1. Today, is my very great honor and privilege to take part in the inauguration ceremony of the 30 bed special ‘Progress’ ward and its attached office complex at the AFIC.

2. I am also humbled by this auspicious gathering of so many men and women of high wisdom and intellect.

3.Excellency, before I proceed on to today’s matter, I would like to briefly introduce Foundation for ‘Progress’. ‘Progress’ is a non-governmental sustainable development organization, with a national and international chapter, providing services and carrying out activities in the areas of health, education, environment, in promoting human rights as conceived by our great religion Islam and in fostering peace and tolerance at national, regional and global levels.

4. Our collaboration with the AFIC is organized under the ‘Progress’ agenda of ‘Building Partnerships, Promoting Sustainability’, the objective of which is to foster understanding and build bridges between, the government, the private sector and the civic society, cooperation and interaction among all of whom is essential for the successful implementation of our national policies and plans.

5. Our collaboration with the government was also the result of a partnership experiment which was based on our side on the premise, ‘that it is better to join in the struggle than to howl from the sidelines’ – and on the calculation that when an institution like the Government starts to give evidence of changing its spots, it should be encouraged to go on doing so.

6. For my part, I regard this as a worthwhile effort, which has and shall certainly pay off in the long run: We still argue strenuously, and do not see eye-to-eye on many issues, but we have been trying to influence the government in directions we see as useful and we have done some very good work together. And we have also ourselves learned much from our closer association with the Government.

7. Excellency, health is a key determinant of economic growth and development, while ill health is both a cause and effect of poverty. Aside from the serious consequences for social welfare, ill health deprives developing countries of human resources and the high cost of ill health reduces economic growth and limits the resources governments have available for investment in public health. As a result, improving health in developing countries is essential in order to reduce poverty, which is also the primary objective of all development policies in Pakistan.

8. Poverty is the root cause of all crime. It stands in the way of good health. Similarly, poor health pushes people into poverty. Poverty, which includes the concept of vulnerability, results from many factors.

9. Effective public health response is the bedrock of human security, providing confidence and helping to bridge the poverty gap.

10. The test of any decent society is not the contentment of the wealthy and strong, but the commitment to the poor and weak.

11. Although during the last two decades we have seen extraordinary progress in our understanding of the scientific basis of health and disease. Effective action has led to widespread improvements in life expectancy, child mortality and access to health care. But much more remains to be done, particularly among the 2.5 billion earning less than US$ 2 per day and to prevent more than thirteen million people dying each year from infectious diseases and millions more from non-communicable diseases and injuries.

12. Globalization, the two edged sword has led to changes in lifestyle and diet which can lead to increase in heart disease, diabetes and cancer. More than anything, tobacco is sweeping the globe as it is criss-crossed by market forces.

13. In the current climate of uncertainty – the challenges are tremendous. We are being judged, more than ever, on our measurable results. The key to action, however, is to ensure that environment is taken seriously at the highest levels of the political leadership. Over the past few years, we have seen an increased political commitment to this effect.

14. The private sector and civil society play a crucial role if we are to succeed. New partnerships need to be formed; partnerships where all parties are out to find the best possible solutions. Often best partnerships are those that are forged between unorthodox entities.

15. This is the way forward and it is just the beginning. We know that the actions to tackle terror, hunger, disease and poverty will require careful decisions and sensitive responses.

16. Excellency, these are challenging times and all societies are confronting their most basic values. We can give life to millions, and hope to millions more, and move towards a better world. We know there’s no short-term fix to the fundamental challenges that we face. The key to each solution is our involvement in it and in finding new ways to solve our problems. The recent earthquake was one such occasion.

17. Our society and communities will never change unless our citizens change. We all have something to do about it! If our society as a whole isn’t ready for these changes, then our job as individuals is to prepare the way, to make our society ready. Yes, it is that easy. In the end, we have no one to blame for our failures but ourselves. It doesn’t make sense to point fingers at others so long as we ourselves are not doing anything to make the situation better.

18. Today and always, members of our Armed Forces have taken extraordinary risks on our behalf ensuring our security and safety both during peace and in times of war, besides supporting and providing relief in times of national crises. The recent earthquake is once such occasion.

19.The serving and the retired Armed Forces personnel represent the enduring qualities of Service-life: duty, discipline and, above all, self-sacrifice. We salute them and wish them good health, ending happiness and further prosperity in their present and the future.

20. Someone once said, “If you can’t see the invisible, then you can’t accomplish the impossible.” Easing the suffering of those in pain and despair is a difficult and daunting mission, but definitely and certainty not impossible. The doctors and staff of the AFIC are successfully carrying out and achieving this task, everyday, all year round, for the last 17 years.

