). “Commissionerate system restored”. The Nation, 26 October 2008. Retrieved from http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/26-Oct-2008/Commissionerate-system-restored 58 “Commissioner system restored in Balochistan”. (2009). Daily Times, 24 January 2009. Retrieved from http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C01%5C24%5Cstory_24-1-2009_pg7_11 59 Tunio, H. (2011). “Turning back the clock: Sindh reverts to bureaucracy-run system”. The Express Tribune, 10 July 2011. Retrieved from http://tribune.com.pk/story/206094/206094/ 60 “KP restores old LG system”. (2012). Daily Times, 13 December 2012. Retrieved from http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C12%5C13%5Cstory_13-12-2012_pg1_4 61 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema, Ms. Safiya Aftab, and Mr. Haris Gazdar.
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administrators and exercise the powers of the erstwhile mayor or Nazim. Commissioners, Deputy
Commissioners, Executive Magistrates, and other pre-devolution era officers also perform a variety of
functions, including (but not limited to) monitoring, evaluation and enforcement. In September 2012, the
Governor of Sindh promulgated the Sindh Peoples Local Government Ordinance (SPLGO 2012) “to
provide for and regulate the affairs of the local councils in the Province of Sindh”.62
According to this
Ordinance, administrators were appointed for the districts of Sindh, while commissioners and deputy
commissioners would also continue to function, performing revenue and law and order duties.63
On October
1, 2012, the ordinance was passed by the Sindh provincial assembly.64
In 2012, Fred Carver conducted a comprehensive analysis65
of this ‘clash’ between tiers of government in
Pakistan, and made the following observations:
Democracy in Pakistan will only grow and deepen if it does so through existing political parties,
which remain deeply wedded to government through the provinces rather than through sub-
provincial governance units;
Devolution increases (i) the ability for the public to interact with the state, and (ii) the level to which
good performance in attracting development is rewarded electorally;
Positive attributes of devolution and of developing elected local government systems could be
beneficial for political parties as well, since they are as poorly served as the electorate and the
general public by lack of grass-roots level engagement; and
Political parties in Pakistan may feel that they will be bested by local elites at the local government
level, but they would be mistaken if they utterly ignore the local level.
The process of developing different local governance mechanisms for each province after the 2008 general
elections and the promulgation of the 18th
amendment – as highlighted above – shows that political parties
and provincial governments are more comfortable governing through an archaic, colonial-era system of
bureaucrats running divisions and districts, rather than the three-tier elected local government at the
62 “The Sindh Peoples Local Government Ordinance, 2012”. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=EB22B51BA938735!408 63 “Governor Ibad signs Ordinance for new Sindh local government system”. (2012). The Express Tribune, 07 September 2012. Retrieved from http://tribune.com.pk/story/432737/local-govt-mqm-ppp-agree-on-peoples-metropolitan-ordinance-2012/ 64 “Sindh Assembly passes local government ordinance amid protests”. (2012). The Express Tribune, 01 October 2012. Retrieved from http://tribune.com.pk/story/445173/local-govt-ordinance-anp-pml-f-members-stage-protest-in-sindh-assembly/ 65 Carver, F. (2012). “When Tiers Clash: Devolution vs. Democracy in Pakistan”. e-International Relations, 02 August 2012. Retrieved from http://www.e-ir.info/2012/08/02/when-tiers-clash-devolution-vs-democracy-in-pakistan/
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grassroots level. This has happened despite the fact that a major party like the PPP promised in its 2007
manifesto to hold local body elections on a party basis66
. The roles, responsibilities and duties of local
government officers now varies across provinces, and as such, the distribution of power and authority
cannot be clearly ascertained or delineated in the absence of clear regulations or local government laws
enacted by the provincial legislatures67
. However, the performance of local governments between 2008 and
2012 can be evaluated against the same for elected local government bodies between 2000-2005 and 2005-
201068
. While this extensive study has the potential to become the basis of an exhaustive report on modern
local governance systems in Pakistan, the purpose of this report is to adjudge service delivery of education
and health in the Punjab and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. As mentioned earlier, this will be done in terms of
the provincial and sub-provincial governance systems in place in each of the provinces.
Delivery Status of Education, Health, Water and Sanitation Services by Local Bodies
In light of the service delivery mechanisms functioning in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and of the
manifesto promises made by the PML-N and ANP, this section will outline the status of delivery of
education, health services, and water and sanitation services. The functional service delivery apparatus for
these essential public services at the local level will be considered in terms of how devolution and post-
2008 transformations have impacted institutional structures at the district, tehsil/taluka, and union council
levels. This section will present evidence regarding the state of delivery of education, health, water and
sanitation services, along with the major problems faced in delivering these services. This section will
present an objective assessment of the evidence of delivery status, accompanied by a study of strengths and
weaknesses in service delivery apparatus. “Administrative devolution remains incomplete in Pakistan, and
local governments have little effective authority over the provincial staff assigned to them. Therefore, given
that personnel management is such an important feature of the effective delivery of education and health
services, this de facto re-centralisation may indeed produce beneficial outcomes.”69
Education
Khan & Mirza conducted a detailed study of the status of implementation of education decentralisation in
Pakistan as carried out under the auspices of the 2001 Local Government Ordinances (LGO 2001). This
66 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema. 67 In-depth Interview with Ms. Safiya Aftab. 68 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion. 69 Hasnain, Z. (2008). “Devolution, Accountability, and Service Delivery: Some Insights from Pakistan”, The World Bank South Asia Region Poverty Reduction Economic Management Department, Policy Research Working Paper 4610, April 2008, p. 18.
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study was titled “Implementation of Decentralisation in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the
Way Forward” and published in the Journal of Research and Reflections in Education in 2011.
The decentralisation of education is “a complex process comprising the changes in the way school systems
go about making policy, generating revenues, spending funds, teacher training, designing curricula, and
managing local schools”.70
While education decentralisation devolves these responsibilities to the local
school systems and the local government, the “focus of power and authority remains in a single central
administration: the board of education”.71
“Moreover, with the abolition of the concurrent legislative list, article 38 of the concurrent list dealing with
curriculum, syllabi and standard of education up to grade 12 have [sic] been devolved to provinces which
will add more academic powers to provincial government”72
. As such, the provincial education department
retains broad power and authority over education service delivery in the districts. “For the first time in the
history of Pakistan, provinces have been given the authority to develop the curriculum, frame syllabi and
ultimately maintain standards of education”73
. Referring to these administrative powers – many of which
have now been devolved from the federal to the provincial level under the auspices of the 18th
amendment –
Khan & Mirza noted that “no federal level power from the Ministry of Education was devolved to lower
levels through Devolution Plan 2000”74
.
Nevertheless, the districts became, and remain, the operational tier of governance as far as education service
delivery was concerned75
: the district government became responsible for planning, monitoring and
evaluating primary and secondary education systems in the district, along with management of teaching and
non-teaching staff and their salaries. The training of schoolteachers and head teachers remained within the
purview of the provincial government76
. The district government was also empowered to generate their own
funds in addition to those given by the federal and provincial governments, but were not authorised to
create or abolish posts. Under the LGO 2001 devolution plan, “the district management and community 70 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 146 71 Lunenburg, A.C., & Orstein, A. C. (1996). Educational administration concepts and practices. Wadsworth Publishing Company. USA. Cited in Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 147. 72 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 151. 73 Ibid, p. 164. 74 Ibid, p. 154. 75 In-depth Interview with Dr. Baela Raza Jamil. 76 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 155.
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have been empowered at the grassroots level in planning, management, resource mobilisation, utilisation,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the education system”77
. The Executive District Officer
(EDO) Education is responsible for meeting the needs of educational institutions in the district, for
authorising the establishment of new institutions wherever necessary, for implementing the provincial
education policy, and for preparing plans for the development of education in the district as well as those
for the annual education budget of the district78
. The EDO Education assists the DCO in preparing
education policies for the district, and is responsible for the effective administration of district education
offices as well as the provision of education data from the district. According to the LGO 2001, the EDO
Education was also empowered to help organise in-service training of teachers, distribute funds and
scholarships, recruit teachers, conduct examinations, organise sports events, inspect private schools in the
district and report enquiries.
After 2006, the EDO Education was authorised to make expenditures of up to Rs. 750,00079
. Under the
LGO 2001 devolution plan, district education was to be funded from the district governments’ own
resources, from provincial non-earmarked block grants, and from ad-hoc federal education grants to
provinces and districts80
. Citizen Community Boards (CCBs) were also given a role in financial planning
and operation of education systems at the village-level and the union-council level. At least 25 per cent of
the total development budget of the district would be allocated to development projects identified by the
CCBs, and according to the matching grant scheme, the CCBs were to provide 20 per cent of the total funds
in cash in order to receive the remaining 80 per cent funding from the district government. Civil society
organisations (CSOs) and school councils had to re-register as CCBs in order to access district funds.
“Before the devolution plan education expenditure was stagnant during 1995 to 2001[,] and it starts
increasing significantly after 2003 almost 31 % at all levels of governments”81
.
