Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................... 2
Defining Civil Society…………………………………………………………… 3
Overview of Civil Society in Pakistan............................................................. 4
Typology………………………………………………………………………….. 5
1) Structure............................................................................................. 6
i) Mapping Civil Society
ii) Membership Base
2) Space................................................................................................... 8
i) The Right of Association
ii) Socio-religious Pressure
3) Values ................................................................................................. 10
i) Tradition of Charity
ii) Violence and Militancy: The Other Extreme
iii) Other Folk Sub-sectors
iv) Gender Equity
v) Accountability and Transparency
4) Impact................................................................................................... 13
i) Public Policy
ii) Effectiveness of CSOs: Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development
iii) Comparative Advantage
iv) Creating Awareness
v) Successful lobbying
vi) Portrayal in Media
vii) Some Setbacks
Conclusion....................................................................................... 18
Limitations……………………………………………………………… 20
Introduction
The newest factor we are coming across in the development equation is ‘Civil society’ and in response civil society strengthening is the latest addition to the agenda of development. The traditional and the modern components of civil society are to be found around the globe whether it is in Pakistan or anywhere else. It is these organizations and institutions it is made up of and hence is known to be a stand between the individuals, the state as well as communities. Pakistan's civil society is not entirely constituted by NGOs and special interest groups. It consist both bazaar associations (baradaris) and NGO’s
The best way to gain knowledge and understand in depth along with appreciate civil society’s role from the development perspective it surely needs to be undressed of its ideological clothing. The overall purpose of this report is to critically assess the present enthusiasm of the role played by civil society as a counterweight to the state, and as the basis of a society-centered strategy of development.
We can say, that the civil society of Pakistan is basically characterized by hybrid forms, multiple inheritances and a lot of unresolved struggle among the between the practices and values of pre-capitalist society and new modes of social life. Its cultural manifestations appear as a collection of incoherent voices, conflicting worldviews and opposing interests.
Defining Civil Society
It is wise to understand the term ‘civil society’, before proceeding with the analysis of Pakistan's civil society. It is the distinction between civil and political societies, paralleling of the old fashioned segregation like prince versus people which laid the basis of the idea of civil society. According to Gramsci, it is to differentiate civil society from both economy and state, describing it as the realm of public opinion and culture [Mamdani (1996), pp. 14-15]. At the present according to Cohen and Arato, civil society is differentiated from the state and defined as "the sphere of associations (especially voluntary associations), social movements, and forms of public communications that mediate between economy, state and society" [Cohen and Arato (1992), p. ix].
In practice today, civil society has come to a broad meaning NGOs, local communities, clubs, interest groups and other associational arrangements which are outside the sphere of state. It is emphasized that all social institution of a society that express collective interests as well as the actions do not come under civil society. To build and sustain civic institution outside the government, both for meeting collective needs and for holding the state accountable is the main project of strengthening the civil society. According to Mccarney, this is how donor agencies and Western academics define civil society [McCarney et al. (1995
Overview of Civil Society in Pakistan
Sociologically speaking, it is Beradaris (clans) system, Panchayats (village councils) and Jirgas, comprised of religious leaders, rural landlords and town notables make up civil society in Pakistan and is observable in formal institutions, such as political parties, labour unions, media and press, chambers of commerce, citizen clubs and community organizations. We can deduce on this basis that these 'mediating' structures are the ones which regulate, balance and influence the state on high node, as well as in organizing collective action in public affairs. In a nutshell, we see that groups mentioned above act as the intermediaries who make the voice reach to the king from individuals.
It is estimated to be around 45,000 active nonprofit organizations currently working in Pakistan which include a large some of people amounting to almost 6 million members and consists of approximately a quarter million staff members. This sector have a diverse range of activities from religious education to sport activities, from performing religious rites to the lobbying for civic amenities, and also from running vocational centers to national human rights advocacy organizations. It includes all the sizes which range from small neighboring graveyard to the multibillion rupee hospitals. It has come up that almost half (46%) of the Pakistan’s nonprofit organizations cite education to be their main activity performed. Advocacy is the second largest component in this nonprofit sector totally approximately 18% whereas, the organizations providing social services and religious activities as their main activities represent 8% and 5% respectively of the total. A relatively small share work in the health sector 6%.
Typology
NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization): Citizen Sector, which in depth can be defined as private, not for profit citizen organizations, pressure groups and support centers.
Community Based Organizations (CBOs): Membership based, grassroots organizations known to be a subset of NGOs.
Trade Unions: These are organized associations of the workers in an industry or profession which work for the protection and furtherance of their rights and interests.
