Category: Opinion

(NUT DESK) A volcano in southwestern Iceland exploded with radiating waves of molten lava last Friday, media reports.
The sight was met with much anticipation and excitement after seismic activity in the area increased within the past few weeks. The Reykjanes peninsula, not far from the country’s capital Reykjavik, hasn’t witnessed a volcanic eruption in 800 years, reports Alyse Stanley for Gizmodo. The volcano Mount Fagradalsfjall has been dormant for 6,000 years.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) first spotted the eruption through a webcam and later confirmed the eruption using thermal satellite imaging, Gizmodo reports. After the initial eruption spewed a fountain of lava nearly 100 yards into the air, the flow slowed, heading southwest and west. The explosion is considered small, with lava leeching from a 546-yard-long fissure vent. Below the surface, its magma area covered about 0.4 square miles, reports Gizmodo. Since its eruption on Friday, the volcanic activity has decreased and poses no threat to humans because the flare-up was minor and did not spew out much ash, the BBC reports.

The good, the bad and ugly of the Panama Leak soap has been consuming the nation for the last several months.

Every evening tele-pundits hold heated debates on this subject telling us that democracy is in danger. Rarely do we see good things happening in this country and the masses are mostly missed by those who have no interest in following the evolution of the process of democratic dispensation. They thrive on the television ratings. There is little appreciation of the fact that Pakistan is a developing economy and a developing democracy.

The country’s political system has suffered 33 years of military intervention, which has retarded the growth of a democratic culture that includes political party also. Though for the last nine years the establishment has not made a coup directly, they have kept the political government shaky by using covert tactics.

The first good thing about this whole exercise is that the rulers are in the accountability dock for their financial omissions and commissions. The second good thing about it is that there is a struggle between the democratic institutions for more space, which is normal in all the democratic societies. The judiciary is trying to establish that it is more than independent. How I wish they would have exercised independence when the establishment took over the power unconstitutionally — not once but thrice.

The civil and military bureaucracy and the judiciary are developed institutions of the capitalist society. On the other hand, the political parties are still quasi-feudal in character.  As far as the issue of politician’s corruption is concerned, all these institutions are equally corrupt.

Similarly it is also true that we are equally corrupt when compared to the level of corruption in other countries which are at the same stage of economic and political development. So the good thing is that for the first time a sitting prime minister has been indicted by the judiciary.

The ruling party’s aggressive approach is the ugly aspect of the ongoing judicial process

There was an attempt by the former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry to nab the then sitting President Asif Zardari. But Yousaf Raza Gillani stood in his way and sacrificed his position. All these things look very messy but the good development is that the accountability system is moving ahead though it is only against the political class.

What I consider the bad of the process is that the judges sometimes make sensational remarks in writing and in passing during the trial. It would be more appropriate if judges would speak through their judgment and refrain from giving sensational remarks. It is becoming ugly as the ruling party is getting aggressive about the judicial process. They have a right to register their reservation regarding the composition of JIT but have no right to threaten its members as was done by PML-N leader Nehal Hashmi implicitly.

At the same time in any civilised society, the accused is dealt with respect by the investigation officer and not put under psychological pressure as it was evident from the leaked photograph of Mr. Hussain Nawaz. But instead of leaving it to the people’s perception which could have got him some sympathy, he has arrogantly said that by making him sit like that in an empty room he was insulted.

The ruling party is so baffled by this case that they have blurred the line between the fact that the Panama case is against the PM’s family and not the government. It should be defended by the Sharifs or by their spokesperson. Instead all government resources are being used to defend the accused. This also shows lack of maturity of the ruling party, they could have managed it by keeping a respectable distance between the Sharif family case and the government institution.

The Sharif family has also failed to handle the crisis communication professionally. The basic rules of crisis communication were not kept in mind as a result they have suffered in creating the right perception and defending their case. This case could be taught as the worst example of crisis communication management.

