Uzair Bin Farid

Pakistan will have to pursue a decentralised governance and development model so that fruits of development are evenly distributed to all.

Development is not a complete process unless there is a visible change seen in the lives of people at the grassroots level. Development is a process that can be expanded to include many facets of its multi-dimensional nature.

Initiating and sustaining development is a long-term process. Investments in infrastructure, health, scientific and technological pursuits, human capital, and political inclusion are all the aspects of development.

If development is to be a successful process, it must ensure people’s access to clean water, sanitation, education, effective local transport, greenbelts, security and employment. These issues cannot be addressed without a decentralised governance and development model.

This is where fiscal federalism comes in to guide and help the process of development. It is a process of delegating monetary resources to the lower rungs of government, whether provincial or local, for their better allocation to priority areas.

If all the authority to spend money is centralised with the federal government, it becomes very difficult to solve the problems at local level. In order to do that, it becomes necessary to transfer funds to the lower forms of government.

Local governments are made up of people, who have local affiliations and interests. They understand the nature of their particular social settings and what areas need to be spent money on for long-term sustainable development.

This identification of priority areas becomes a virtually impossible task in a centralised setting. Also, there is no guarantee that equitable redistributive policies will be undertaken in a centralised setting.

In the fiscal federalism process of development, it becomes easy to outline areas of priority. Spending money on these priority areas will solve problems of local developments.

When local development as a process gets underway, it eradicates visible inequalities.

Modern models of growth and development put a lot of emphasis on sustainability, since without a sustainable development model, the existence of human beings is threatened.

Growth, if evenly shared, holds the promise of long-term sustainable development, since accumulation of all the economic resources and activities in a few big metropolises creates structural inequalities, which further erode the chances of an even spatial growth process.

Through local techniques and spending, employment generation can be made possible with more responsibility towards conservation of the limited resources and preservation of the cultural heritage.

Involving local actors through participation and fiscal federalism will empower them to make decisions for the benefit of community.

Application of this development model will lift more and more people out of poverty, enabling their access to basic services.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk