National 3 (Spotlight Weekly)

Exchange Of Experiences

A delegation of Pakistani women councilors visit Nepal to exchange experiences and gain new knowledge

By A CORRESPONDENT

With the objective of exchanging information and gaining knowledge on grass root democracy, a delegation of women councilors from Pakistan visited Nepal recently. Though, at present, the local bodies in Nepal are not functional, the delegation met with leaders of political parties and officials.

Two years after the Pakistani government promulgated Local Government Ordinance providing 33 percent reservation for women in local councils, there are now 40,000 women councilors at the district, tehsil and union councils.

The non-political election at the local bodies level has resulted in the election of women councilors, 70 percent of whom are first-timers and more than half are illiterate. This has resulted in the necessity of the training and capacity building to nurture grass root leadership.

Pakistani delegation : Fruitful exchange

The councils are autonomous and are entrusted with carrying out local development initiatives. They get financial and other kinds of assistance from the central and provincial governments.

“The election of women councilors has been welcomed by all sections of Pakistani society and they enjoy wide support. They have been able to deliver services at the local level,” said Shafqat Mehmood, (retd) Brigadier and Project Manager of Women’s Political Participation Project (W3P) of the Ministry of Women Development (MoWD) and funded by UNDP.

A ten-member delegation, including five women councilors, led by Mehmood visited Nepal recently. The delegation has already visited Thailand and the Philippines and plans to visit Sri Lanka for the same purpose.

“We visited Nepal to exchange strategies and find about the better ways to strengthen grass root leadership,” said Mohammad Anwar Golra, Deputy Secretary at the MoWD. “Our meeting with the officials here were fruitful.”

In order to build the leadership capacity of the elected women councilors, the W3P provides regular training to the councilors. Some of the councilors have already become master trainers, who in turn, provide training to other councilors.

“We provide training that basically grooms the women councilors. We also teach them code of conduct and concentrate on developing their overall personality,” said Ms. Fareeda Misbah, Research Analyst, W3P.

As most of the women councilors hail from backward region, they are not aware of the leadership qualities and need a lot of sensitizing to carry out their responsibilities effectively.

“The W3P training has helped a lot. It has given us the confidence and has polished our personality,” said Mrs. Kishwar Mazari, a district councilor.

Since the countries of south Asian region suffer from similar kinds of socio-economic problems, the exchange of visits between local level leaders could help in broadening their horizon and making them familiar with the regional issues.

Pakistani Envoy Speaks

Pakistan’s ambassador to Nepal Zamir Akram has expressed optimism regarding the holding of the SAARC summit as per the schedule.

By A CORRESSPONDENT

At a time when the future of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit lies in uncertainty, Pakistani ambassador to Nepal has revealed that final preparation is underway to hold the summit on schedule.

Addressing the media representatives on various issues regarding the Pakistan’s point of view on various international and regional issues, Akram expressed hope that the relations between Pakistan and Nepal will be further strengthened after the visit of Nepalese prime minister in the context of SAARC Summit in Islamabad early next year.

“Our foreign minister visited different capitals of SAARC countries except India to hand over invitation to the heads of the governments and states of region. Our foreign minister cancelled his trip to New Delhi after India refused to receive him,” said Pakistani ambassador.

Highlighting the importance of relations, Pakistani ambassador disclosed that his government has reduced the visa fees for Nepalese students studying in Pakistan.

Nepal and Pakistan are members of SAARC but they have very negligible trade and business relations. Since the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two South Asian countries more than forty years ago, Pakistan continues to offer scholarship to Nepalese students in areas like engineering, medicine and other sectors.

Pakistani ambassador also cautioned Nepalese officials about the bad intention of a ‘regional country’, which has been making effort to create misunderstanding between the two countries. He also criticized the defense purchase agreement between India and Israel saying that it will tilt the balance of power in the region. Pakistani ambassador stressed the need to resolve the issues of Kashmir through UN resolution.