Khan & Mirza asserted that “devolution in education never reached school levels in the form of school
based management which is the ultimate goal of devolution in education, except for establishing school
councils, which were vibrant even before devolution”82
. Despite the fact that the 2001 local government
77 Ibid, p. 155. 78 Ibid, p. 155. 79 Ibid, p. 158. 80 Ibid, p. 157. 81 Mehmood, R. & Sadiq, S. (n.d.). “Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Human development: A Case Study of Pakistan”, Pakistan Society of Development Economists, p. 12. Retrieved from http://www.pide.org.pk/psde/25/pdf/agm26/day1/Rashid%20Mehmood.pdf 82 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 159.
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system allowed for public participation in decision-making as well as greater accountability of the
government to the citizens of the district, administrative and functional power was only devolved to the
DCO and EDO level. Powers were concentrated in the office of the EDO rather than being devolved to
lower levels, and District Education Officers (DEOs), Deputy DEOs (DDEOs) and Assistant Education
Officers (AEOs) became the subordinate staff of the EDO instead of being the line authority83
of education
service provision in the district (as they were before the LGO 2001 was implemented) – they were
responsible to their superiors in the bureaucracy, and not to the public, for their performance. Additionally,
powers relating to the education sector were still vested with the federal and provincial governments to a
considerable extent84
. Parts of decision-making for curriculum design, setting of teacher salary levels,
teacher accreditation and evaluation of pupil achievement were retained at the federal level. Similarly, the
provincial government retained powers of appointing, promoting, monitoring, transferring and posting
officers above BS grade 17 within the district. According to Khan & Mirza, education decentralisation in
Pakistan failed because of lack of capacity at the district level and absence of trained personnel required to
implement the education devolution and reform plan, despite the substantial amount of administrative
power and financial resources placed at the disposal of district governments.
“The ground realities have shown that it lacked capacity of the personnel to
run it efficiently. No capacity building was done before and most of the
training that was supposed to be given was either not given or not managed
well... As districts lacked capacity to run training programs at their own
level, provincial and federal government should have helped them in their
capacity building... The decentralization of the education system would have
been better supported by qualified personnel familiar with the philosophy
and goal of the new system. Effective collaboration and coordination
between governments of the provinces and districts could have provided a
basis for more effective execution of the reform.”85
After 2008, when the LGO 2001 and the 17th
amendment in general became a controversial law, and were
in the crosshairs of the incumbent political government at the federal and provincial levels, the pre-
devolution administrative divisions were restored in the provinces. Each division comprises of several
83Ibid, p. 160. 84 Ibid, p. 162. 85 Khan, A. M. & Mirza, M. S. (2011). “Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward”, Journal of Research and Reflections in Education, 5(2), (December 2011), p. 165.
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districts in the province, and is headed by a Commissioner appointed by the provincial government. The
Commissioner is assisted by a number of Deputy Commissioners (DCs) and Assistant Commissioners
(ACs) for the due discharge of governance functions at the division, district and sub-district level. While the
pre-devolution administrative system was restored, the responsibilities of the District Nazim or DCOs could
not be significantly altered. According to Khan & Mirza, “the provincial government restored the divisions
in order to facilitate the huge administrative gap between provincial and district governments” and to
devolve powers from the provincial government to the divisions86
. As such, the provincial governments
exercised – or attempted to exercise – direct control over service delivery through appointment of
Commissioners, DCs, DCOs, and most importantly, all officers up to BS grade 17 within the district
government – a power that was vested in the provincial government vide the LGO 2001 as well.
Therefore, lack of coordination between the three tiers of government – the federal, provincial and district
levels – the divergence of goals and objectives at each level, and the disparities between authority and
responsibility vested in each tier of government resulted in the retarded devolution of education in
Pakistan87
. Pursuant to the 18th
amendment, which vested broad powers in the provinces and gave them
greater autonomy, better mechanisms for coordination and collaboration between the provincial and district
education departments are required for effective service delivery.
Health
Health service delivery is also managed by an Executive District Officer at the district-level. The EDO
(Health) is responsible for basic and rural health, child and woman health, population welfare, public health,
and hospitals – each of these are organised into departments headed by a District Officer. However, the
devolved health department faces a number of limitations, such as time constraints, lack of capacity, and
absence of qualified and trained professionals to manage the district health system. “Staff at the EDO-
Health office spends more time in dealing with management issues of daily routine and managing various
aspects of health services rather than providing the actual services”88
. While the Medical Superintendent
(MS) of a district hospital or a Senior Medical Officer (SMO) of a rural health centre are experienced and
qualified doctors, they too are engrossed in the management and administration of the health unit than the
provision of healthcare services to patients.
86 Ibid, p. 163. 87 In-depth Interview with Dr. Baela Raza Jamil. 88 Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 41. Retrieved from http://www.cppr.edu.pk/files/Devolution_reforms.pdf
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As mentioned earlier, the 18th
amendment devolved the education and health ministries to the provinces,
allowing these administrative units to improve service delivery and determine the expenditure
composition89
. According to Mehmood & Sadiq (n.d.), “autonomy in service delivery sets the preferences
of sub-national governments to improve human development in the region”90
. Devolution did not result in
significant changes or improvements in key health indicators such as life expectancy and mortality. In fact,
after the LGO 2001 was implemented, “the share of allocation to general hospitals and clinics by three
provinces excluding Sindh declined”91
. Mehmood & Sadiq (n.d.) assert that:
“Fiscal decentralisation is the basic tool for the efficient provision of
service delivery. The effectiveness of fiscal decentralisation can increase
the human development and also strengthens the federation. There is a
need of community participation at grass root level that will further ensure
accountability... Fiscal decentralisation has positive correlation with HDI.
But there is a need of restructuring, capacity building and improving the
integrity of the system otherwise decentralisation will result in
mismanagement and high corruption.”92
In 2010, the Centre for Public Policy Research of the Institute of Management Sciences (Peshawar)
conducted a detailed study of devolution reforms in Pakistan using indicators such as basic health, primary
education and water and sanitation facilities93
. In terms of health service delivery, provincial governments
retained control over administration of teaching hospitals, regulation of medical standards, and overall
planning and monitoring of health services. District governments were made responsible for primary
healthcare and the management of district and tehsil hospitals. “Key municipal services such as water
supply, sewerage, sanitation, drainage schemes and street lights have been devolved from Urban/ Rural
councils to Tehsil/ Town level”94
.
89 Mehmood, R. & Sadiq, S. (n.d.). “Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Human development: A Case Study of Pakistan”, Pakistan Society of Development Economists, p. 12. 90 Ibid, p. 12. 91 Ibid, p. 12. 92 Ibid, p. 17. 93 Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 37. 94 Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 37.
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According to the CPPR report, post-devolution indicators for health service delivery in Pakistan are
dismal95
. Satisfaction levels of patients using government healthcare services are lower than that of patients
using private hospitals and clinics. Use of government health facilities declined between 2001 and 2004.
Access to government health facilities remains a problem in rural areas, especially where rural households
do not have a hospital or basic health unit (BHU) in their village. Compounding this problem of access is
the reluctance of health workers to work in remote rural areas. The medical staff employed at government
hospitals have little say in the medicine supply budget allocation, resulting in medicine shortages at crucial
times. Qualified doctors working at BHUs in rural areas have the opportunity cost of running a private clinic
in an urban area, which will yield a greater salary. “District health and education sector do not provide
regular support to their frontline staff in field because they lack adequate transport service, operational
funding and capacity. This means that staff is less likely to be able to deliver professional services.”96
Lack of public service accountability, especially in the health sector, has stagnated improvement in service
delivery. This leads to government healthcare users paying fees for availing free services, and in some
cases, not being provided the requisite medicine for their ailment97
. According to a study conducted in 2004,
“about 7% paid for medicines in government facilities, 5% paid health workers, and 9% incurred other
costs. Less than a third of users of government health facilities in the last three months reported that they
received all the prescribed medicines from the facility. This ranged from 38% in Punjab down to 9% in
NWFP”.98
“Checks and balances on the private practices of doctors and other health facilities are almost next to non-
existent [sic]. Corruption at government health facilities both in rural and urban areas is still ubiquitous.
Staff at the facilities is involved in selling the drugs, which are supposed to be available free of charge for
the public. Staff at the facilities is also reported to be involved in personal misuse of all equipment including
ambulances.”99
“Approximately 75 % of the budget is consumed by salaries of medical and non-medical
staff, while only about 13 % is allocated for medicine and related consumables.”100
There are positive aspects of health devolution as well: according to data tabulated in 2004, more patients
were aware of complaint mechanisms than in 2001 – the figure for 2004 was 16 per cent while only 12 per
95 Ibid, pp. 39-42. 96 Ibid, p. 40. 97 Ibid, p. 40. 98 Ibid, p. 40. 99 Ibid, p. 40. 100 Ibid, p. 41.
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cent patients were aware of complaint procedures in 2001101
. In addition, persistent monitoring by the
Karachi city health committee resulted in reduced absenteeism and improved quality of hospital
maintenance and repair. “The increasing availability of staff can lead to the increased chances that local
facilities, particularly for health, will actually have medicines available for the treatment”.102
However, the
CPPR notes that such improvements in health service delivery are an exception rather than the norm, and
that post-devolution reforms have led to such improvements only in large urban centres.103
Water & Sanitation
The impact of devolution reforms in the water and sanitation sector, and the performance of relevant service
delivery institutions, has been given great attention in the CPPR report on devolution reforms104
as well as
in the 2005 ADB/DFID report by Williamson, Ahmad and Smith. These resources yield important evidence
and significant insights regarding the delivery of water and sanitation services in Pakistan.
