One may repudiate with the politics of Chairman PTI Imran Khan, but cannot traverse with his approach to sustainable development discourse to a nation building, that is well construed by Eade and Williams (1995) as
“Strengthening people’s capacity to determine their own values and priorities, and toorganize themselves to act on these, is the basis of development. Development is aboutwomen and men becoming empowered to bring about positive changes in their lives; about personal growth together with public action; and both the process and the outcomeof challenging poverty, oppression, and discrimination; and about the realization of human potential through social and economic justice. Above all, it is about the process of transforming lives, and transforming societies.”
Moreover, the development philosophy of Imran Khan more appropinquate to a philosopher as well as economist Amartya Sen (1999) who is credulous believer that
“Counties and individuals are poor not because capital is scarce, but because citizens lack access to productive resources including education, and, health as well as justice and credit.”
Irony is that the Constitution of Pakistan stipulates the above mentioned fundamentals of nation building and successive governments in Pakistan have been promising to serve the masses as guided by the Constitution 1973 but no real efforts ever been made. Therefore, by giving a “Hope” to disenchanted people, Imran Khan begun his election campaign 2013 with promise of making “Naya Pakistan” on basis of his development philosophy provision of basic fundamental rights, social justice, economic justice, accountability and devolution of power to the people at the grassroot level.
Journey towards “Naya Pakistan” begun from the election campaign 2013, when Imran Khan auspiciously managed to animate its countrymen especially youth and women by giving them a voice, ownership and encouraging them to be part of political system so that they could decide the faith of their lives and could hold the rulers accountable. In May 2013 elections, people of Pakistan gave mandate to Pakistan TehreekeInsaf to govern the Northwest province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).
Henceforth, the real test of Imran Khan started from May 2013, when his party (PTI) managed to form Government in KPK with support of coalition partners. It is worth mentioning here that KPK is the most afflicted and overwhelmed province by the terrorism and PTI has never been in governance in past and most of PTI elected ministers are first time members of parliament, making it extremely challenging for Imran Khan to deliver what his party pledged in election campaign 2013. In pursuit, some real steps towards the sustainable development have been taken by the PTI led KPK government in first 10 months of its governance. For instance, in its first financial budget 20142015, KPK government made highest budget allocation (in percentage) for education as compare to Federal budget and rest of three provincial budgets in Pakistan. According to Deborah Eade (1997), basic education is an fundamental human right. The inadequate of access to educational opportunities places a major constraint on people’s life chances, as well as on their capacity to participate in the social, economic, and political processes affecting them.
Similarly, provision of health services is the fundamental right of any citizen, is another top priority of PTI led KPK Government. According to WHO (2014), health rights of citizens include human dignity, attention to the needs and rights of vulnerable groups, and an emphasis on ensuring that health systems are made accessible to all. Therefore, PTI led KPK Government has made several improvements in current health system as well as no. of campaigns are launched for public health awareness. One such campaign which has now been recognized by the WHO, is ‘Sehat ka Insaaf’ which according to reporter of the Dawn News Ashfaq Yusufzai (2014), is a complete health package for KP children.
He further notes that in ‘Sehat ka Insaaf’ programme, the health workers and Insaaf Razakars (PTI volunteers) will target nine vaccinepreventable diseases including polio.
Apart from health, other alluring aspect of ‘Sehat ka Insaaf’ campaign is the ‘Insaaf Razakars’ volunteers.
This is an exhilarating use of Participatory Development Model in which citizens are encouraged to own the programme and that is what made ‘Sehat ka Insaaf’ the most successful health campaign in Pakistan and is endorsed by the World Health Organization as well as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
To provide social and economic justice is only probable when citizens are part of decision making process and that is only doable by devolving power of governance to the village level (smallest units).
Thus, the local government election (LGE) is one of the election pledges that KPK government is halfway done by passing the KPK local government law. However, some more trembling blocks that have to be pass over before LEG can be conducted.
Above discussed are the top three fundamental rights of every citizen towards which some real progress is made. Having said that, lot more needs to be done for the provision of fundamental rights as well as to eliminate the gender based inequality by bringing onboard the women and other minority groups for the sustainable development of society.