21. In this world of trouble and suffering, AFIC stands tall, representing help, hope and healing. Its doctors ease pain and suffering and bring hope and happiness to many in distress.

22. It is said, that can’t get very far, until you start doing something for someone else.

23. In recognition and as a token of deep gratitude to the doctors, nurses, paramedics and many others in this wonderful AFIC family working tirelessly with the ultimate objective of providing care and comfort to those in pain and distress I as the chairman and the president of the ‘Progress’ and on behalf of the ‘Progress’ executive council have the honor and privilege of sponsoring, equipping and with furnishing of a 30 bed special ward with its attached office complex, in addition to the provision of an x-ray unit for utilization at the AFIC out patients department. ‘Progress’ has also undertaken to support this project on need to need basis for the next five years. I am fully confident that our partnership will be based on mutual respect, trust, integrity, and of our common commitment towards the welfare of those in need.

24. Excellency, the tragedy in life is having no goal to reach. Not failure but aiming low is the sin. I appreciate that we have a long journey and that there is a long road ahead, but we do have a road map and lots of determination.

25. In the lives of great nations it is not a matter of few years, if I may say, it is in decades that reat policies and plans are carefully designed and gradually implemented. These policies are based on great national objectives representing the aspirations of the people, based on the values of goodness. These objectives focus on the coming times - The future generations - This I call vision. With persistence, right direction and vision, we can surly achieve our missions.

26. “No one of us is better than all of us.” We must bear in mind, while carrying out our mission that it is important not only to assess but also to appreciate; not only to organize but to synthesize; not just to manage but to mentor.

27. Before I conclude I would like my AFIC family to please know, that you have already challenged my intellect, spoken to my soul and touched my heart. Thank you for honoring me, by being here today, and for choosing me to be your partner.

28. Excellency, credit for today’s event goes to one of the most loving and caring physicians I have ever come across-Major General MMH Nuri, Commandant AFIC who made it happen all. Thank you General Nuri. To the Deputy Commandant and to the consultants, nursing and paramedics I extend my highest consideration and compliments.

29. I also wish to thank the honorable Lt. General Syed Afzal Ahmed the Surgeon General for gracing this occasion as his very own event.

30. Excellency, my profound gratitude is also due to you. Despite our extremely busy commitments, and more so in view of your responsibilities in over seeing the relief efforts of the devastating Pakistan earthquake, you took out time for the patronage of the joint ‘Progress’/AFIC welfare event. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for kind patience. May God bless you.


NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON ‘Dams & Development’
Wed 28th Jan 2004, National Library of Pakistan, Islamabad

WELCOME AND KEYNOTE ADDRESS
By

Dr. M.A Wajid
Convener of the Workshop
Chairman & President Foundation For ‘Progress’

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

1 .As the convener and on behalf of the organizing committee, I have the privilege and honor of welcoming you all to the national workshop on ‘Dams & Development’, organized by ‘Progress’, and held in joint collaboration with the Departments of Irrigation & Power, Sindh Government and the M/O Water & Power, Govt. of Pakistan.

2. This workshop is the ninth such event in a short span of two years in continuation of ‘Progress’ environmental awareness, education, and conservation program and under the ‘Progress’ agenda of ‘Building Partnerships, Promoting Sustainability’. Our collaboration with the government in environment and other sectors was the result of a partnership experiment which was based on our side on the premise, ‘that it is better to join in the struggle than to howl from the sidelines’ — and on the calculation that when an institution like the Government starts to give evidence of changing its spots, it should be encouraged to go on doing so.

3. For my part, I regard this as a worthwhile effort, which has and shall certainly pay off in the long run: We still argue strenuously on many Government policies, and we do not see eye-to-eye on many issues, but we have been trying to influence the government in directions we see as useful and we have done some very good work together in this aspect. And we have also ourselves learned much from our closer association with the Government.

4. Excellency, On entering the new millennium Pakistan is faced with a twin challenge of raising growth and reducing poverty. It is recognized that sound management of natural resources, including equitable water resource management, is an essential for poverty eradication, economic growth and development. Besides sustaining life and human well-being, water has an economic value in all its competing uses. Water as an instrument of development is critical for meeting Pakistan’s increasing needs: agricultural for producing sufficient food to a population at 3% growth rate, which shall double in 25 years, providing energy for badly needed industrialization, electrification of rural communities, increased urban domestic consumption and tapping water for combating floods and drought.

5. Affordable energy and water services are a pre-requisite for pulling people out of poverty, especially rural communities, the development of which is a determinant of the quality of the future social development of a country. Provision of these services necessitates a review of water resource development and management, including the need to build new multiple purpose water reservoirs.