“Prior to devolution reforms, provincial Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) was mainly
responsible for the development and maintenance of water and sanitation services, specifically for large
projects in rural areas. Development Authorities (DAs) and Water and Sanitation Associations (WASAs)
were providing similar services in large, urban centres.”105
After the implementation of the LGO 2001,
water and sanitation responsibilities are assigned to the tehsil or town municipal administration (TMA),
except in city districts, where such responsibilities are centralised in the district government. “In NWFP,
PHED had initially been devolved to the district and not TMA level, but was subsequently recentralised to
the division or circle level”.106
As of 2006, “TMAs are providing water services only in the urban centres and more than 60% of the
population living in rural areas is not covered by TMA services”.107
Water supply coverage in the main
towns ranged between 70 to 80 per cent, while the underground sewerage network extended from 50 to 60
101 Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 42 102 Ibid, p. 42. 103 Ibid, p. 42. 104 Ibid, pp. 43-44. 105 Ibid, p. 43. 106 Ibid, p. 43. 107 Nayyar-Stone, R., Ebel, R., Ignatova, S., Rashid, K., Hatry, H., & Peterson, G. (2006). “Assessing the Impact of Devolution on Healthcare and Education in Pakistan”, Paper prepared for Pakistan Devolution Support Project, United States Agency for International Development by The Urban Institute, Washington. Cited in Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 43.
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percent of such towns. “Maintenance of the existing infrastructure is very poor with rusted pipes, broken
sewers and broken or inefficient tube wells”.108
As of 2005-06, “access to safe drinking water is reasonable except in NWFP where 46% of households did
not have access to safe portable [sic] water supply”.109
User fees and utility billing became an important
issue in terms of water and sanitation after the 2001 devolution plan was implemented. Urban households
were more likely to pay user fees than rural households, because “local representatives find it very hard to
levy user fees for water supply and other associated utility charges in rural constituencies”110
for simple
electoral reasons. Since the rural local governments were unable to raise sufficient amounts of funds for
maintaining and improving water supply systems, development funds allocated at the tehsil or town level
were mostly spent in rural towns or rural suburbs of the cities. “In other words, citizens in urban areas pay
the price for services that are highly targeted towards the rural areas”111
, since rural citizens manage to
obtain exemptions from user fees and from punitive charges because of strong patron-client relationships
between the Nazim and the electorate in rural areas.
Existing Service Delivery Apparatus in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The 18th
amendment has empowered provinces to develop their own local government systems. Therefore,
it is important to study service delivery apparatus at the provincial and district level across provinces. This
section will examine the existing, functional service delivery apparatus for education, health, water and
sanitation in the Punjab and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These systems are responsible for delivering the
abovementioned public services to citizens, and their strengths and weaknesses can be determined by
analysing data, statistics and evidence of the status of service delivery in these provinces, and the districts
therein.
Since the commissionerate system stands restored, and the powers of pre- and post-evolution era officers
varies across provinces, the 18th
amendment empowers the provincial governments to affect and impact
service delivery through the power of appointing and removing bureaucratic officers at the division, district
108 Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 43. 109 Williamson, T., Ahmad, M., and Smith, S. (2005). Improving Devolved Social Services Delivery in N.W.F.P and Punjab. ADB/DfID, Islamabad. Cited in Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 43. 110 Centre for Public Policy Research. (2010). “An Assessment of Devolution Reforms in Pakistan”, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, p. 44. 111 Ibid, p. 44.
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and sub-district level. While elections to provincial governments were held in 2008, elections to local
governments are yet to be held. The 18th
amendment, and the abolition of the concurrent legislative list, also
gives provinces the autonomy to decide whether local government elections are held on non-party basis, as
done in 2000 and 2005, or otherwise.
According to the report “Devolution in Pakistan: An Assessment and Recommendations for Action”
authored by the World Bank, Department for International Development (DFID) and the Asian
Development Bank (ADB), “the track record of social sector service delivery in Pakistan is so poor that it is
tempting to assert that almost any reform in governance arrangements would produce better results”.112
The
report asserts that at the time of devolution of power to the local governments, Pakistan’s institutions for
public service delivery were failing, and increased funding did not lead to demonstrable improvements in
education indicators, health statistics, or water supply and sanitation standards. It notes that:
“Existing institutional arrangements for social sector service delivery in
Pakistan deliver ineffective services and neither growth nor additional
investment expenditures offer a ready cure. Devolution offers a new set of
institutional arrangements that, arguably, can produce effective solutions.
It is important however, to emphasize that government policy statements
did not regard service delivery and responsiveness as ends in themselves.
In some respects, in fact, the architects of policy saw the pitfalls of
measuring the success or failure of devolution by a narrow emphasis on
efficient service delivery.”113
Service Delivery in the Punjab
In Punjab, the Devolved Social Services Programme (PDSSP114
) is an initiative of the provincial
government to improve service delivery in poverty, gender, education, health, and water supply and
sanitation (WSS), with the objective of achieving the targets set by the UN Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). The initiative is designed to “provide province wide support, covering provincial departments of
112 Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development & World Bank. (n.d.). “Devolution in Pakistan: An Assessment and Recommendations for Action”, Devolved Service Delivery Study (DSD), p. 19. 113 Ibid, p. 21. 114 Punjab Devolved Social Services Programme. (2010). “Introduction”. Retrieved from http://www.pdssp.gop.pk/about-us.asp
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Health, Education, Special Education, LG&RD, and HUD&PHED”.115
The PDSSP developed a detailed
compendium of technical standards for service delivery in health, education (including special education),
and water and sanitation.116
It also prepared guidelines for preparing five-year strategic plans for the
education sector,117
health sector,118
and water and sanitation (WSS) sectors119
in the province. The
Programme Support Unit (PSU) of the PDSSP is based in Lahore, while it has a presence in each of the 34
districts, along with up to 34 Programme TMAs. The PSU provides administrative support for the
sustainable implementation of the PDSSP, and contributes to achieving the objectives of the Programme in
making social service delivery “more equitable, efficient, effective and sustainable”120
. The PSU is designed
to support the local governments’ capacity building needs by focusing on the following key functions121
:
Planning (by developing three-year rolling plans for each sector after consultative meetings with
stakeholders and situation analysis for each sector);
Employer functions (including developing and implementing strategies to respond to minimum
service standards);
Public-private partnerships (to support the involvement and participation of local communities as
well as the private sector in planning and managing service delivery processes, primarily through
raising awareness);
Monitoring and evaluation (including activation of the local governments’ monitoring and
evaluation committees); and
Minimum service delivery standards.
Service Delivery in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government developed an Education Sector plan in 2008, which signified “the
initial steps towards a comprehensive long-term approach towards improved service delivery for societal
115 Punjab Devolved Social Services Programme. (2010). “Implementation Arrangement”. Retrieved from http://www.pdssp.gop.pk/program-support-unit.asp 116 Punjab Devolved Social Services Programme. (n.d.). “Compendium of Existing Service Delivery & Technical Standards”. Retrieved from http://www.pdssp.gop.pk/Publications/ServiceDeliveryStandards.pdf 117 Punjab Devolved Social Services Programme. (n.d.). “Guidelines for Preparation of Five Year Strategic Plan for the Education Sector”. Retrieved from http://www.pdssp.gop.pk/downloads/publications/Guidlines/g-edu.pdf 118 Punjab Devolved Social Services Programme. (n.d.). “Guidelines for Preparation of Five Year Strategic Plan for the Health Sector”. Retrieved from http://www.pdssp.gop.pk/downloads/publications/Guidlines/g-health.pdf 119 Punjab Devolved Social Services Programme. (n.d.). “Guidelines for Preparation of Five Year Strategic Plan for the Water Supply & Sanitation Sector”. Retrieved from http://www.pdssp.gop.pk/downloads/publications/Guidlines/g-wss.pdf 120 Punjab Devolved Social Services Programme. (2010). “Implementation Arrangement”. Retrieved from http://www.pdssp.gop.pk/program-support-unit.asp 121 Ibid.
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advancement”.122
As per the plan, the provincial and area governments are to achieve the goal of universal
free primary education by 2015, and universal free education up to class 10 by 2025: governments at the
respective tiers are to establish monitoring and inspection systems to ensure quality education service
delivery in all institutions.123
To improve the quality of health care services in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and to make health system safer,
competent, responsive and effective, the Institutionalised Quality Health Care System (IQHCS) was
established in 2009 by the provincial health department.124
The project duration was for three years (2009-
2012) and Rs. 134.7 million was allocated for improving health service delivery in Peshawar, Charsadda,
Nowshera, Mardan, Kohat, Abbottabad, Swat and Haripur. The IQHCS targeted ten healthcare facilities in
each district, facilitating implementation of existing operational quality standards, and improving capacities
for provision of quality healthcare facilities. It envisaged the creation of Primary Care Management
Committees (PCMCs) which would enable clients and communities to participate in contributing to the
quality of healthcare service provision, and collaborating in efforts to improve the same. In the first
year/phase, the project was implemented in 8 districts; in the second year/phase, it was implemented in 10
districts; in the third year/phase, it was implemented in 6 districts.