People are not clear whether the case will be finally decided before the next election. Para 91 of the judgment says that the special bench on receiving the report from the JIT could refer it to the accountability court which sounds logical. That may be the right route of any corruption case. The Supreme Court is the final court of appeal hence the Sharifs should not be denied their right to exhaust the trial at the lower court. But there is confusion that in a Para 5 final judgment it has been said that on receiving the JIT report the case could be referred to the chief justice of Pakistan for trial by the special bench of Supreme Court. My lawyer friends believed it would be the special bench of the Supreme Court and not the accountability court which would decide the fate of the prime minister’s family.

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com

Courtesy By (DAILY TIMES)

A SERIES of cases in which the Supreme Court has acquitted the accused whose death sentence had been upheld by the high courts have thrown up questions that need to be answered if innocent persons are to be saved from falling victim to the misplaced zeal for hanging people.

In nearly a dozen cases decided during the first three months of the current year, the apex court acquitted the accused, who had appealed against the high courts’ confirmation of their death sentence. The accused had spent eight to 20 years in prison. They were acquitted because their conviction was a result of inadequate evidence or collusion between the complainant and the police. In one case, the convict was found to have been a minor at the time of occurrence.

It is not necessary to ask why the high courts did not notice the flaws the SC relied upon to overrule their findings. At the moment, we are concerned with the possibilities of miscarriage of justice in matters of life and death.

The cases reported during January-March 2017 did not cause as much sensation as the earlier ones, in which two persons were acquitted after they had been executed or a person was found innocent after he had died, but they cause identical concerns. A critical issue is: what can be said about the death penalty verdicts that do not come before the SC? Can it be claimed that decisions in all such cases do not suffer from the flaws noticed in the cases that did reach the SC?

Quite clearly, it is possible for an accused to be deprived of his right to life on the basis of insufficient evidence and intrigue by the complainant and the prosecutors, the two major challenges in the criminal justice system repeatedly highlighted by the SC. The danger of miscarriage of justice brought into focus by these cases is one of the strongest arguments for abolition of the death penalty in Pakistan.

The danger of miscarriage of justice is one of the strongest arguments for abolition of the death penalty.

Unfortunately, this aspect of the matter does not seem to have received due attention while the military courts were being resurrected. Apart from the strains on the justice system caused by curtailment of due process in trials by the military courts, anyone accused of terrorism or acting against national security usually loses the right to an unbiased adjudication. The danger of miscarriage of justice in terrorism-related cases becomes doubly strong if the tribunal is in conflict with the universally accepted principles applicable to the courts.

The cases under reference again highlight the fact that a sound criminal justice system depends critically on an efficient prosecution agency.

The need to separate the prosecution service from the investigation branch of the police has been the subject of an intense debate for decades. Some steps in this direction have surely been taken over the years but whether the system now in force adequately answers the call for a prosecution branch duly qualified and independent enough to meet the requirements of a fair dispensation of justice is a question that should be answered only after a proper scrutiny of the current practice has taken place.

The urgency of a reappraisal of the working of the provincial prosecution agencies has recently been underscored by the incredibly horrible incident in Lahore in which a public prosecutor was accused of advising some non-Muslims facing trial on serious criminal charges to convert to Islam if they wanted to escape punishment.

Such blatant abuse of the law has never been reported in Pakistan’s history. The incident not only revealed an unforgivable betrayal of the trust reposed in law officers, it also constituted an unpardonable disservice to Islam. There is good reason to hold Punjab ’s law department, including the law minister, accountable for this sordid affair. The suggestion that anybody’s right to justice depends on the colour of his skin or the nature of his faith is utterly unacceptable and must be repelled with as much force as possible.

While discussing the factors that affect the criminal justice system it is impossible to ignore the mess that the police network has been turned into. Pakistan can hardly be proud of persisting with different police laws in the different provincial territories. The main point of variation is that in some areas the authorities cannot abandon their love for the colonial period Police Act of 1861 while in some other parts the Police Order of 2002 is worshipped minus its most significant provision — public accountability of the police force.

The clauses of the Police Order, adopted by Punjab, for instance, that envisaged the creation of public liaison and complaints mechanisms at all levels, federal to district, have never been sincerely implemented. Further, had the security of tenure guaranteed to the provincial police chiefs been respected, the kind of farce being staged in Sindh could have been avoided.

Unfortunately, the country’s political parties have stoutly resisted all initiatives aimed at depoliticisation of the police force. The reason is obvious. Many political leaders depend upon pliant police officers more than on the support of the citizenry. Thus it was left to some public-spirited, retired police officers to start a drive for proper implementation of the public oversight provisions of the Police Order 2002.

The nexus between a police force that can be politically manipulated and unfair practices in criminal trial cases should be evident to law experts and laymen alike. The collusion between litigants and the police investigators, against which the SC has spoken so often, might not be possible if the police officers have no political patronage.

It is time the need for uniformly efficient and service-oriented police laws for all parts of the country was dealt with by the Council of Common Interests and the task of ridding the subordinate judiciary of the infirmities pointed out by the SC was taken up by the Law and Justice Commission took up.

(Courtesy- DAWN)

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto lives on in history, 38 years after his hanging at the hands of a most ruthless military dictator in what is now universally considered a ‘judicial murder’.

History has absolved Bhutto. But it is yet to erase the blot of an immense moral burden on the conscience of the judiciary. Times have changed and the undying Bhutto’s legacy gradually fades without being rejuvenated by a dynastic third-generation Bhutto Bilawal Zardari.

You can revisit Bhutto’s memory by commemorating his martyrdom and ritually visiting his mausoleum, but you can’t meet the challenges of your times by just parroting praises for the great man. It is no longer a Bhutto and anti-Bhutto divide, even though social stratification widens between the deprived and the privileged. But the PPP under a mimicking Bilawal or Machiavellian patriarch, Asif Zardari, is just struggling to keep its head above the political waters. No doubt, Zardari played a crucial role in the transition-to-democracy period and helped transfer power from the presidency to parliament by showing the door to Gen Musharraf, and with the passage of 18th Amendment. Zardari succeeded in surviving in power, but at the cost of the PPP’s popular image; this brought a once most popular party to its knees in the last general elections.

It was the dynamic and heroic Benazir Bhutto who held high the social-democratic flag in post-cold war times, somewhat in the footsteps of the New Labour of Great Britain. She bravely picked up the fight against the reactionary dictatorship of Gen Ziaul Haq. Where Bhutto gave us the 1973 constitution, Benazir Bhutto (BB) wrote yet another glorious chapter in the long struggle for democracy and constitutional rule against successive military dictatorships. Unlike Asif Zardari and her son, BB earned the mantle of leadership in her own right while standing up to unimaginable hardships. Whatever you say about her political manoeuvres or the NRO, she again paved the way for democracy and gave the PPP a new ideological cause by firmly standing up to the threat of violent religious extremism.

On his 38th death anniversary, Z A Bhutto was less enthusiastically remembered by his depleting worshipers as they now have less hope in the current leadership, which is struggling with its bad image over almost nine years of bad governance in Sindh. The PPP was once famous for its critical popular political culture. That, it seems, has now been buried under the arrogant denial of malpractices of some of its leaders. Rather, the party shows no sign of repentance over the alleged corruption of some of its blatantly corrupt leaders.

Instead of sidelining those who brought a bad name to the unblemished record of the founders, the party firmly stands behind them. It looks ridiculous when Bilawal – a decent and thoughtful young man – attacks the Sharifs on corruption charges while standing with his party’s former prime ministers known for their poor record and some kleptomaniacs.

Bhutto – himself a clean, distinguished intellectual, visionary and strong administrator – gave us the most talented and clean cabinet in Pakistan’s history. He was a populist and a patriotic and strong leader who, in fact put together a broken and dismembered Pakistan and gave the downtrodden of this land the consciousness and strength to stand up to tyranny and exploitation. He believed in the people and undertook reforms to alleviate the plight of the poor and also made Pakistan’s defence impregnable. Ironically, his national security paradigm holds the ground till today, even though it helped build a national security state that flourishes on the marginalisation of civil society.

Though Bhutto’s land reforms failed to make the peasantry owners of the piece of land they cultivate, he did raise consciousness among the rural poor on their rights. He built a huge public sector under his state-socialist model, but at the cost of not only big business but also small businesses. Bhutto’s greatest mistake was the compromise that he expeditiously made with the religious right. That, however, could not save him from the wrath of what is known as the mullah-military-bazaar alliance. Bhutto’s achievements and endeavours far outweigh his weaknesses and mistakes – of which there were many.

Bhutto’s popular politics and struggle were too short and less troubling compared to that of his worthy successor. BB had to fight against two dictatorships and the strong political and ideological legacies of Gen Ziaul Haq. She learned from the authoritarian mistakes of her father and reinvented the PPP in her own humanist image to suit her own times, without forgetting to address the PPP’s strong constituency among the poor and the social-liberal intelligentsia.

Like her brave father, BB took on the forces of religious extremism and terrorism and provided an alternative narrative to make Pakistan a truly democratic and enlightened country which is at peace with its neighbours. It was too tragic to see her die at the hands of forces of extremism and authoritarianism. BB was far more democratic, humanistic and visionary than any other politician in Pakistan. She was the last leader of a generation that remained committed to social idealism and liberal-democratic values in a country where violent extremist and conservative paradigms prevail.

Though the PPP remains committed to human, civil and political rights, it has lost touch with its pro-people ethos and popular aspirations of the masses. Under Zardari, the PPP is now a party of the feudal elite – entirely dedicated to power politics, regardless of peoples’ expectations. The emergence of young Bilawal on the political scene is clouded by the over-arching shadows of his father. Bilawal doesn’t know how to chart his own path different from that of his father’s. No doubt, he needs his father as much as BB needed her mother to make her way forward. And Bilawal’s on-and-off ‘launches’ have damaged his prospects to rebuild the PPP from the ashes of past glory.

As a student of politics, Bilawal should be able to discern the difference between the times and pursuits of his grandfather and mother and find his own grounds. BB gave the PPP a lot that was different from her father. That is what Bilawal needs to do as well if he is really serious about his political career and the future of a PPP that is receding from the national scene. You can’t be a vanguard of a popular social-liberal party on the ‘strength’ of feudal landlords in the backyard of Sindh.

In its special supplement on Bhutto, the PPP did not bother to say a word about what it intends to do. The party’s intellectual bankruptcy is quite obvious as is the alarming loss of touch with the masses and their needs. There is a large space for a popular social-democratic centre-left party in the present circumstances. And Bilawal, despite his progressive inclination, is not finding enough room in his party to come forward and fill the void that the PPP has itself created.

Under the burden of bad governance, the young PPP chairperson cannot move forward with his muddle-headedness. The PPP has to decide which side of the social and ideological divide it stands on if it has to survive as a party of the people.

The writer is a senior journalist. Email: imtiaz.safma@gmail.com

Twitter: @ImtiazAlamSAFMA

(Courtesy- THE NEWS)

Why is it difficult for the Islamic countries to post a barrage of positive messages of love and tolerance to drown the blasphemous and militant propaganda?

The issue of providing protection to the judges hearing the terrorist cases can be dealt with by keeping the judge anonymous and providing them with the same level of protection which is provided to the judges of the military courts.

President Donald J Trump is on a rampage – creating chaos at home and uncertainty abroad. From a no-holds-barred presidential campaign, he is now disrupting what was known as the American dream. He is doing this without any regard for the serious consequences it has for the whole world order the Americans had built in the post-World War II and post-cold war times.

The safeguards that the founders of the United States of America had built into the American constitution to contain a would-be grave-digger of the democratic order are being put to a test at the hands of a bull in the China shop of the White House. His numerous executive orders are a practical example of what were being ridiculed as wild gimmicks during his presidential election campaign.