6. These projects could not be undertaken mainly because of political, financial and sociological implications, making it a highly controversial issue, which is based more on fear, apprehensions and mistrust. It is essential to understand that the key issue is not the dams, but options for water and energy development and these relate to the greatest challenge that Pakistan faces today.

7. Excellency, water is a multi-stakeholder issue and partnerships of all interested and affected parties are essential to translate into practice the tools of sustainable water resource development.

8. Excellency, this distinguished multi-stakeholder gathering of men and women include all the stakeholders, representing all walks of life who have gathered here today to dialogue on an issue i.e. equally critical and important to all of us – the issue of water, dams and development, all three of which are interlinked and interconnected to sustainable national development.

9. Excellency, water is the most precious gift that God Almighty has bestowed on humanity. No matter who we are, where we are, and what we do, we are all dependent on water. We need it every day, in so many ways. However, despite the importance of water resources in our lives and well-being, we are increasingly disrespectful of them, forgetting how essential they are to our very survival.

10. We know that water is fundamental to the biochemistry of all living organisms; that the planet’s ecosystems are linked and maintained by water, that evaporation drives the energy exchange between the land and the atmosphere, thus hugely influencing the earth’s climate; that water provides a habitat for a variety of threatened plant, animal and fish species; and that water will replace oil as a major source of conflict among states in many regions in this millennium.

11. Excellency, water and dams have been close companions and dams have played a key role in development of nations since the evolution of great civilizations on major rivers, such as the Nile, Tigres-Euphrates and Indus. Then they were built to supply water, control floods, irrigate agriculture and provide for navigation. With the onset of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, they provided motive power and electricity and with the introduction of new technologies in the 20th century, they have been built for meeting the needs of the various mixes of these purposes.

12. The role of dams in development, particularly in the last two decades has been under increased scrutiny and is now subject to mounting controversy. As development priorities changed and experience accumulated with the construction and operation of large dams around the world, various groups argued that expected economic benefits were not being produced and that major environmental, economic and social costs were not being taken into account, and with its proposals for large dams began to be fundamentally questioned.

13. I do not need to lecture this grouping on the history and politics of large dams or on the biology of fresh water. We all know that the history of dam construction is patchy — and open to dispute. We all know that some dams have been a disaster on several fronts, not least the social and environmental fronts. We all also know that some have been beneficial in their net effects and have had a role to play in development and in meeting people’s aspirations.

14. The perspectives on large dams are as diverse as their stakeholders both on the global and national levels. The debate rages on, with a variety of answers all having some validity.

15. For some, large dams symbolize a failed, centralized, technocratic approach to development characterized by waste, bureaucratic bungling and insensitivity to people and the environment.

16. For others, large dams are “almost the equivalent of Gothic cathedrals—the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists and assumed in image, if not in usage, by a whole population.”

17. Both of these mythologies live because each contains a grain of truth. On the one hand, some dams are marvels of human ingenuity. They make deserts bloom, they tame floods, they produce clean energy —and they put nature to work. On the other hand, to paraphrase Pat McCully, a large dam can silence a river, destroy a landscape, endanger biodiversity and uproot whole communities.

18. According to Thoreau, “Rather than love, than money, than life, give me truth.” What then is the truth about large dams? Thoreau also said: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” But can developing countries afford to let large dams alone?

19. These are the two basic questions this workshop is expected to address. Underlying both concerns is our continuing search for an economic and social system that can provide more and better goods and services for all while sustaining a high quality environment. So, the dilemmas posed by large dams are those involved in harmonizing development with the environment. And at the core of this challenge lies energy—the fuel of economic development from time immemorial.

20. Excellency, who says energy says carbon. And carbon is now the “most wanted” environmental culprit. The move from a polluting carbon economy to a non-polluting hydrogen economy is underway with dams having a significant role to play in freeing the energy system from carbon. When built on time and on budget, they produce electric power at competitive prices.

21. Electricity can also be produced from coal, fossil fuels, natural gas and nuclear energy. Hydro and Nuclear beat the other three in decarbonization game, but nuclear involves high risks and heavy costs, thereby making hydro the favorite choice especially of the developing countries. No wonder then that two thirds of the large dams built in the 1980s were in developing countries. The power market in developing countries is growing. Keeping energy use at current levels in developing countries is an environmental fantasy that would confine them to perpetual poverty.

22. I will not talk about the extraordinarily important use of dams for irrigation. But consider this simple fact. By raising wheat yields fivefold during the past few decades, farmers in our neighboring India have spared an area of cropland equal to the state of California. This yield revolution would not have taken place without surface irrigation, used in conjunction with ground water.