The European Union (EU) and international charity Water Aid launched a three-year project in 2011 to
improve water and sanitation services in Mardan. The project aims to speed up progress on improving water
and sanitation services in the province through a “practical, pro-poor, sustainable and citizen-led
approach”.125
The Integrated Rural Support Program (IRSP) is the implementation partner for the project,
and the intervention is designed to target approximately 200,000 people living in 30 different communities
in Mardan. One of the reasons for designing and implementing this project was that “excluded groups
[particularly women and children] are highly vulnerable and marginalised with unique water and sanitation
needs”.126
In addition to improved service delivery in the water and sanitation sector, the project also aims
to improve the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) so as to improve citizen voice and
122 Mustafa, G. (2012). “Education Policy Analysis Report of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”, UNESCO Pakistan, p. 95. Retrieved from http://unesco.org.pk/education/documents/situationanalysis/Policy_Analysis_Report_of_KP.pdf 123 Mustafa, G. (2012). “Education Policy Analysis Report of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”, UNESCO Pakistan, p. 98. 124 Ahmed, N. & Yunis, S. (2011). “Institutionalizing Quality in Health Care of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: A Process of Sustaining Change”, PIQC Institute of Quality, p. 5. Retrieved from http://piqc.edu.pk/casestudies/Dr_Nadeem_Ahmad_Institutionalizing_Quality_in_Healthcare_of_Khyber_Pakhtunkhwa_A_Process_of_Sustaining_Change_Healthcare_Quality_Presentation_PIQC.pdf 125 Integrated Regional Support Program. (n.d.). “Promoting Civil Society Participation in Water and Sanitation Governance in Pakistan”. Retrieved from http://irsp.org.pk/promoting-civil-society-participation-in-water-and-sanitation-governance-in-pakistan/ 126 Ibid.
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engagement with the government. The project design also includes interventions to enhance the capacity of
local governments to effectively respond to citizen requirements, as well as to improve institutional systems
and processes in order to promote equitable and inclusive governance in the water, sanitation and hygiene
sector.
Current Mechanisms to Improve Quality and Efficiency of Service Delivery
According to the World Bank’s 2004 World Development Report, titled ‘Making Services Work for Poor
People’, public sector reform for improvement in service delivery requires a realignment of the incentives
of institutional actors, including the government (at various levels) and service providers (at the local level).
Since public sector reform is a time-consuming and painstaking process which may require transition
management as well as political will, it is recommended that a robust and citizen-centric accountability
framework should be introduced into the service delivery mechanism according to the concept of “strategic
incrementalism”.127
At the start, basic incentive structures must be realigned so as to strengthen
accountability and improve performance in line with formal service delivery standards. “As incentives
become better aligned and internalized and as administrative capacity grows, more advanced reforms can be
deployed to support deeper institutional change and scaling up”.128
The following figure explains different
routes to accountability in terms of an ideal relationship between citizens/clients, the state (i.e. politicians
and policymakers), and providers (at the organizational level as well as frontline service providers):
Figure 5: Coordinating Multiple Compact Relationships for Improved Public Service
Delivery129
127 The World Bank & Oxford University Press. (2004). “World Development Report: Making Services Work for Poor People”, p. 180. Retrieved from http://www.gse.pku.edu.cn/lib/gse_lib/edu-search/e_publication/e_pub/268950PAPER0WDR02004.pdf 128 Ibid, p. 180. 129 Ibid, p. 180.
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Exercise of citizen voice on state actors is considered the ‘long route’ to accountability, whereas exercise of
client power by citizens on both organisational and frontline service providers is deemed the ‘short route’ to
accountability. Deviations from this ideal accountability relationship lead to governance failures.130
Such
failures are more likely to occur if there is confusion in the mandates and responsibilities of state actors and
service providers, or if there are institutional problems faced by new entities created for enhancing service
delivery or accountability therein. In a 2007 report titled ‘Governance Impediments to Pro-Poor Change in
Pakistan’,131
Dr. Ali Cheema studied the degree to which marginalised and socially excluded citizens – such
as the poor, women, and other segments of society – are aware of new service delivery mechanisms and
oversight bodies created by the devolution process in Pakistan. The study concludes that low levels of
female electoral participation make it “unlikely that governments will be responsive to the needs of
women”.132
Moreover, there are significant institutional hindrances to citizen participation in the budgeting
and development planning process, since village and neighbourhood councils remain informal institutions
and citizen inputs in the development process are ‘ad hoc’ and therefore not binding on state officials. The
study also notes that citizens can only voice their satisfaction (or lack thereof) over government budgeting,
development planning and service delivery schemes ex post, i.e. at the time of elections. “No formal space
for citizen-state engagement on planning and budgeting is available in the current institutional
framework”.133
130 Cheema, A. (2007). “Governance Impediments to Pro-Poor Change in Pakistan”, Asian Development Bank, TA 4319-PAK, p. 8. Retrieved from http://www.researchcollective.org/Documents/Governance_Impediments_to-Pro_Poor_Change_in_Pakistan.pdf 131 Cheema, A. (2007). “Governance Impediments to Pro-Poor Change in Pakistan”, Asian Development Bank, TA 4319-PAK, p. 8. Retrieved from http://www.researchcollective.org/Documents/Governance_Impediments_to-Pro_Poor_Change_in_Pakistan.pdf 132 Ibid, p. 39. 133 Ibid, p. 39-40.
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“The quality of data available about service-delivery performance, from expenditure data all the way
through to measurements of human-development outcomes, is weak at the district level. Unless the quality
improves, it will not be possible for local governments to strategize, or for the citizens of Pakistan to gauge
how well their elected leaders are doing in order to hold them accountable”.134
This section specifically
studies the mechanisms in place to ascertain and improve the quality of service delivery in the Punjab and
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. In particular, this section studies evidence regarding the effectiveness of
citizen voice on state officials (i.e. the ‘long route’ to accountability) as well as client power exercised by
citizens on public service providers (i.e. the ‘short route’ to accountability) in the education, health, water
and sanitation sectors.
In a study of information and communication technologies used by the Punjab government to empower
citizens (and thereby improve governance) published in 2011, Callen & Hasanain noted that the incentive
structures for both citizens and government officials change when the former are put in charge of policing
and reporting corruption, and when the latter’s monopoly on local information is broken. Specifically, they
observed that the ICT initiatives deployed by the Punjab government allowed easy access to a substantial
amount of real-time data on service delivery, especially to politicians and bureaucrats. “The low cost of
collecting this data, coupled with a new-found ability to make comparisons across all districts may change
the political incentives these senior officials face: it may be profitable to focus on providing better quality
service, which can easily and reliably be verified, rather than cultivating patronage.”135
The ‘Punjab model’
is a three-stage citizen engagement and feedback process which makes use of ICT tools such as mobile
phone calls and short messaging services (SMSes) to obtain citizen input, to address citizen complaints, and
to generate citizen feedback on the quality of service delivery and the efficiency of public service providers
(i.e. bureaucrats and officials of the district government). By using information and communication
technologies to detect and punish extortion, citizens are empowered to hold government officials
responsible and accountable for their duties, and the government is in a position to improve the quality of
service delivery by facilitating citizen feedback. However, citizens must also be provided with the right set
of incentives to report corruption and give feedback on service delivery – the most important incentive is
awareness about the citizen feedback mechanism, without which citizen engagement and proactive
involvement in governance improvements will not take place. Callen & Hasanain stated that the speed at
134 Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development & World Bank. (n.d.). “Devolution in Pakistan: An Assessment and Recommendations for Action”, Devolved Service Delivery Study (DSD), pp. 93-94. 135 Callen, M. & Hasanain, A. (2011). “The Punjab Model of Proactive Governance: Empowering Citizens Through Information Communication Technology”, p. 6. Retrieved from http://www.punjabmodel.gov.pk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Punjab_Model_Evaluation_-Callen-and-Hasanain.pdf
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which the Punjab government’s ICT model generates data on quality of service delivery is “remarkable”,
and that “no comparable data collection initiative exists in any developing country”136
. Nevertheless, the
Punjab government’s ICT model must change public perceptions about citizen engagement and public
accountability in a sustainable manner if it is to succeed as a viable mechanism for improving the quality of
service delivery.
Zahid Hasnain’s policy research working paper for the World Bank, titled ‘Devolution, Accountability, and
Service Delivery: Some Insights from Pakistan’ and published in 2008, states that the priorities of local
governments are disproportionately tilted towards the provision of physical infrastructure (such as roads,
electricity in rural areas, water and sanitation, etc.) at the expense of education and health. This orientation
of the local government is linked to the electoral incentives of local politicians, who attach more importance
to development works and infrastructure than to service delivery, or quality thereof. “Some public goods,
such as the provision of roads, are much quicker to implement and easier to verify and credit to the efforts
of a particular politician, than others, such as better quality healthcare or education.”137
Still, the devolution
of power and decentralisation of authority to district-level governments is a step towards improving access
of citizens to local policymakers (as opposed to provincial or national-level policymakers), which in turn
allows citizens to communicate their demands to the government as well as hold public officials
accountable for the quality of service delivery. Hasnain noted that “provincial interventions in education
and health appear to have provided additional incentives for districts to prioritize the physical infrastructure
sectors”138
. However, the policy priorities and incentives of local politicians require a shift from
undertaking projects that improve political visibility and chances electoral success, and must focus more on
improving public service delivery. Based on this observation of incentive structures, Hasnain concluded that
the increased accessibility of citizens to policymakers at the local level has not translated into improved
social service delivery precisely because politicians prioritise projects which will translate into greater
electoral visibility for them, and because policymakers lay greater emphasis on development expenditures at
the expense of operations and maintenance expenditure which is critical for sustaining and improving
public service delivery139
. Noting that administrative devolution remains incomplete in Pakistan, Hasnain
136 Callen, M. & Hasanain, A. (2011). “The Punjab Model of Proactive Governance: Empowering Citizens Through Information Communication Technology”, p. 11 137 Hasnain, Z. (2008). “Devolution, Accountability, and Service Delivery: Some Insights from Pakistan”, The World Bank South Asia Region Poverty Reduction Economic Management Department, Policy Research Working Paper 4610, April 2008, p. 3. 138 Ibid, p. 12. 139 Hasnain, Z. (2008). “Devolution, Accountability, and Service Delivery: Some Insights from Pakistan”, The World Bank South Asia Region Poverty Reduction Economic Management Department, Policy Research Working Paper 4610, April 2008, p. 18.