Just two weeks into power, Trump has issued executive orders that have created a storm both at home and abroad – the last being a ban on seven Muslim countries’ citizens travelling to the US. This order violates not just the First Amendment but also international covenants. The order led to stark scenes at American airports and stay orders were issued by federal judges, facilitating the stranded passengers’ entry from the seven ostracised countries. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is being seen as the most unprecedented first 100 days of any incumbent of the White House; they will, however, set both the scope and the limits of his presidency.

Trump is being seen as a “malignant narcissist”, according to John D Garner. And according to other psychologists: “narcissism impairs his ability to see reality, so you can’t use logic to persuade someone like that”. He doesn’t care about the hodgepodge cabinet that he has picked from among the white supremacists, ultra conservatives and billionaires that he has around them. He runs the most powerful executive office the way he ran his casinos or his whimsical election campaign.

The architecture of the sole superpower-led world capitalist and imperial order is now at risk of being shaken by an ‘outsider’. He has turned down the Trans-Pacific Partnership framework that President Obama built and has sent a clear message to Trans-Atlantic allies to mind their own business and has also declared Nato an obsolete military block. Yet he would like to continue with torture centres and military outposts around the world. This may give birth to militarism in Germany, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere, and a multitude of realignment of forces across the globe.

Globalisation on the basis of free trade, the World Trade Organization (WTO), international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, and Nafta and other trade regimes are now under scrutiny. While targeting China and even questioning the One-China policy, Trump is inclined to develop a new equation with an assertive Russia to renegotiate a world order that serves the interests of a protectionist US under his autocratic control, even if the European Union evaporates under the impact of Brexit and rising nationalism among various European nations.

Steve Bannon, Trump’s most influential adviser, is known to support ultra-rightwing nationalist and fascist parties in Europe who have Islamophobia and racism in common with him. The Trump administration’s strategic focus will be against the ‘Islamic terrorism’ that the president wants to eradicate from the face of the earth – even though he may end up fuelling religious extremism, xenophobia and terrorism. He will be tougher with both adversaries and allies.

What is quite discernible is that President Trump, despite constitutional restraints and a radical democratic opposition at home, is going to accentuate multi-polarity and, in some ways, a temporary reversal of globalisation. The greatest damage is going to be inflicted upon a whole range of civil and human rights and liberal-democratic values across the world.

A conservative Congress would be merely interested in the Republicans’ typical issues of lowering taxes, quashing Obamacare and environmental constraints, abortion and anti-LGBTQ rights. Although these issues provide a convenient convergence between a Republican Congress and a populist president, a maverick Trump will face formidable opposition on the streets and some resistance from the Washington establishment. He has not only demolished the old party that he grabbed, but also opened the way for the rejuvenation of a pro-establishment Democratic Party.

It seems that Trump will be instrumental in bringing down the imperial edifice of US power while taking an isolationist course to pursue the US’s exclusive strategic and economic interests. He will, however, find new allies to contain China and expand American militaristic designs at the cost of others. He could, at best, be the author of disorder in the world rather than, at worse, the grave digger of the institutional and pluralist edifice of a rising multi-polar world.

To start with, Trump faces a very powerful radical democratic movement across the US and resistance from traditional Western allies. His greatest resistance is going to come from a well-placed US constitutional order, public opinion and a threatened but vocal media.

What is quite worrisome is that the Trump phenomenon will give an impetus to the rise and strengthening of fascists, jingoists and communalists all around the world. A communalist Modi in India, a fascist in Turkey and an absolutist autocrat in Russia, a fascist in Europe and a fundamentalist in Iran and elsewhere in the Muslim world. To keep US hegemony, Trump will go to any extent to furiously exhibit US military might under generals ‘Mad’ Mattis and Flynn.

Unlike Obama, he will not undertake half-hearted interventionist military adventures that don’t allow room to manoeuvre to certain foot-dragging allies, like Pakistan. Though yet not clear, the Trump administration is likely to change military gear in Afghanistan and elsewhere – with, perhaps, far more devastating consequences.

Being a non-Nato strategic ally, Pakistan should be prepared for both the worst and best choices. The kind of flexibility and accommodation that the Pakistani establishment enjoyed over the decades may not be available anymore. Islamabad must be ready for big decisions, instead of finding solace in Chinese backing and an opening to Russia. We must do what was required of us before push comes to shove.

