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People’s Petition
His
Excellency Mr. Makhdoom Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani
Prime Minister of Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Pakistan has signed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in UN
millennium summit year 2000. After more than 9 years the progress in
Pakistan has been dismal, unimpressive and without any hope for improvement in
near future.
Honorable Sir, you will agree with us that all the key subjects of social
development, especially primary education and basic health are still not in the
priority list of the government of Pakistan thus this low progress. With
this dismal progress we fear that Pakistan will be a non-achiever of these basic
and minimal MDGs targets by the year 2015.
The
basic statistics and human development indicators in Pakistan are still dismally
low. According to the reliable sources and governments’ own statistics, nearly
45% population of this country is still living in abject poverty. The
literacy rate is only 55% while the early dropout rate is increasing as
according to the dropout ratio at primary level is 31.1%, 15.9% at
middle level while 15.6% at High level while
42 Million
Children of school age have no access to education. The Government is spending
only 2.4% of the GDP on education and 0.6% on health sector.
However, Government has promised to allocate 4% of GDP for education till 2010
but it seems another promise like MDGs. Ironically the amounts are reduced
during the financial year owning to different reasons. Similarly the current IMR
is 68/1000 and MMR 56/1000, safe drinking water access to 36%
population only.
Honorable Sir, you will agree with us that investment on these development
goals is not just a requirement or compulsion under international agreements but
a basic and strategic investment on the future of this country. The country and
its citizens deserve attention from its leaders and we hope that you and your
government will go a step forward and give these essential social development
aspects priority. We also humbly request you to increase the development outlay
on primary education and basic health up to 10% as this will set the
foundation for better achievements in these areas. We are sure that these Goals
can be achieved if the Government increases public resource allocations in
budget or optimum utilization of available resources for addressing the issues
of poverty. We also request you to establish MDGs Commission so that the
monitoring of the MDGs should be done by the Government and Civil Society
Organizations together.
Global Call to Action Against Poverty:
GCAP-Global
Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) is a coalition of civil society
organizations, social movements, social groups and networks, , human rights
organizations, peasants, workers, teachers, youth movements among many others.
GCAP is also part of a broader 132 countries campaign that is being run in these
countries with local strengths.
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