National Environment Policy 2005: A Gender Perspective

The impact of developmental activities has created a huge imbalance in the global ecological system, throwing up the challenges like climate change, soil erosion, land degradation, ozone depletion, air and water pollution etc. These challenges affect the lives of men and women in different ways as they use their environment differently. This is largely due to the gender-specific division of labour found in most societies. It is well established that the poor and women are more exposed to environmental and other disasters.

Since the early 1980s, considerable attention has been devoted to the relationship between women and the environment. The governments and development agencies have become much more responsive to the need of considering gender issues in their environmental and natural resource management programmes. Momentum was gathered at the first World Conference on Women in Nairobi (1985), where it was recognized that the themes of "women and development" and the "environment" were interlinked and needed to be incorporated. The main objective of incorporating gender in environment is to enable women and men perform their roles in the best cost effective methods that will conserve the environment, accelerate sustainable development, consequently leading to the improvement in people’s quality of life.

Pakistan too has tried to respond to this challenge in its National Environment Policy 2005. In our next I-SAPS Seminar, scheduled to be held on Thursday, February 19, 2009, we plan to analyze this document from a gender perspective. The Seminar will focus on:

 1. Exploring the Environment-Gender nexus.

 2. To what extent National Environment Policy 2005 has incorporated gender concerns?

The Seminar will be delivered by Dr. Rukhsana Hasan. Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri will be the discussant.

Dr. Rukhsana Hasan

Dr. Rukhsana Hasan is Programme Coordinator Gender Studies, Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Rawalpindi. She is also serving as Assistant Editor of university’s biannual Journal of Gender & Social Issues. Earlier, she has worked as Staff Anthropologist, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Research Coordinator, York University, Toronto, Canada, and Senior Research Associate, Institute of Development Anthropology, Binghamton University, New York. She holds Master and PhD degrees in Anthropology from the same university. 

Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri

Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri is Executive Director of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad. He earned his PhD in Food Security from the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, United Kingdom. He was previously also associated with Oxfam GB Pakistan, as Head of Programs. His research interests include decentralization of power, institutional reforms, and sustainable forest management. He is serving on various policy forums at national, regional, and international levels. He has been published in many national and international journals.

  ‘Estacode, Governance and Human Resource Management’

 Estacode is an old document initially published in 1923. Additions were made from time to time and today Estacode is a document of over 1350 pages. Estacode provides rules of governance relating to recruitment, selection, transfer, promotion, retirement etc of government employees. Estacode is the back bone of the personnel governance system. However, governance reforms initiated in Pakistan from time to time have ignored reforming Estacode.

Estacode is supposed to provide direction, motivation, guidance and implementation of the government system. Realizing the importance of Estacode a few countries were studied which have been using similar documents for governance system during the last 50 years. It is revealed that most of the countries including Australia, UK, Germany and Canada had revised their Estacode as recently as 90s.  Their focus was to revise it on the basis of Human Resource Management practices.

Human resource management is a relatively new phenomenon which emerged around 30-35 years ago. Why people work and why people work better has changed during the last decades and now new approaches in the human resource management are used to study human behaviour at work. In today’s world, work environment has changed; it is possible that the stage of industrialization has impacted the work behavior. It is also possible that globalization and better communication system have affected the way workers are thinking. It is also possible that change in technology has influenced the behaviour of the workers.

Whatever may be the reason for this, Human Resource Management theory suggests that productivity and work efficiency cannot increase without giving due importance to the worker it self. This has necessitated that Human Resource Management should be part of Estacode.

In our seminar on Thursday, January 15, 2009, we will discuss the importance of effective human resource management for efficient governance. The seminar will focus on the following main topics:

      ·          What is Estacode?

·          Viewing Estacode from the standpoint of Human Resource Management theory.

·          How Estacode, human resource management and governance are interlinked?

The seminar will be delivered by Dr Syed Tahir Hijazi, Mr. Tahir Masood, and Ms. Komal Khalid. Mr. Salim Jehangir will be the discussant.

Dr. Syed Tahir Hijazi

Dr. Syed Tahir Hijazi is a Professor of Institutional Change and Human Resources and Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, International Islamic University, (IIU) Islamabad. Dr. Hijazi has a vast experience in research, teaching, consulting, and institution building. He was a key member of the teams which established Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, and Institute of Islamic Economics at IIU. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics focusing on institutional change and Governance from Clark University Massachusetts (USA), an MA in Economic Policy from Boston University Boston (USA), and MPhil and MSc in Economics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Besides Pakistan, he has worked in Greece and USA. 

Mr. Tahir Masood Qureshi

Mr. Tahir Masood Qureshi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Management Sciences, International Islamic University, Islamabad. He is an expert in Human Resource Management (HRM), a Management Trainer and an Information Researcher. He has to his credit several research and newspaper publications in the field of HRM. He is enrolled in PhD in HRM at Muhammad Ali Jinnah University from where he earlier did an MS (HRM) and an MBA (Information Technology).

Ms. Komal Khalid Bhatti

Ms. Komal Khalid Bhatti is a Lecturer at Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, Islamabad. She is the author of several research publications in the field of HRM. She is enrolled in PhD in HRM at Muhammad Ali Jinnah University from where she earlier did an MS (HRM). She also has an MBA (Information Technology) from Comsats Institute of Information Technology

Mr. Salim Jehangir

Mr. Salim Jehangir has a distinguished career in Civil Service of Pakistan. He has a vast experience of serving in Establishment Division from where he retired as Director General Management Services Wing. Earlier, he had served also as the Deputy Secretary Establishment Division. He holds an MBA from the University of New Heaven Connecticut, USA, an MA in Economics and LLB from Punjab University, Lahore.