CSOs (Civil Society Organizations): CSO will be used as an “umbrella term” in the report to refer to NGOs, CBOs, think tanks, trade unions, cultural groups and informal citizen organizations
The project report presents an overview of the contemporary civil society along four dimensions based on the limited survey and range of secondary data which includes research papers, articles and databases:
1) Structure
2) Space
3) Values
4) Impact
1) Structure:
Civil society organizations, sectoral and regional distribution, resources, membership, networking etc. are the lime light of this part. Since there is no database been maintained on regular basis hence, it is difficult to draw an absolute picture of the civil society of Pakistan. From 1990’s several initiatives have been launched to collect data on various dimensions of the civil society, but so far no comprehensive analysis has been undertaken. The amount of data available is pretty much of a mere sketch or can be said as area specific, which also mostly focus on the NGO’s.
It has shortcomings in areas such as membership base, regional distribution, building alliances and coalitions, co-operation with the private sector. I have not been able to find a consolidated data available on the number, funding sources and resources of such traditional civil society actors as madrassas, jirgas and panchayats (council of elders), savings groups, burial societies, neighbourhood associations and shrines.
i) Mapping Civil Society:
After reviewing a number of databases and surveys, from my findings, I would estimate that there are around bulk of 59 percent in Punjab province followed by Sindh and NWFP NGO’s actively working currently in Pakistan. If non-registered organizations are added to those registered (active) under the six laws, the number, according to reliable government sources, could be anywhere around 50,000.
It is a complicated task due to multiplicity of registration laws to map the NGP sector in Pakistan. There are six different laws under which organizations can be registered:
i) The Societies Act (1860),
ii) Companies Ordinance (1984),
iii) The Trust Act (1882),
iv) The Charitable Endowments Act (1890),
v) The Co-operative Act (1925)
vi) The Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies (Registration and Control) Ordinance (1961).
It wide open fact that there is no such system whereby non-functional NGOs are struck off the registration records which result in many of the NGO’s, which have becomes defunct still continue to be listed and hence present a false picture of the sector.
ii) Membership Base
Only five to ten percent of the total has more than 450 members. There are basically no reliable figures as such available on the membership base of CBOs and faith-based organizations which can accumulate the exact numbers. It is only 22 percent of civil society knowledge bearers agrees that CSOs in Pakistan has an active membership base. Approximately, 35 percent disagrees while as many as 65 percent of respondents seems to hold a mix opinion. This clearly shows the lack of information of the membership base of CSOs in Pakistan.
2) Space:
This section of the report studies the legal, political and socio-cultural environment that civil society operates in. Borne the brunt of repeated military interventions in the country’s polity have been faced by the Civil society of Pakistan. The state has many times came under the repression in various forms including bans on CSOs, arrest of civil society leaders and political pressure. After a quasi-democratic interlude in 1980’s, the country again came under military rule of General Parvez Musharraf (Retd). After coming out of the military rule now certain socio-cultural norms and attitudes still lack the continuation of the impact on the strengthening of civil society.
i) The Right of Association
There have always been an ambiguity and mixed based attitudes between the state and the NGOs. Where the services are appreciated the NGOs provide, they are also perceived as a competitors for donor funded, political allegiance and influenced. The government’s concerns with the operation of NGOs essentially hinge around issues of sovereignty, funding, monitoring and supervision. The history of the relations between the state and civil society shows that while the former is relatively comfortable with the service delivery and charity role of NGOs; it is the advocacy work that it finds unsettling and provocative. It is seen that traditionally, the state has refrained from interfering with the activities of informal CSOs such as madrassas, shrines, seminaries and jirgas.
ii) Socio-religious Pressure
In the recent past certain sub-sectors of civil society faced increasingly hostility at societal level. Throughout 2000, it is seen that NGOs were been subjected to repeated verbal assaults by religious leaders. The attacks came despite the support extended by the government ministers to NGOs calling for their inclusion in advisory panels and in undertaking work at the grassroots level. Religious extremists continue to accuse development and advocacy-oriented NGOs of working against ‘national ideology’ by spreading liberal and secular values
3) Values:
This part of the project report looks into the values, norms and attitudes that civil society represents and propagates. It takes into account issues such as promotion of human rights, gender equity, tolerance, sustainable development, transparency and accountability, internal democracy etc. There is, however, a dichotomy between the values held by modern CSOs and traditional or folk sub-sectors in terms of vision and values. The Values dimension almost 50% reflects a civil society that is reasonably well- advanced in terms of norms and attitudes.
