ASSIGNMENT NO 5

TOPIC
The institutional context of local GOVT
Submitted To
Dr Anwar Ul Haq
Submitted By
Samra khan
17232720-032
MBA 7th
Subject
Management theory and practices

Date
10-Dec-2020

University of Gujarat
Introduction
The national context is also favorable to women’s participation in governance. There are several
constitutional and policy provisions that exist in Pakistan that can be leveraged for greater
participation of people in general and women in particular in local governance and the growth of
local government system in the country.

Women in Pakistan obtained the right to vote and version with the independence of the country
from British colonial rule in 1947. The structure of Pakistan (1973) guarantee full nationality
rights to women. There has been a legal if for the rider of seats for women in the national and
provincial assembly in the constitution of 1956 (10 seats), 1962 (6 seats) and 1973 (10 seats). At
the Local Government level, in the first local bodies elections held in 1959 under the military
dictatorship of General Ayub Khan, women were not given any symbol. Howe ever, in the
subsequent Local Government ordinance of Punjab (1979), NWFP (1979), Sind (1979) and
Baluchistan (1980) seats were held in reserve for women in local bodies.

The Institutional Context of Local Government

Delegation of Power and the normal of secondary is central to the idea of substantive independent system.
The devolved system of primacy opens up opening for citizen’s participation and voice in confined
authority. The nature of the decision course in Pakistan is one that was usually occupied by the feudal,
civil and services bureaucracy and thoroughly disqualified people from supremacy processes and formal
structures. It was not in the interest of a highly federal post-colonial state of Pakistan to share and devolve
political, administrative and financial power to provincial and local authorities. 41. Therefore, the history
of local governments is a story of political choreography and manipulation by the ruling elite in Pakistan.
Out of eight local government elections held in the electoral history of Pakistan (1959, 1979, 1983, 1987,
1998, 2001, 2005) all of them with the exception of one (1998) were held by unarmed dictator. The
reason behind military dictators’ interest in the local government lied in their quest to find political
legitimacy and to build a voters base for themselves through confined government election. Whereas male
and elite leadership of political parties were least interested in strengthening the local government
because of the risk of losing control to the local leadership that may have appear in this course.

The neglect of local government by the successive civil regime and the treatment of local government by
the military dictatorships in Pakistan have seriously hampered democratic and institutional development
of the country. Local government, as the backbone of a democratic system, serves as a next day nursery
and creates space for people to directly engage in determining local development priorities. People’s
participation in the local government system that directly impacts their daily lives creates higher public
stakes in the system of social equality. In the absence of strong and effective local governments, people’s
voices and concerns cannot be included in governance. The provincial and state tiers of rule are
moderately distance and out-of-the-way to the broad public to engage in governmental functions with
their government. Local administrations provide breathing space and opportunity for people’s input in
local ascendancy. Absence or weak local government poses a high risk of following separation in the
middle of people.

No seats were kept for women in the class of Nazim and Naib Nazim. As a result only two women were
elected as district nazim from Khairpur and Raheela Magsi from Tando Allah Yar . Both of them
belonged to well known political families.

Another serious anomaly in the Local Government System relates to the fact that the Union Council,
which is the only tier of government directly elected by people and closest to the electorate, has the least
administrative and fiscal power to run its own affairs.

Instead of devolving power from the Federal Government to Provinces and from Provinces to Districts,
the LGO by-passed the provincial tier and devolved power from the Center to the District. This led to
further centralization in the name of decentralization and created the problem of legitimacy and
ownership for the system.

Impact of Women on Local Institutions and Development

Gender disparities in society are often attributed to women’s lack of power and participation in the
decision-making bodies at all levels: family, community and the state. Women’s exclusion in politics and
government has been globally addressed through the provision of gender quotas in politics and the
government. Women’s inclusion in institutional structures has been argued through the use of
instrumental and intrinsic rationale. Women’s rights organizations and activists challenged the male
domination and masculine culture of institutions within the human rights framework and argued for
greater women’s input and representation is essential for deepen self-ruled system and more fair
development outcomes. Whereas the other point of view that used an instrumentalist rationale for
women’s inclusion believed that women had a distinct perspective in development and in legislative
priorities. They argue that women’s contribution in politics will bring a difference to politics and
institutions because of their caring nature. It is also argued that women have different needs, concerns and
interests and only women representatives could aggregate and represent women’s collective interests.

In line with its National (Article 32 of the Constitution, NPA, National Policy on Women’s
Empowerment) and the International Commitments (CEDAW, BPFA, MDGs), the military government
of General Musharraf introduced 33 percent gender quota in all three tier of local government in 2001. In
view of historic exclusion of women in politics, the general perception among the public was that women
will not come forward to take the opportunity offered by the affirmative action measure and reserved
seats for women will not be filled. The civil society took the challenge and launched a national “Citizen
Campaign for Women’s Representation in Local Government” with the multicolor support to ensure
women’s participation and representation the in the local government. Contrary to public perception, only
9.6 percent seats reserved for women remained vacant in local government election 2001. A total of
36,105 women were elected, 23,222 came through constituency based direct election at the union council
level, 3741 came at tehsil and district level, 16 of them were elected as Nazim and Naib Nazim at
different levels of LG. Two of them were elected as Nazima from district Khairpur and Nawab shah in the
province of Sindh. 126 women were elected on seats reserved for minorities.
Firstly, it was a common complaint by women councilors working at all three tiers of the local
government across provinces that they were denied physical space in district, tehsil and union councils
offices where they could sit and execute their official duties. They were unable to stay around in local
government offices after the meetings due to lack of physical space available to them. This was the
functional constraint that was systemically created by the Nazism at all three tiers of government in order
to discourage women to play their role in local governance. The lack of infrastructural support to women
councilors resulted into difficulties for women councilors to meet, to share their experiences and to
network amongst them. Moreover, it also restricted people’s access to reach their women representatives
in the local government. Another form of male resistance to women’s political participation and
representation was that women councilors were often not invite to the meeting. This was a regular
complaint of women councilors working especially at the union council level that they were not informed
by their chairperson about the meeting. Women councilors at the district and tehsil level mentioned that
they were often not allowed to speak in the meetings by the Nazims. There were a number of incidents
where women councilors protested against the discriminatory behavior of male Nazism and staged.

Key challenges
 Patriarchal Institutions of Local Government
 Lack of Capacity
 Lack of Power Base
 Emerging Risks to Women’s Political Participation
 Lack of confidence