23. So there is a strong economic and environmental case for large dams. But as dams are currently designed, constructed and implemented, a strong case can also be made against them. The damming of a river can be a cataclysmic event in the life of a riverine ecosystem. The construction of dams in densely populated, environmentally sensitive, institutionally weak areas can be very destructive. Just as in real estate, the location matters.

24. Consultation matters too. But it is not a panacea. The protection of natural habitats and the resettlement of people displaced by dams call for institutions and implementation capacities that need nurturing over many years, even decades. These are not challenges that can be met efficiently one project at a time. The OED report suggests that 75 percent of the dams reviewed did not meet current environmental/resettlement standards at completion and hypothesizes that had they done so they would still have yielded an attractive rate of return. These require commitment, legislation and adequate enforcement and implementation capacity.

25. The constraint is not engineering hardware. It is the societal software, the rules of economic and social governance and the ability of local agencies to get things done.

26. This is where today’s workshop comes in. It is part of an unfolding change process that is taking place globally as well as locally. Technologically, imitation, adaptation and sharing of experience has improved the ways dams are built. In particular, safety standards are now better understood and disseminated.

27. The time has now come to promote a similar change process with respect to the human and ecological dimensions of large dams projects. Fact-finding is more effective than faultfinding. No society should be excluded from learning. Latecomers should be able to benefit from the costly experiments of pioneers. This is the challenge of evaluation and also of this workshop.

28. Our joint approach to the workshop is straightforward. Its objective is to address the conflicting viewpoints that are made the dams issue a flashpoint in the arena of politics, environment, development and justice. Through broad based consultation, joint assessment and a transparent and inclusive process, it shall strive for a consensus for creating a constituency for implementation. To achieve this we have brought together leading representatives of major stakeholders in a neutral setting. We would have loved to have even broader consultations. But with a larger group, we would not have had the opportunity to get acquainted and listen into each other’s point of view. Broader consultation will be needed in future.

29. We have also been privileged to have leading authorities who shall present excellent overview papers covering economic, social and environmental issues. You will undoubtedly have many more ideas and proposals of your own, which you will have an opportunity to express within the limited available time.

30. There is no shortage of issues. The key is to identify those that are critical. What is certain is that the nation expects us to address these issues, to use the convening power that springs from our combined strength, to resolve damaging conflict where feasible and to contribute to the drawing up of environmentally, socially and indeed economically sound approaches and guidelines on whether or not, and how to build dams, be they large or small.

31. Methodology is certainly an issue. We can compare large dams with alternatives, and with any other application of the scarce human, natural and financial resources that a proposed project requires. We are open-minded about other evaluative frameworks that promise a better integration of issues and/or a more acceptable comparison with alternatives given the objective of sustainable development.

32. We should not emerge from this workshop only with a warm feeling and a somewhat better understanding of each other’s concerns. Our time together is too short to get into in-depth discussions of specific issues and cases. Perhaps we ought to focus on building understanding and partnerships that will help address the critical issues in a manner that will find general acceptance.

33. Each of us present here may have some special perspective. I also accept that is inevitable. I have had my chance to have my say. We shall be interested to hear your points of view. Excellency with your permission may I underline:

• that you are encouraged to state your views freely;
• that we want to hear the hard arguments, for that is clarifying; and
• that we should not get bogged down in detail or slip into a posturing mode.

34.So the challenge before all the participants today is to seek generally accepted standards best practice examples and new ways of cooperation that must replace the current gridlock of distrust and recrimination. The federal government in particular the M/O Water & Power and the WAPDA, the provincial governments, the civil society and the private sector will have to be involved far more actively than they have been so far.

35. If ways are not found out of the current logjam, dams will be built, but they will be built at a slower rate with great pain and at a higher human and environmental cost than necessary. If, on the other hand our efforts for a consensus and cooperation succeed a win/win logic may eventually take over and the history of dam construction in Pakistan will evolve from confrontation to cooperation for the benefit of all. So let us try to be a part of that history.

36. I am convinced that through dialogue, debate and consensus we can meet and overcome the water scarcity with confidence and assurance, knowing that water is not for fighting over. Water is for conserving, for bathing, for drinking and for sharing. Water through this workshop can be our catalyst for peace.

37. I conclude by thanking you Mr. Prime Minster for sparing your most precious time for an equally precious national issue. I also wish to thank the distinguished guest of honors for showing their interest in the ‘Dams Debate’. My personal gratitude is also due to the distinguished speakers, experts and the delegates who have put in their time, effort and money to travel from all over the country to take part, discuss, interact, learn, give, share and suggest ways and means for sustainable national water resource use and development.

Thank you very much all.