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believed that a de facto ‘re-centralisation’ of education and health services at the provincial level will
improve the quality of service delivery, particularly because the provincial government retains control over
personnel management, appointment and removal at the district and sub-district levels of governance.
In their 2005 study on decentralisation in Pakistan and accountability of local politicians, Keefer, Narayan
& Vishwanath noted a “disjunction between political willingness to provide education quantity (school
buildings) and education quality”140
that exists because there are more political incentives for targeted
provision of public goods as opposed to broader provision and greater access to public services.
Policymakers as well as legislators in Pakistan are more concerned with providing targeted public services
to their constituents rather than providing higher quality public goods. Electoral competition in the 1990s
also drove politicians to increase education ‘quantity’ – build more schools and enhance physical
infrastructure of educational institutions – rather than to enhance the quality of education service
provision141
. Electoral uncertainty and indirect elections for key policymakers, at the local government level
also reduces the ability of voters to identify who is responsible for poor policy outcomes. While studying
the political economy of policy distortion and the impact of decentralisation on improved provision of
public goods, Keefer et al postulated that local governments in Pakistan are not necessarily confronted with
stronger incentives to improve the quality of service delivery, when compared to corresponding incentive
structures for central governments in the 1990s142
. In addition to this, there is a lack of credibility of pre-
electoral promises made by candidates in Pakistan, which registers a negative impact on policy outcomes.
As a concluding remark, Keefer et al stated that political parties in Pakistan, like those in other developing
countries, “project no credible policy stances to voters on issues ranging from education to trade reform...
At the very least, non-credible challengers find it more difficult to replace even poorly performing
incumbents because voters do not believe they will do better”143
.
In January 2011, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government approved a Citizens’ Voice Study as part of the
monitoring and evaluation implementation framework of the provincial planning and development
department. The study is designed to increase meaningful engagement of citizens as well as civil society in
the public sector, in governance processes, in service delivery processes and in grievance redress processes.
This approach places great importance on civic engagement and feedback to ensure quality of service
140 Keefer, P. E., Narayan, A. & Vishwanath, T. (2005). “Decentralization in Pakistan: Are Local Politicians Likely to be More Accountable?”, p. 4. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINVTCLI/Resources/decentralizationinPakistan.pdf 141 Ibid, p. 6. 142 Ibid, p. 9. 143 Ibid, p. 19.
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delivery. The April 2011 report on ‘Building Citizens’ Voice in the Monitoring and Evaluation Processes of
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’144
highlights significant deficiencies in the existing state of public service delivery,
due to lack of citizen confidence in public service providers and absence of robust accountability
mechanisms. The report notes that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s Annual Development Plans
(ADPs) for 2010-11 and 2011-12 were formulated with inputs from civil society obtained by arranging
workshops at the provincial level. However, greater engagement between policymakers and citizens –
through such workshops and forums – has yet to result in improved service delivery outcomes in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa. “There is a widespread public perception that engagement between government and CSOs is
infrequent, and often tokenistic. From the perspective of social accountability and ensuring transparency in
development activities, the role of these forums is either weak or non-existent”145
. In addition to these
perceptions of lack of credibility, CSOs in Pakistan are not traditionally involved in the government’s
monitoring and evaluation processes, and are yet to be empowered with information and statistics regarding
service delivery performance so as to hold government officials accountable. As such, there is “no
systematic mechanism for regular and timely feedback from citizens or community groups to support public
sector monitoring and decision-making”146
. Moreover, government officials have little incentives to adopt
inclusive M&E processes. Finally, there is an intrinsic weakness in the government’s M&E processes
because of the absence of baselines and benchmarks for service delivery outcomes – this leads to service
delivery processes being less output-oriented.
A number of recommendations for improving citizen involvement in government M&E processes are made
in the concluding sections of the report: they include institutionalisation of engagement processes between
the government and civil society groups, consistency of sustained efforts towards service delivery
improvements so as to produce systemic changes in the delivery mechanisms, clarity in the roles and
responsibilities of various government officials so as to rationalise civic expectations of service delivery
outcomes, and greater trust between the government and the citizenry so as to elicit feedback from the latter
regarding service delivery improvements. The report calls for sustained reforms backed by public demand
and an enabling environment created by the state. “Embedding citizens' voice involves pushing for
principles, practices and processes and a pull strategy that is based on effective community mobilisation,
access to information and requisite institutional arrangements”147
. Access to information and utilization of
144 Planning & Development Department, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. (2011). “Building Citizens’ Voice in the Monitoring and Evaluation Processes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Towards Citizen-Centric Governance”. Retrieved from http://khyberpakhtunkhwa.gov.pk/cms/downloads/Citizens'%20Voice%20Study%20Report.pdf 145 Ibid, p. 5. 146 Ibid, p. 5. 147 Ibid, p. 13.
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ICT tools is a key in facilitating citizens’ access to information, and sharing of knowledge and service
delivery experiences148
. Information regarding budgeting processes and public expenditure flows must be
made more transparent in order to increase citizen trust in governance processes and facilitate civic
engagement in improving service delivery through targeted interventions in the existing mechanism. The
report states that Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) should be used along with output-based
budgeting (OBB) processes to map the flow of public resources – specifically in the education, health and
social protection sectors – to the beneficiaries, in order to identify deficiencies and improve transparency in
the existing service delivery mechanisms. Moreover, the report calls for establishing community-based
accountability committees at the tehsil level, and for improving the accountability focus of facility-level
participatory forums in the education, health, water and sanitation sectors149
. In addition to these, the report
urges the institution of effective and responsive grievance redress mechanisms, strengthening the
government’s monitoring and evaluation operations, and incentivising civil society engagement in the
governance and service delivery processes. This can be achieved by employing innovative tools ranging
from ICT (as done by the Punjab government) and electronic media, to the development of a virtual
‘kutchery’/jirga service and a Civil Society Performance Index150
.
Therefore, the Punjab government has instituted an innovative mechanism for improving accountability of
service delivery by the citizens themselves using ICT tools for reporting corruption and providing feedback
on the quality and effectiveness of service delivery in the province. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government
has developed a framework for introducing a citizen-centric service delivery improvement and feedback
mechanism in the province, which is designed to incorporate citizen input into the policy formulation
process as well as client feedback in the service delivery improvement process. The establishment of a
robust grievance redress mechanism is very important in improving the accountability of the state as well as
of public service providers, and provides a solid foundation for sustained improvement in public service
delivery standards. “The close involvement and support of beneficiaries stands out as the most important
[factor] for viability and sustainability”151
of public sector reform targeted towards improving the quality of
service delivery, simply because “building partnerships between communities and service providers is
148 In-depth Interview with Ms. Sitara Ayaz. 149 Planning & Development Department, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. (2011). “Building Citizens’ Voice in the Monitoring and Evaluation Processes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Towards Citizen-Centric Governance”, pp. 18-19. 150 Ibid, pp. 22-23. 151 Ismail, Z. H., McGarry, M. G., Davies, J. & Hasan, J. (2000). “Alternative Delivery Mechanisms for Social Services: Some Case Studies from Pakistan”, Social Policy and Development Centre, p. 30. Retrieved from http://www.spdc.org.pk/Publications/Research%20Reports/rr36.pdf
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essential to any success in changing health or education status”152
. In the absence of formal institutions for
eliciting citizen voice and feedback, the electronic media has become a powerful tool bridging the gap
between citizens and the state153
.
152 Ibid, p. 31. 153 Observation by participants of the 1st Focus Group Discussion.
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Political Parties’ Outputs on Service Delivery
Political parties’ manifestos of 2007/08 did not specifically refer to service delivery or to local
governments. Two main reasons for this have been identified for the purpose of this report: firstly, political
party manifestos were ideological documents aimed at a national audience instead of a sub-national or sub-
provincial audience. Secondly, elections to local governments were not carried out on party basis, implying
that affiliates or candidates of political parties could not contest elections to the three tiers of the local
government system. Based on these reasons, election manifestos did not appropriately develop or discuss
improvements to existing service delivery plans at the conceptual level.
However, this section will evaluate the performance of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments –
at the provincial as well as sub-provincial level – in terms of education and health service delivery. In
specific terms, the promises and policy goals outlined in the PML-N and ANP manifestos will be mapped
and corroborated along with the service delivery indicators for the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
respectively. It must be noted that while both manifestos contained promises pertaining service delivery
and/or improvement at the national level, it would be informative to measure the success that these political
parties have been able to achieve in terms of their governments in the respective provinces, especially after
broad-based provincial empowerment and autonomy has taken place under the 18th
amendment.