The recent measures taken against a banned outfit should not remain cosmetic. The time has come for a paradigm shift and we must reach out to our neighbours on mutually beneficial terms, rather than coalesce in on others’ terms later. Isn’t Trump a revolutionary-in-reverse for both the capitalist and neo-liberal order and the Washington consensus? Should we mourn it or rejoice it? I, for one, am not yet clear. However, what I do know is that we should stay in our limits and remove whatever skeletons are left in our cupboards.

The writer is a senior journalist. (Email: imtiaz.safma@gmail.com)

(Courtesy- The News)

Oft have I come across people criticising the cash grants being given to beneficiaries through BISP.
The most common criticism in this regard has almost always been that cash grants do not help ameliorate the conditions of beneficiaries.
It is imperative however to share with my readers the beneficiary profile and how exactly BISP quarterly disbursements are making an impact in the lives of the poorest of the poor.
This will provide the reader with a snapshot of the experiences of the average beneficiary and how BISP helps.

The Government of Pakistan has recently updated the official poverty line (expressed in monthly per adult equivalent consumption expenditure).
Under the previous methodology, Food Energy Intake (FEI), the poverty line indexed to this survey was PKR 2,400.
The updated methodology, Cost of Basic Needs (CBN), has delivered a poverty line that has increased by 33% to PKR 3,244.
For an unconditional cash transfer to have an impact on poverty it must be sufficiently well targeted so that it actually provides for households that are amongst the poorest and most vulnerable.
By either measure of poverty line, the rates of poverty amongst BISP beneficiary households are high.

Focusing on the CBN poverty line we find that 91% of BISP beneficiaries were either ultra-poor, poor or vulnerable to being poor in 2016, with the remainder defined as quasi non-poor as defined by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
The high rates of poverty or vulnerability to poverty exhibited by BISP beneficiary population reflects a programme that is well targeted and well placed to address the needs of the poor by providing households with a minimum income package.

The Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) recognises that monetary based poverty is just one type of deprivation that households face, with a combination of various deprivations that afflict a household at the same time across three dimensions: Education; health; and living standards.
As per the Impact Evaluation of BISP for year 2016, 65% of BISP beneficiary households were MPI poor or vulnerable to MPI poverty in 2016, not only in a monetary sense but in a wide variety of dimensions.

18% of BISP households do not contain a single member who has completed primary school, with almost a fifth of households containing a malnourished child aged 0-59 months and the rate of stunting for children aged 0-59 months is at 46%.
This rate of stunting is 16 percentage points above the threshold that the WHO would describe as a crisis-[1] for the prevalence of stunting in a population.
38% of BISP beneficiaries are deprived in terms of sanitation.
This situation is exacerbated by 17% of the BISP beneficiaries that do not have access to safe drinking water.
Lack of flooring and the large deprivations with respect to cooking fuel are also indicative of the poor quality of housing.

Poverty and nutrition relate to the core objectives of the BISP, which was initially designed with the immediate objective to cushion the negative effects of food inflation on the poor.
The final impact evaluation results of the BISP Impact Evaluation Report 2016 reveal that per adult equivalent monthly consumption expenditure has induced a net increase of Rs187; using the FEI poverty line, BISP reduces the poverty rate by 7 percentage points while using the CBN poverty line as a reference we find that BISP is associated with a reduction in the poverty gap by 3 percentage points.

Over the period of the evaluation, the proportion of beneficiaries who are poor or are vulnerable to poverty has fallen from 84% in 2011 to 72% in 2016.
The proportion of beneficiary households that are Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) poor has been falling steadily over the period of evaluation from 70% in 2011 to 51% of beneficiary households in 2016.
What is particularly encouraging is that the group beneficiary households that find themselves severely MPI poor has fallen by the biggest proportion, from 35% of all beneficiaries in 2011 to just 23% in 2016.

