UN official wants to return to school

Hera Diani and Riyadi Suparno, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

If you were an activist dealing with poverty and other problems in developing countries, there would have to be many frustrating things along the way.

That is particularly true for UN Assistant Secretary-General Hafiz A. Pasha, who, with almost two decades of experience in public service, has to deal with the same problems over and over.

However, the obstacles are minute compared to the tedium of working as bureaucrat in his home country of Pakistan.

Previous to the work with the UN, Pasha was involved in high-level consultation on policy making as a federal minister for financial and economic affairs, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, education minister and commerce minister for three governments.

"There is frustration working with the U.N., but the most frustrating period to me was when I was with the government," he told The Jakarta Post in an interview here on Tuesday, a day prior to the opening of the Asia-Pacific ministerial meeting on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"I don't think I was cut out to work in the government. It's too bureaucratic, with emphasis on ranks..."

Some people, however, criticize the U.N. for being too bureaucratic, which Pasha said was natural as it involved governmental systems where a decision must be based on consensus.

Now also the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) assistant administrator and director of the regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific, Pasha said he was "very happy working with the U.N. because I believe in the values of it."

Dealing with 37 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, he is excited to be working in the most dynamic and fastest growing region in the world.

He particularly pointed to three countries in the region as his favorites.

The first is Malaysia, which is able to maintain its moderate brand of Islam, while maintaining a strong economy.

The second is Vietnam as "it has leadership with a vision. The country has been devastated by war, but has become the most dynamic country, with a mix of different cultures, Chinese, French, and so forth," said the father of six children.

"The third country, which also amazes a lot of people, is China. China is remarkable."

In terms of his home country, however, there are surely things that have to be done in reaching the MDGs, which are meant to be achieved within the next 10 years.

Agreed upon in 2000 by 189 nations, the goals are poverty and hunger eradication, gender equality and women's empowerment, universal primary education achievement, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development.

Pasha said that the results had been mixed in his home country.

"There has been progress in poverty reduction, and there have also been some improvements. Now, of course, the government is focusing more on poverty reduction," he said.

He said he remained overly concerned with the gender issue as many countries in Asia still were very male-dominated societies.

Violence against women is common in deeply conservative Pakistan, with hundreds of women killed or brutally disfigured in so-called "honor" attacks.

Recently, the country was in the world's headlines in the case of a public gang rape of a woman by six men, as punishment for her brother's alleged illicit affair with a woman from another family.

The convictions of five of the men, however, were overturned and the sixth reduced to a life sentence, sparking an outcry by human rights groups both in Pakistan and internationally.

Pasha said that to improve gender equality, the first thing to do would be to promote the education for women.

"We need to have immediate cultural and attitude changes in South Asia, particularly, in my country. We need to promote appropriate legislation, changing the laws and so on. So there is still a lot of work that needs to be done."

As much as he is pleased to be working with the international body, Pasha said it starts to get tiring to be constantly on missions traveling extensively.

"I don't know how many times I have traveled around the world every year, around five to six times a year. I miss home a lot. Especially because two of my children are quite young," he said, adding that it was difficult to take his family on the trips.

Now based in New York, so when yearning for home, Pasha takes time to tune in to Hindi music, watch Hindi movies, or else, watch a cricket match. Pasha himself was a cricket player in school.

He said he would retire as an academic in Pakistan as he started as an academic.

Pasha has an M.A. from Cambridge University in England, and a PhD from Stanford University in California. He was once the vice chancellor and then president of the University of Karachi, as well as the dean and director of the Karachi's Institute of Business Administration.

"I will go back to my country, teach and guide PhD or masters of philosophy students ... write books."

He said there were already plans to write books based on his diary, which he has maintained about different countries he has visited.

"Also, I've had the chance to do a lot of speeches, so I develop on that," he laughed.

Teaching, he said, was the most rewarding of professions, as he meets young people with a thirst for knowledge, and he has an impact on them.

There is a saying, that those who cannot do, teach others to do.

Pasha laughed hard about it, nodding in agreement, and added "Well, that's (teaching) just me."