Ottawa bolsters aid to Pakistan

By Campbell Clark

Globe and Mail , August 13, 2009

Canada will expand aid to Pakistan, notably to bolster the weak public school system that has left a void to be filled by fundamentalist madrassas, as Ottawa increasingly views the country's stability as key to success in Afghanistan. In Pakistan Wednesday, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda pledged $25-million for food, water and emergency shelter for refugees who fled a Pakistani military offensive against Taliban insurgents four months ago.

Canada will expand aid to Pakistan, notably to bolster the weak public school system that has left a void to be filled by fundamentalist madrassas, as Ottawa increasingly views the country's stability as key to success in Afghanistan.

In Pakistan Wednesday, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda pledged $25-million for food, water and emergency shelter for refugees who fled a Pakistani military offensive against Taliban insurgents four months ago.

Many of the more than two million people who left their homes in the Swat Valley in April are returning. But the huge numbers of refugees have placed a strain on local resources, and reconstruction efforts will be costly.

“They're rebuilding police stations, judiciary, making sure that power is available, water is available, gas is available,” said Ms. Oda, who visited the Jalozai Internally Displaced Persons camp Tuesday.

In addition to the $25-million in emergency aid, Canada will expand its longer-term development assistance to Pakistan, Ms. Oda said, as it joins other countries in linking success against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan – the largest single recipient of Canadian aid – with stability in Pakistan.

“Afghanistan is Canada's biggest mission,” she said. “We do share with the United States and other countries working in Afghanistan [a recognition] of the importance of Pakistan to achieve the objectives we want to achieve in Afghanistan.

“There will be enhanced engagement,” she said.

Ms. Oda emphasized aid for public education as a priority. Canadian aid to Pakistan – $43-million in 2007-08 – already funds a teacher-training program in Karachi and primary-school education in some rural areas.

“We've been very successful in our teacher training, and good-quality education within the public system of education is one of the key aspects of ensuring that those in the border areas and those throughout Pakistan are going to benefit from Canada's contribution,” Ms. Oda said.

Pakistan's under-funded and patchy public education system is seen as one reason for the growing influence of madrassas, religious schools run by Muslim clerics.

Those schools offer free or low-cost education in poor areas where public schools are rundown or non-existent, and enroll an estimated 5 per cent of the country's pupils.

Some madrassas are viewed as training grounds for Taliban insurgents, although experts note that only a small minority of the 15,000 or more madrassas in Pakistan preach violence or serve as Taliban recruiting grounds.

“A lot more attention has to be paid to education. Especially in sort of far-flung areas, underdeveloped areas. The establishment of schools, and giving opportunities for children to go to schools,” Mian Gul Akbar Zeb, Pakistan's high commissioner to Canada, said in an interview.

“The madrassas do sort of attract people from a lot of the backward areas in Pakistan. So greater attention has to be paid to primary education.”

Canada's move follows a trend among Western allies – led by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama – of linking Pakistan and Afghanistan as a regional security issue.

Insurgents cross the border between the two at will, and there are fears that Pakistan, a nuclear-weapons state of 133 million people, could be destabilized by Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents.

The Taliban surged out of Pakistan's border regions to seize areas 100 kilometres from the capital, Islamabad, before Pakistani troops killed 1,700 of them in the spring offensive.

“I can't say that they have destroyed them all together, but they have put them back many years,” Mr. Zeb said.

In April, donor countries pledged $5-billion (U.S.) in aid to Pakistan, including $1-billion each from the United States and Japan. Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, Lawrence Cannon, initially suggested Ottawa would not increase aid to Pakistan.

Mr. Zeb said Ottawa has not officially told Pakistan that aid will increase, “but the indications were there. There was already a policy review, we were told, on Pakistan, and there would be a greater commitment after that.”

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