Implementation Status of Service Delivery Plans in Political Parties’ Manifestos
An assessment of the promises made in the PML-N manifesto can be corroborated with the performance of
the PML-N government in the Punjab, and relevant indicators for education and health in the province from
2008 to 2012. Similarly, the pledges made in the ANP manifesto can be mapped along with the
performance of the education and health sectors in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, respectively. It must be noted that
service delivery plans or targets set in the ANP manifesto are limited therefore the education, health, water
and sanitation delivery outcomes for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province cannot be holistically mapped
along with the manifesto pledges.
In addition to enhancing provincial autonomy, the 18th
amendment also made access to primary education a
fundamental constitution right. According to Article 25A, it is the responsibility of the state to provide free
and compulsory education to all Pakistani children between the ages of five and sixteen years. A promise to
universalize education provision was made in the PML-N manifesto as well as the ANP manifesto. This
appears to be the most successful education service delivery promise made in the manifestos of both
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parties154
– while it has been legislated upon at the national level, implementation on expanding education
service delivery to all children between the ages of five and sixteen years is still on going155
. Greater
coordination is required between the provincial and district-level education departments to improve the
quality of service delivery and increase access to education services to this segment of the population in
particular.
Again, in terms of education, both the PML-N and ANP vowed in their manifestos to eliminate multiple
systems of education – English-medium, Urdu-medium and madrassa – and to introduce a uniform
curriculum and mode of instruction in their place. Implementation of this promise has faced many
difficulties at the national as well as provincial level, and the education curriculum remains to be
standardized and uniformly adopted at the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels. After devolution
of power to the provinces under the 18th
amendment, education sector service delivery and reform are under
the jurisdiction of the provinces. However, curricula reform and expansion of service delivery have not
taken place as yet.
The PML-N manifesto envisaged the achievement of 100 per cent enrolment rates in middle schools by
2012. However, as of 2012, the primary enrolment rate in the province is 62 per cent156
. According to the
Economic Survey of Pakistan, published by the Federal Ministry of Finance on a yearly basis, there have
been marginal changes in the net enrolment rate and gross enrolment rate (both measured for children
between the ages of 5 to 9 years) in the Punjab province. The Punjab gross enrolment rate increased
marginally “from 97 percent in 2008-09 to 98 percent in 2010-11”157
. The net enrolment rate in the province
decreased “from 62 percent in 2008-09 to 61 percent in 2010-11”158
in the Punjab. “The share of current
and development budgets in the overall education budget of Punjab has been fluctuating significantly,
which underscores the need for steady increase in allocations under different budgetary lines to achieve the
targets set in Article 25-A”159
. Moreover, the PML-N was unable to fulfil its manifesto promises on
standardising curricula, even at the Punjab level, or of establishing the National Education Corps.
154 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema 155 In-depth Interview with Dr. Baela Raza Jamil. 156 Ishtiaq, N. (2012). “Understanding Punjab Education Budget 2012-2013”, Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency – PILDAT, p. 12. Retrieved from http://www.pildat.org/publications/publication/budget/UnderstandingPunjabEducationBudget2012-2013-ABriefforPAPStandingCommitteeonEducation.pdf 157 Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan. “Education”, Pakistan Economic Survey 2011-12, Chapter 10, p. 138. Retrieved from http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapter_12/10-Education.pdf 158 Ibid, p. 139. 159 Malik, A. B. (2011). “Policy Analysis of Education in Punjab Province”, UNESCO Islamabad (Pakistan), p. 129. Retrieved from http://unesco.org.pk/education/documents/situationanalysis/Education_Policy_Analysis_for_Punjab.pdf
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The PML-N manifesto promised greater focus on science education and maximum facilities for technical
and vocational training. Two organisations administer technical and vocational education training in
Pakistan: Technical and Vocation Education Authority (TEVTA) and Punjab Vocational Training Council
(PVTC). TEVTA is responsible for national-level coordination between the governments and all
stakeholders, in addition to carrying out regulatory functions. PVTC is an initiative to channel Zakat
(charity) funds towards the development of an effective vocational and technical training model. The PVTC
targets vulnerable and deprived segments of society, focusing on backward areas of the Punjab in order to
alleviate poverty by creating jobs and business opportunities. “PVTC has done remarkable job of improving
access to training and employment for young men and woman who lacked the financial resources to receive
vocational technical training”160
. Nevertheless, technical and vocational skills provided to the Pakistani
economy in general are deemed to be too narrow in scope. A number of challenges161
regarding provision of
technical and vocational training were noted in the Punjab. These include, but are not limited to, the
following:
Schools did not have enough budgets or requisite equipment to support technical and vocational
training;
Adequately trained teachers for technical and vocational programmes are not available;
The technical and vocational training programme is weakly linked to other education sectors as well
as to the labour market;
There are serious deficiencies in the governance, administration and regulation of the technical and
vocational educations sector; and
Skills standards and curriculum remains to be developed and standardised at the national level.
The PML-N manifesto called for improvements in the district-level health service delivery institutions, as
well as expansion of service delivery in terms of setting up cardiac units in each district. The delivery
status of health services, as presented earlier in this report, shows that there has been little improvement in
at district, tehsil and union council levels. The targets set for the health sector in the PML-N manifesto have
not been achieved even at the Punjab provincial level. Similarly, the water and sanitation service delivery
mechanism faces acute problems, which are more pronounced in the Punjab.
160 Malik, A. B. (2011). “Policy Analysis of Education in Punjab Province”, UNESCO Islamabad (Pakistan), p. 85. 161 Ibid, p. 81.
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Since the ANP manifesto is brief and succinct with regards to the targets pledged for education and health,
service delivery outcomes in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have to be corroborated with the limited
content of the 2007 manifesto. The ANP promised to increase expenditure on health as well as education to
six per cent of GDP each – in June 2012, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government stated that the total
allocation for the education sector was equivalent to 4 per cent of the province’s total GDP, claiming that
the ratio was “highest among all four provinces”162
. Gross enrolment rate for Khyber Pakhtukhwa province
“improved from 87 percent to 89 percent” during 2008-09 and 2010-11163
. The net enrolment rate in the
province marginally decreased “from 52 percent [in 2008-09] to 51 percent [in 2010-11]”164
. The ANP
manifesto vowed to transform the primary education system so that instruction is in the mother tongue of
the student. This promise, along with other education sector reforms, has not taken place.
In its manifesto, the ANP pledged to expand health service delivery to all citizens by introducing insurance
schemes and by undertaking privatisation in the health sector. However, there have been no indicators or
evidence to suggest that a province-wide health insurance scheme has been launched in the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province by the government. Privatisation of health service delivery has also not taken place
at a province-wide scale, whether to improve quality of or increase access to basic health services. The ANP
manifesto did not refer to water and sanitation as a subset of health, so the manifesto document cannot be
mapped onto water and sanitation service delivery indicators for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to the ‘Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Comprehensive Development Strategy 2010’, “the capacity to
design,
deliver and supervise health programmes in districts was limited and hampered by the devolution
programme”165
. Nevertheless, the provincial health department has developed a two-phase strategy to
achieve health-related Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In the first ‘short term’ phase,
which will last for two years, the department will focus on strengthening health management systems and
improving the quality of health service delivery at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. In the
subsequent ‘long term’ phase, which is five years long, the department will focus on expanding access to
health services as well as on improving equity therein. This two-phase approach has been designed keeping
in mind the results of a survey on quality of healthcare and consumer satisfaction conducted in 2007,
162 Ashfaq, M. (2012). “KP education budget: Non-development spending gets lion’s share”, DAWN News, 09 June 2012. Retrieved from http://dawn.com/2012/06/09/kp-education-budget-non-development-spending-gets-lions-share-2/ 163 Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan. “Education”, Pakistan Economic Survey 2011-12, Chapter 10, p. 138. 164 Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan. “Education”, Pakistan Economic Survey 2011-12, Chapter 10, p. 139. 165 Planning and Development Department, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. (n.d.). “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Comprehensive Development Strategy 2010-2017”, p. 29. Retrieved from http://www.khyberpakhtunkhwa.gov.pk/Departments/PnD/CDS-2010-17.pdf
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according to which the performance of the provincial health department was “poorer in management than in
service delivery”.166
The Role of Political Parties’ 2007-08 Manifestos in Affecting Service Delivery
It has been observed that political parties made scarce reference to service delivery mechanisms in their
2007 manifestos. While service delivery improvements and targets for better provision of public services
were indubitably set as manifesto pledges, little importance was given to policy solutions or policy
mechanisms in election manifestos to achieve the pledges and promises made in the respective
manifestos167
. The policies and programs that political parties pursued from 2008 onwards – i.e. while in
power – do not differ greatly from the party’s overarching ideology, but have little to no basis in the
respective party’s 2007 election manifesto.
There are various reasons for this grave disconnect: 1) political parties developed their manifestos with a
national agenda in mind, and not a sub-national (provincial) or localised framework in which service
delivery takes place. 2) political parties were predisposed to consider local government structures
(especially those created by the LGO 2001) in adversarial terms, particularly because elections to the three
tiers of local government were held on non-party basis – this prohibited political parties and their candidates
from formally contesting elections to local government bodies, even though many local governments were
administered by elected officials who were affiliated with major political parties in one way or another168
.