i) Tradition of Charity
Volunteerism has traditionally in our country been a deep-rooted impulse, which is encouraged primarily by the religious obligation of helping the poor and the needy. After partition in Pakistan the charity organizations which were setup drew on the historical tradition of providing relief to the needy. Dominance by the founding fathers of such organizations have shown and proved invaluable services to the poorest of poor whereas, they somehow lack internal democracy and accountability and are characterized by informal structures.
ii) Violence and Militancy: The Other Extreme
A sub-set of CSOs comprising religious seminaries, however, has invariably backed jingoistic and chauvinistic ideologies. Their worldview is clearly at cross-purposes with the goals of social development, gender equality and social justice adopted by other civil society organizations. It can be seen similarly with the jirgas in the North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas often condone violence, honor killings and gender discrimination in the name of familial honor and traditions.
The political parties are highly blamed for the infusion of violent culture in to universities which includes the campus life upset due to the educational hurdles be the first and foremost attribute to the student raging frustration enhancing it with the deeply unsatisfactory nature of education experience with regards to a most doubtful future employment prospects.
iii) Other Folk Sub-sectors
It is evident that mysticism in the subcontinent, as elsewhere in the world, gave birth to a whole range of poetry, allegory and music that was an combination of the unorthodox Islam and the indigenous culture. Nowadays, Sufi saints are looked upon as models of piety and spiritual excellence. Within these saints some gained more popularity after their deaths which resulted in the birth of shrines as being the center of their wishes to come true for people of all creed and sects. As the years pass by some of these shrines have lost their charm and became hotspot of drugs, prostitutions and quackery. There are still few which still aim to provide genuine alternatives space for faith, devotion and culture.
iv) Gender Equity
Today studies have clearly pointed out the need for trade unions to involve women workers and to address their concerns and problems. Additionally, it has been notified that women have limited opportunity to exercise leadership in trade unions. This is partly due to the tradition of segregation and social restrictions on women’s mobility that women workers will not have any incentive to join trade unions unless they have the confidence that doing so will improve their condition and strengthen their position in the workforce. Much like trade unions, professional associations, employers’ unions and student organizations continue to be male-dominated. The under-representation of women in these organizations speaks volumes about their dominated status in the Pakistani society.
v) Accountability and Transparency
A rise to greater responsibilities and public expectations there is seen an increasing role of CSOs in the social sector. NGOs are found wanting in terms of internal democracy and participatory decision-making. Civil society of Pakistan in this manner is caught up in conflicting trends. Only a quarter of the respondents agreed that CSOs make information about their general activities publicly available, while only a very small percentage believe that financial accounts are disclosed. Any individual who is relatively better off in qualification from the other and wield a certain amount of influence setup a community based organization. This gives rise to the total control of that organization and with very minimal or limited democratic participation. Larger NGOs in Pakistan have remained caught up increasingly in the world of foreign official aid, which pushed them towards certain forms of evaluation and accountability at the expense of others. When most of the funding is obtained exclusively from foreign funding agencies it is therefore, hard for the organizations to establish their credibility either to government or to society-at-large.
4) Impact:
In this final part of the report the contribution of civil society to various social, economic and political problems, its role in agenda-setting, policy-making, implementation and monitoring are discussed. The overall impact of the civil society initiatives can be gauged from the fact that CSOs in Pakistan are now accepted as partners in social and economic development. Once which was an indistinct voice at the edge, civil society today is a force to be recognized with in the national ground. Functioning under resource constraints and in an unfavorable environment as they do, CSOs’ contributions to the country are indeed impressive.
i) Public Policy
Civil society in Pakistan has evolved under the shadow of frequent military interventions and a debt-ridden and elitist state system. That the ideals of people-centered development, human rights, gender equality and social justice are slowly but steadily creeping into public policy frameworks has much to do with the efforts that civil society has made over the past five decades.
ii) Effectiveness of CSOs: Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development
There have been a tremendous impact through micro-credit in the rural areas are the result of initiatives taken by such as the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP). It has formed more than 2 300 village organizations and over 1 450 women’s organizations contributing to almost Rs 1450 million disbursed in loans to more than 600 000 villagers. It is the AKRSP model which was replicated by each of the four provinces in addition to the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) at the national level.
iii) Comparative Advantage
A huge number of respondents agree to the providing of services by the CSOs to be of maximum positivity to the state. It is the edge over the state that has remained distant from the realities on the ground and obsessed with extravagant projects which are pointed out by many observers regarding the flexibility, informality and emphasis on small scale projects performed by CSOs.