In 2013, at the time of the first follow-up survey, the average BISP beneficiary in the sub-sample under consideration received just 65% of the total value of the transfer in the 12 months preceding the survey.
This performance has significantly improved with beneficiaries now receiving 83% of the value of the transfer in the 12 months preceding the evaluation survey.
The average time to reach a payment point has fallen by 27% from 48 minutes in 2013 to 35 minutes in 2016, as the network of payment points and ATMs available for use by beneficiaries expands across Pakistan.

The Impact Evaluation Report 2016 also bears forth a dramatic decrease in the proportion of beneficiaries who had to unwillingly pay a fee to agent mafia from 40% in 2011 to 22% in 2016.
This finding is driven in a large part by the effort to move the payment system away from the Pakistan Post and towards the delivery of the BISP Debit Card and to crackdown on agent mafia.

Overall, BISP has had a positive and statistically significant impact on the certain indicators relevant to the quality of living standards.
BISP has led to an increase in per adult equivalent monthly food consumption (PKR 69) with BISP cash transfer having a positive and statistically significant impact on the consumption of meat and fish by PKR 23 and PKR 8 respectively for beneficiaries in the RD treatment group.
This finding is encouraging as meat and fish are sources of the highest quality protein that when consumed even in the smallest of quantities, can lead to significant improvements in the quality of diet (WFP, 2008).

BISP has also impacted significantly on the proportion of households that own; a TV (14 percentage points); a bicycle (7 percentage points); a cooking stove (12 percentage points); a washing machine (13 percentage points); and a heater (4 percentage points).
In particular, BISP has supported a reduction in deprivations such as for flooring in the household, for cooking fuel used in the household and for assets owned by the household for BISP beneficiaries in the sample.

45% of beneficiaries were deprived in terms of sanitation in 2016, though there appeared to be a significant improvement in this indicator falling from 60% who were deprived in 2011.
Considering that 51% of boys and 46% of girls are stunted, which indicates a long-term problem of malnutrition, despite this, OPM (2016) finds that there is some evidence that BISP is supporting a positive impact on the nutrition status of children in BISP beneficiary households.
We further find evidence that BISP has led to reductions in wasting in girls.

Although casual labour remains an important source of income to BISP beneficiaries but they are reducing their reliance on this form of livelihood.
BISP transfer has led to a reduction in the proportion of men engaged in casual labour and an increase in the proportion of men engaged in agricultural activities or looking after livestock.
The biggest change has been that BISP has had a negative and statistically significant impact on the proportion of women who are engaged in unpaid family help.
The qualitative research provided strong indications that BISP beneficiaries had been able to use some part of the BISP cash transfer for the purchase of small livestock including sheep and goats as an income generating investment.
Furthermore, we find that the rate of dependence on casual labour as a main source of income is falling over the period, from 51% of beneficiary households in 2011 to 45% of beneficiary households in 2016.

BISP has also impacted in the beneficiaries’ access to finance.
There is evidence that the BISP is supporting an increase in savings, in particular formal savings.
CGAP (2013), in a report detailing qualitative research with various banks on their willingness to engage with BISP beneficiaries, indicates that there is a willingness amongst the partner banks to transition beneficiaries to Level 0 branchless accounts which would enable beneficiaries to not only withdraw but make deposits.
The level of financial savings amongst beneficiary households remains low, with just 13% of beneficiary households having any form of savings in 2016.
This, however, has increased over the period 2011 – 2016, with just 9% of beneficiary households having any form of savings in 2011.

Last but not the least, qualitative research suggests that there has been a change in the way BISP cash is being used in the household.
Specifically, respondents were reporting that they had started to more carefully manage and plan its expenditure, as compared to during the early years of the programme.
This is likely related to two factors; that the reliability and regularity of payments made by BISP has improved over the course of implementation; and that beneficiaries are beginning to trust the programme and therefore internalise BISP cash as part of their household budget.
This ownership of the cash grant by BISP beneficiaries is the kind of success me and my BISP team has been aiming to achieve all along.

The writer is a Minister of Sate and Chairperson, BISP.

(Courtesy- The Nation)