This, along with the fact that this latest experiment in decentralised local government took place during the
era of a dictator, made political parties averse to the local government system in general, and may be
identified as the main reason why elections to local government bodies (even on party basis) were not held
after 2010. Third, political parties – especially those who have been voted into power before 2008 –
administered the country through the federal and provincial governments, and continued to use these high-
level mechanisms to govern the country instead of utilising devolved structures to improve service delivery
and to realise national- and provincial-level policy goals at the local-level. Finally, the role of manifestos in
service delivery – or improvements therein – was minimal because when in power, political parties pursued
different policies than those proposed in their manifestos169
.
166 Ibid, p. 28. 167 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion 168 Observation by participants of the 1st Focus Group Discussion. 169 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion.
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As a result of this incongruity between the national vision of political parties and the localised framework of
public service delivery, many political parties which came into power after 2008 restored the
commissionerate system in one form or another – the powers of the district government and the DCO were
undoubtedly curtailed, but the systems and structures put in place since 2001 were not completely done
away with. Therefore, political parties in Pakistan affect service delivery through their power in the
provincial administration – who are autonomous in devising local government structures within their
jurisdiction – and through the power of appointment over pre-2001 local government officials such as
commissioners, DCs and ACs, as well as over LGO 2001 officials such as DCOs, EDOs, and other officers
at the sub-district level170
. In order to avoid unnecessary duplication of service delivery mechanisms,
provincial governments have to ensure that there is no overlap or confusion in the roles and responsibilities
of both cadres of officials working at the local level.
Without a clear reference to service delivery mechanisms in place, or to the local government system in
general, political parties and their election manifestos did not elucidate any plans for strengthening social
capital between local area governance structures and the community171
. The PML-N manifesto makes
reference to developing the “social capital of the poor through formal and informal institutions and political
capital of the poor through inclusion in decision making at different levels” as a means of reducing
poverty172
. Nevertheless, without referring to public service delivery, the manifestos of political parties
could not produce coherent accountability and transparency mechanisms at the local level, thereby ignoring
citizen voice and reducing the effectiveness of existing service delivery mechanisms. Since political parties
developed their election manifestos for a national audience, references to health and education in terms of
manifesto promises are made at a national level – these promises become particularly redundant after the
18th
amendment and pursuant empowerment of the provinces173
. It must also be noted that references to
health do not mention improvements in water and sanitation: the PML-N manifesto includes only one line
on water and sanitation, and that too with reference to the rural population.
In sum, political parties and their election manifestos of 2007 do not directly refer to district level
operations or to service delivery.174
Manifestos refer to the enhancement and upgrade of service delivery
mechanisms at a national level; they talk about schools and hospitals nation-wide, rather than in terms of
170 Observation by participants of the 1st Focus Group Discussion. 171 In-depth Interview with Mr. Haris Gazdar. 172 Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) International. (2008). “Pakistan Muslim League (N) Manifesto December 2007”. 173 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion. 174 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema.
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provinces, districts, or even urban-rural dwellings. Moreover, water and sanitation is not considered a
subset of health.
Developing Political Parties to Ensure Efficient Service Delivery
Political parties are the most important institution in a democratic political setup, and are the main platform
for the electorate to assume governance roles and to improve the administrative system. As such, election
manifestos are essential documents that reveal the plans and policies of each political party so that the
electorate may make an informed choice about who governs them for the post-election parliamentary
tenure. Political parties in Pakistan have not played a major role in improving service delivery at the
district-level, especially in the health, water and sanitation sectors. While democratic governments tried to
introduce improvements in education service delivery at the provincial, district and sub-district levels, these
have not matched the manifesto pledges that were made in 2007. Moreover, as political parties listed out
targets for education and health services in their manifestos, there was little attention towards service
delivery mechanisms, or plans for service delivery improvements in these public service sectors.
In essence, the 2007 election manifestos of Pakistani political parties outlined the ends that they intended to
achieve, without specifying the means through which they would achieve those ends. The objectives of
political parties – as contained in their manifestos – appealed to a national level audience and contained
implementation plans at the nation-wide level. This implies that political parties did not accurately consider
the multidimensional impacts of devolution reforms from 2001 onwards, and how service delivery of
education, health, water and sanitation had been (and continues to be) localised to the district and sub-
district level. Nor did major political parties envisage the Constitutional changes in place since the 18th
amendment was promulgated in 2010; the election manifestos for 2007 did not directly address issues
related to service delivery mechanisms in a national or a provincial framework – even though the ANP
manifesto for 2007 pledged to work for enhancing provincial autonomy. Pursuant to the empowerment of
provinces after the 18th
amendment to the Constitution, a basic requirement in Pakistan’s context is to
formulate approaches to service delivery within a framework of greater provincial autonomy, so as to
generate appropriate and implementable solutions to the challenges faced by existing service delivery
mechanism(s).
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It is therefore expected of political parties to visualise and account for the localisation of service delivery, as
well as of the empowerment of provinces, in their upcoming manifestos175
. While election manifestos
contain sector-wise objectives and targets for service delivery, it is also urged that political parties develop
implementable service delivery plans for presentation to the electorate – this would provide the electorate
with the ‘means’ through which a political party intends to achieve its goals and objectives if it is elected.
Political parties’ election manifestos can play an important role in improving the existing service delivery
apparatus if the party leadership is successful in developing mechanisms to overcome this incommunicative
behaviour between the provincial-level and district-level governance structures. This would require
ascertainment of the party’s stance on local government systems, and how the governance and
administration of district-level and sub-district-level units should be carried out. In addition to outlining
plans for expanding delivery and access to essential public services, political parties can also develop
mechanisms to increase accountability in the service delivery apparatus, and enhance civic engagement for
targeted service delivery improvements. Citizen feedback on service delivery is as important as public
oversight and civic ownership of service delivery mechanisms176
at least at the district level – this is why
political parties need to pledge for the development of a local government system at the provincial level.
Political parties can also make local governments more representative by creating plans for elections to the
chief executive positions of the district-level, tehsil-level and union council-level governments, whether on
party basis or on non-party basis. While the PML-N 2007 manifesto made references to improving the local
government system, the ANP manifesto for 2007 did not refer to the local government system at all, except
for developing local bodies for the tribal areas with modifications that are acceptable to the tribal
population.
The governance framework of Pakistan’s service delivery institutions requires political parties to adopt a
‘local area’ approach in their manifestos as well as in their manner of administration and legislation at the
national and/or provincial level177
. Manifesto documents themselves exhibit the national/local clash
between the perception of political parties regarding service delivery, and the institutional framework in
place to deliver these services to the electorate. Hence, the adoption of a ‘local area’ approach would
overcome the disconnect between national, provincial, district and sub-district governments, if it correctly
accounts for the service delivery requirements of each province, and identifies districts where service
delivery improvements are required on an urgent basis. The ‘local area’ approach would be ineffective and
175 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion. 176 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema and Ms. Safiya Aftab. 177 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion.
59 | P a g e
difficult to implement without a consultative approach, which requires political parties to engage with the
electorate at the district and sub-district level in addition to the constituency level. Political parties must also
create specialised policy wings and local committees that provide inputs into the manifesto formulation
process before the elections, as well as into the administrative governance and legislative processes that the
party is responsible for after the elections178
.
Improvement in education and health sector indicators at the national as well as provincial level can be
witnessed if political parties elaborate on service delivery plans and implementation processes in their
manifestos179
. Given that election manifestos are developed on a national basis and not on a sub-national
(province-wise or district-wise) basis, political parties must account for existing service delivery
mechanisms in each province, and either suggest targets for the existing system, or
modifications/improvements in the same. As mentioned earlier, overcoming the national/local divide
between political parties’ manifesto targets and service delivery implementation would show depth in the
given political party’s understanding of the situation faced by the country. Developing cogent policy
frameworks, including policy goals and targets for the provincial and sub-provincial level, would overcome
the abovementioned national/local divide and transform the manifesto document into a policy program that
can be corroborated to the party’s performance at the national and sub-national levels of governance180
.
Outlining policy objectives and linking them to party vision/ideology/stance, which is the usual election
manifesto formulation process, should be accompanied with involving stakeholders within the party and
experts both from within the party and objective, neutral experts, such as academics, for the development of
implementable service delivery plans at the national, provincial and local level. Such a manifesto document
may also contain policy measures for strengthening the local institutional apparatus in each province so that
the efficiency of public service delivery – especially of education, health, water and sanitation services –
can be improved.
178 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion. 179 In-depth Interview with Mr. Syed Ayub Qutub 180 In-depth Interview with Mr. Malik Shuja.
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Conclusion
Service delivery in Pakistan has undergone massive transitions since 2001, when a uniform local
government system was introduced in all provinces. After general elections to the national and provincial
assemblies in 2008, existing service delivery mechanisms went through more changes, which were
formalised after the 18th
amendment was promulgated. As provinces are fully empowered to devise their
own local government systems, the manner in which each provincial government exercises control over the
District Coordination Officer (DCO) – who performs the functions of the district mayor – varies across
province, and reflects the priorities of the provincial government in each district. Between 2001 and 2008,
elected district government officials were responsible for effective service delivery in the districts, and three
tiers of local government had chief executives and councils both of whom were elected on non-party basis.