iv) Creating Awareness
It have been a vital role played by the NGOs in Pakistan in creating awareness on issues such as human and legal rights, women’s role in development, and over-population. For women and minorities that have borne the brunt of religious bigotry and social repression, civil society came as a silver lining in dark, gloomy clouds. Repealing discriminatory laws and reforming the electoral process have been consistently campaigned by the advocacy groups. It is the role of civil society which have been lobbying successfully have blocked an attempt made by the Muslim League government to introduce religious coding of the national identity cards.
v) Successful Lobbying
Child rights’ organizations have played a key role in reducing child labour in Pakistan’s football stitching industry. To eliminate the child labour from the football stitching industry was a consequence of a constant struggle of the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1997. The project of UNICEF based on a multi-pronged approach of providing education to children which were displaced from the football stitching industry gave credit to their families was an immense success and went on to win the government’s support as well.
vi) Portrayal in Media
Media as known plays a very vital role in the portrayal of these CSOs. In view of maximum observers as the negative approach is taken towards these operational CSOs which raise allegations adherence to foreign agendas, corruption and promotion of western values with lacking of the accountability. The is that the coverage and analysis of CSO activities varies from one medium to another and also from one kind of CSO to another to which majority of the public opinion poll is that they are negatively portrayed in the media both in paper and television broadcast. It is advised that CSOs need to devise a strategy for effectively engaging media to have a stable and positive image to be presented.
vii) Some Setbacks
In spite of significant breakthroughs made by the civil society’s development initiatives have sometimes also met with failure. Due to the unexpected withdrawal of funding or at the culmination of the project period have led to the many of the CSOs come to a halt in their operations and permanently closed down only because of the dependency on the foreign donors to the sustainability of the projects. This dependence often translates into programmes that are task-oriented, bureaucratized and unsuited to local conditions. Rather than on long-term planning, institutional strengthening, human resource development and building a sound resource base CSOs are forced to concentrate more on immediate activities. Due to the lack of focus and clear organizational structure community based initiatives fall short of targets. They seem to be in need of clear vision, focused objectives, well-defined strategy, managerial and financial systems, planning and implementation skills and linkages with the surrounding systems. Only few organized and planned procedures are for regular contact with the government. Technical advice and training in situation analysis and devising strategies are weak points that must be developed. This would be an important step towards building their capacity to put forward alternative policies in their areas of concern. Finally, it must be added that many civil society initiatives are well-geared toward long-term human development although their results may not be visible in the short-term, whereas CBOs still need some clarity in their long-term plans. Changes in attitudes, levels of awareness and social consciousness are hard to quantify — thus much of civil society's impact invariably escapes public notice.
Conclusion
The research phase of the project report yielded a wealth of information and ideas about the roles played by civil societies in Pakistan. On the positive side, the results of the finding speak itself of a civil society that is healthy and advanced in terms of financial sustainability and commitment. The fact that civil society knowledge bearers consider it to be financially strong may encourage a focus on areas such as lack of human resources and weak management while trying to establish a link with low impact. A negative aspect of the most CSOs weak structure along with lack of vision for long term planning is to a very great extent subject to political and government pressures. The objectives envisioned by smaller CSOs are often vague and limited to short-term remedy of diverse issues. The role of CSOs in promoting and practicing human rights emerges as a strong value especially given the non-democratic societal context. CSOs as playing a successful role in promoting harmonious relations in society needs to be qualified by the fact that the sheer number of militant and ethnic organizations overshadows the positive role played by other CSOs. It is also highlighted that service delivery and mobilization of the marginalized as success areas. A number of indicators a substantial percentage of views of the knowledgeable individual land in the mid-range category (those who neither agreed nor completely disagreed).
The hypothesis that can be drawn in the introduction to this report to the best understanding is:
Civil Society in Pakistan is characterized by hybrid forms, unresolved conflicts and divergent legacies, where a civil society is caught up in the middle of the ripple of pain and birth cramp of a new one. There is also a need, “to assess the role of CSOs in the broader socio-political environment of the country,” to quote one author Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his one of famous book on Civil society.
Limitations
While I made every effort to make this project as broad-based, comprehensive and accurate as possible, I was constrained by a number of factors that must be mentioned at the outset.
• Government representation in various aspects was limited
• The accuracy was doubtful which lead to more investigations
• Time and resource constraints precluded collection of data
• The relatively small number of respondents
• The language of the small questionnaire i.e. English also posed a limitation as knowledge bearer
• Ongoing concerns in the country limited to the various locations to be approached for valuable data
• Driver took a leave to his sister’s wedding caused a lot of trouble for transportation
• Parents permission on visiting some locations for information made a few obstacles
• The temperature of Lahore being a major factor
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