Framework for Economic Growth, Pakistan - Planning Commission

International conference on “Framework for Economic Growth, Pakistan”the issue of a city like Karachi which has communities with ethnic conflicts which has made itvirtually impossible for people to develop it? It is a city even where Pakistan’s economy is alsostuck. What would be your prescription for an urban city like Karachi?Answer: I am an Italian American. Mypeople were from Southern Italy. When mypeople moved to the United States they didthe same sort of things and went for ethnicclashes with Jews, Irish and other peopletypically over gaining power in informal citysectors and organized crime and mafias.This practice is very common and recurringin our cities. Only solution is to go forcreativity and engaging people. People Igrew up with as kid mostly turned intocriminals, thieves and were involved in drugdealing. As a kid, like me, they were alsovery creative but fell outside the channel asthey had no other way. Creatingmechanisms to mobilize energies is crucial.We need to channelize people and makethem more productive. One of theremarkable things happened in USA is thatwe saw our cities becoming remarkablysafer. We have immigrants from all the overthe world. But important thing is the waythis diversity is managed to handle issues.To give people hope and channelize theirenergies in more productive way is the realsolution which is good for them as well asfor the national growth. Periods oftransformation take time to have a drasticshift.Question (Dr. Nadeem Ul Haque): In this new strategy, or urban strategy, there are two to threecharges on us which I want you to tackle. People label this charge at us that this strategy is notpoor friendly as we have a focus on urban areas. Second charge is that we are ignoring ruralareas. We saw earthquake in 2005 and floods last year. There is an underline narrative that let usbuild these villages first. My question is that should we encourage mobility into the cities? Or isurban dimension way forward for poverty eradication?Answer: It is a mistake to say that somethingis urban focused and not rural friendly. Igive you an example. Many years ago I wasa part of a group between USA and Korea.There was a big debate in Seoul that it hasgrown too big and consuming all theresources. How do we reallocate andredistribute the resources in rest of Korea? Ijust said something very simple to them thatlook at Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kongand all the cities around you. If you areweak at Seoul you are gone. It doesn’tmatter what you try to do to the little cities ifyou are weak in your big cities. If you areweak in big cities and you don’t have strongcity in this spiky world your cities areunable to compete.I ask to my students that should we makehuman migration to urban areas a humanright. Should the ability to migrate andimprove yourself and your family be ahuman right? I asked them to leave theirhomes and go to some village in Africa or indeveloping countries and read theirexperiences when they come back.Everybody when came back to me afterlooking at the conditions of these villagessaid that ‘Richard you are right’. Peoplemust have the right to migrate to urbanareas. Urbanization creates the pocketswhere people come and do more, becomemore productive and innovative. Anywhereif you make these adjustments simpler andfluid it is going to improve the conditions oftheir lives, community’s life and of thecountry.Question (Dr. Nadeem Ul Haque): People also level a charge at us that we have forgotten export-122