Now, provincial governments appoint commissioners, DCs, DCOs, and all district government officers
above BS grade 17 – through these bureaucratic officers, provincial governments administer various
divisional, district-level, and sub-district-level governance units. Public service delivery is thus carried out
by the provincial government at the district and lower levels – however, there is a glaring disconnect
between the vision of political parties (as enunciated in their election manifestos) and the status of public
service delivery, especially in the education, health, water and sanitation sectors.
Election manifestos of political parties, as published in 2007, did not account for the new (i.e. post-2001)
service delivery mechanisms in a holistic manner, nor did they call for improvements or modifications in
the same. In their election manifestos, political parties set goals for the education and health sectors at a
national level – as such, they did not identify provincial variations, or districts which were lagging behind in
terms of public service provision and quality. Targets and goals set by political parties in their election
manifestos outline the sector-wise ‘ends’ that were to be achieved, without specifying or delineating the
‘means’ through which these ‘ends’ would be realised181
. This implies that political parties did not account
for the public service delivery mechanisms in place when formulating their 2007 manifestos, even though
some political parties promised to hold local government elections (most notably the Pakistan People’s
Party – the PPP – which pledged to hold elections to district and sub-district governments on party basis). It
has been noted that political parties were predisposed to view local governments in an adversarial manner,
particularly because elections to these institutions were held on non-party basis, and because these local
governance institutions were established under the Musharraf regime (i.e. a dictatorial era).
181 In-depth Interview with Dr. Ali Cheema
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Moreover, the 2007/08 election manifestos were written in a different political and administrative
environment, which changed after the 2008 general elections182
. The 18th
amendment enhanced provincial
autonomy to a significant extent, allowing these sub-national units to develop their own education, health,
and local government policies. The 7th
National Finance Commission (NFC) award also empowered
provinces by making them fiscally autonomous. Therefore, while administrative devolution (as envisioned
by the LGO 2001) remained incomplete in Pakistan, legal and financial decentralisation from the federation
to the provinces was achieved to a greater extent183
. For political parties to overcome the disconnect
between provincial governments and local governments, the role and authority of the latter in each province
must be legislated – the promulgation of the Sindh Peoples Local Government Ordinance (SPLGO 2012) is
the first instance where a local government system has been established by a province after 2008.
Reinstituting the office of the divisional commissioner and colonial-era officers – while the post-LGO 2001
officials are still in place – creates more confusion regarding the role of each public official, and reduces the
opportunities for public accountability of service providers and policymakers.
Political parties must outline their vision for a local government system in their upcoming election
manifestos, and determine the type and scope of modifications they desire in these systems184
. As provincial
assemblies legislate on the powers and responsibilities of local government institutions in districts under
their jurisdiction, political parties – through their election manifestos, and through their administrative and
legislative involvement in the governance of a province – will be able to set achievable service delivery
targets, as well as improve the existing quality of public service delivery. It is of utmost importance that
political parties overcome the national/local ‘clash’ or dichotomy wherein manifestos are developed for a
national audience, but public service delivery (for education, health, water and sanitation, law and order,
and other social and economic sectors) is undertaken by devolved institutions at the district and sub-district
level. Election manifestos can set targets for the existing service delivery apparatus functioning at the local
levels in each province, or suggest improvements in the apparatus, so that the service delivery mechanism
can be attuned to efficiently performing its basic role(s) in addition to achieving the goals set in the party’s
election manifesto185
. If effective mechanisms for local government bodies can be developed, there is an
urgent need to expand such systems to rural and backward areas of the country186
.
182 Ibid. 183 Observation by participants of the 1st Focus Group Discussion. 184 In-depth Interview with Mr. Shafqat Mahmood. 185 Observation by participants of the 2nd Focus Group Discussion. 186 In-depth Interview with Mr. Shafqat Mahmood.
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When studying province-wise service delivery performance, it is observed that manifestos contain few
cogent targets that can be mapped onto sector-wise statistics187
. For the purposes of this report, manifesto
pledges made for relevant sectors at a national level have been studied according to the performance of
political parties at the provincial level. The PML-N manifesto pledges for education, health, water and
sanitation have corroborated with the party’s administrative performance in the Punjab province, while a
similar assessment has been carried out to corroborate the ANP manifesto with the performance of the
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. Data on service delivery statistics, as well as evidence regarding the
performance and efficiency of service delivery mechanisms, is not promising. While provincial
governments have worked hard in terms of improving public service delivery, increasing access to services,
and enhancing quality of public goods, the abovementioned national/local disconnect and the absence of a
politically acceptable local governance mechanism are the main reasons for these efforts not leading to
improved living standards for the general public. More importantly, many service delivery statistics could
not be mapped onto pledges made in party manifestos, since the latter made scarce reference to service
delivery (in terms of targets or mechanisms). While many manifesto promises were neither initiated nor
fulfilled, political parties developed different programmes for the education, health, and other social sectors
upon assuming the role of the majority in the federal or provincial legislatures (and forming governments
thereafter). This goes to show that election manifestos are seldom considered after the elections have taken
place188
, and that political parties pursue policies and programmes that are either different from the ones
outlined in their manifestos, or are not contained in their manifestos (but are in line with the party’s
ideology, stance and vision). It is imperative that political parties, civil society, academics, objective
observers and the general public use election manifestos as an important benchmark to evaluate the
performance of a political party during a parliamentary tenure after a given election has taken place189
. In
today’s era of mass communication and information technology, manifesto formulation processes cannot
discount the importance of improving service delivery when developing pledges and promises to the
electorate. In addition to rhetoric and ostentatious promises, manifestos also provide an insight into how
party leaderships and manifesto committees envisage service delivery improvements. For the undecided
voter, implementable policy strategies and mechanisms enunciated in the manifestos are more likely to
attract the voter into the party’s fold.
In addition to developing local government systems that have clear roles and specified jurisdictions
appropriately authorised by provincial legislation, political parties must also outline mechanisms to improve
187 In-depth Inteview with Dr. Asad Sayeed. 188 In-depth Interview with Ms. Safiya Aftab 189 Observation by participants of the 1st Focus Group Discussion.
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public service delivery at the provincial if not district-wise level190
. Such mechanisms include, but are not
limited to, establishing representative local governments, creating forums that enhance civic engagement in
the policymaking process, developing robust instruments which make policymakers and service providers
directly accountable to the citizen/client, and facilitating citizen feedback for improved quality of public
services. Political parties need to conduct an impartial assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the
local government system currently in place, and develop ways and means to strengthen local bodies which
continue to provide essential public services to the citizenry. Since political parties are representatives of the
electorate, and thus sensitive to public demands, adequate attention must be given to women, minorities,
and other marginalised groups when policies are being made and when service delivery targets are being
developed.
To conclude the salient observations of this report, and summarize the analysis and evidence contained
herein, the following recommendations have been developed to allow political parties to pay special
attention to the status of public service delivery as well as on improvements in the existing mechanism. It is
hoped that these findings and proposals will benefit all political parties in Pakistan, in order to strengthen
the democratic process and to enhance citizens’ trust in the democratic system by making it more outcome-
oriented.
Recommendations
Political parties should include references to local government, or the party’s stance on devolution
and decentralisation, if their manifestos suggest a framework for effective service delivery.
Developing such a framework is extremely important for informing the electorate ahead of the 2013
general elections. Parties can elaborate on whether they promised to conduct local government
elections in their manifestos for 2007 or not, on party and non-party basis. This would offer a
preliminary insight into how political parties view local governance systems, and the due discharge
of service delivery responsibilities as vested in localised institutions.
Political parties should incorporate service delivery and improvement plans in manifestos, with clear
depiction of state of affairs, cogent policy frameworks and solutions, and achievable targets that are
in line with the party’s objectives for the relevant issue, and with the party’s ideology.
190 In-depth Interview with Mr. Shafqat Mahmood.
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Promises and plans for service delivery in election manifestos should include robust monitoring and
evaluation mechanisms to ensure transparency in public service delivery and accountability of
public service providers.
Political parties should conduct a self-assessment or evaluation of past achievements not only in
terms of government tenures, but also in terms of fulfilling manifesto promises: The PML-N
manifesto for 2007 states that the party “was able to implement its Manifestos [sic] to a substantial
degree during its two terms from November 1990 to July 1993 and from February 1997 to
September 1999”191
.
Academics, civil society and the electorate should also use the election manifesto as a baseline for
analysing a political party’s administrative and legislative performance.
Political parties and election manifestos must make vulnerable groups the primary targets of
effective service delivery – in order to develop such manifesto goals and policies, parties must adopt
a consultative approach for manifesto formulation and include a broad variety of stakeholders,
including specialists and policy experts.
In addition to targeting service delivery improvements for vulnerable groups, such as women and
minorities, these groups must also be included in the manifesto formulation & implementation
processes, governance processes, service delivery processes, and monitoring & evaluation of service
delivery mechanisms – political parties must compare and contrast their local government plans with
council system of LGO 2001, where women and minorities had a potent role due to quotas and
reserved seats in the elected councils at the local level.
Political parties must adopt a provincial approach and a focus on localised administrative units
within an overarching national framework when making manifesto promises as well as policies for
effective governance, given that 18th
amendment has greatly increased provincial autonomy, and
empowered the provincial government with regards to legislative authority. Provincial governments
are indirectly responsible for service delivery as well, since local governments are now under the
formal jurisdiction of the provinces.
191 Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) International. (2008). “Pakistan Muslim League (N) Manifesto December 2007”.
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