The development isn’t about erecting monuments; it’s about igniting systems that pulse with life
By Mohammad Ehsan Leghari
Imagine a dusty village in Sindh, where the air once thrummed with the beat of drums and the cheers of hopeful crowds. A brand-new road had just been unveiled, promising to connect dreams to distant opportunities. Children clapped, elders nodded wisely, and leaders boasted of a brighter tomorrow. But two short years later, under the fury of monsoon rains, that same road fractures like brittle clay, sinking into the earth as if mocking the very hope it once inspired.
Nearby, the skeleton of a school stands abandoned, its unfinished walls now a playground for wandering goats, their bleats echoing where children’s laughter should ring. Drains, gleaming at their inauguration, now betray the homes they were built to shield, spewing floodwaters back into humble doorways. And the grand hospital? Its modern facade hides empty halls—no doctors in sight, no medicines on shelves—forcing desperate families to scour bazaars for lifesaving supplies.
This heartbreaking cycle isn’t mere misfortune; it’s woven into Pakistan’s fabric, a tale repeated from the valleys of Azad Kashmir and the mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan to the plains of Punjab, the coasts of Sindh, the rugged terrains of Balochistan, and the hills of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Take the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project: envisioned as a powerhouse of energy, it stumbled through eight years of delays, ballooning costs from Rs.84 billion to over Rs500 billion, plagued by design flaws, poor execution, and sheer mismanagement (Dawn, 2025). Or the devastating 2022 floods, which laid bare outdated infrastructure and governance lapses, turning promises of resilience into rivers of despair, with over 700,000 homes destroyed and critical bridges and roads obliterated (The Friday Times, 2025). These aren’t isolated blunders—they’re the bitter fruit of planning that favors flash over foundation, often prioritizing political optics over technical rigor and long-term sustainability.
The Hidden Rot: Governance Gone Astray
Pin the blame on a single shady contractor or slack official, and the fix seems simple: swap them out and cross your fingers. But peel back the layers, and you’ll find a deeper wound—a fundamental flaw in the thinking that drives governance. At its best, governance is the quiet architect of progress, channeling resources with wisdom to create systems that endure, ensuring equitable distribution and predictable institutional performance (OECD, 2020). Yet too often, it chases the shimmer of quick victories: bridges for ballots, buildings for headlines, all while skimping on the essentials like maintenance crews, steady budgets, and vigilant oversight.
Real change whispers rather than shouts. It’s in the unglamorous grind: training dedicated staff, securing funds for the long haul, and empowering communities to keep watch. Skip these, and even the mightiest structures crumble, leaving billions squandered and lives unchanged, as evidenced by recurring infrastructure failures across South Asia (Ringold et al., 2012).
Planning: The Beating Heart of True Progress
Picture planning as the sharp mind behind every bold move—the moment a nation pauses to ask: What are we building? Why here, why now? How will we pull it off, and how will we know if it succeeds? But this power awakens only with unflinching honesty, probing questions like: Does this heal real pains, or just paint a pretty picture? Have we truly listened to the voices it touches? And what of the earth, the women, the forgotten edges of society (UNDP, 2008)? Effective planning integrates environmental, social, gender, and equity concerns to ensure projects are not just built but transformative (OECD, 2019–2021).
Voices That Must Be Heard: Defining and Pursuing Inclusive Development
Societies aren’t cold stacks of stone; they’re alive with stories—of soaring ambitions, grinding hardships, fragile dreams flickering in the dark. At the core of addressing these stories lies inclusive development, which can be defined as a process that ensures all segments of society, particularly the marginalized, vulnerable, and poor, actively participate in and equitably benefit from economic growth and social progress, leaving no one behind (UNDP, 2008; OECD, 2020). This approach recognizes that true advancement isn’t measured by GDP alone but by how it reduces inequalities, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable well-being for everyone.
Yet, in Pakistan, where poverty grips 44.7% of the population under the revised World Bank threshold of $4.20 per person per day; with extreme poverty at 16.5% on the $3 line, this ideal remains elusive (Wieser, 2025). These figures, based on outdated 2018-19 data, exclude post-2019 shocks like COVID-19 and the 2022 floods, and now further aggravated by 2025 floods, suggesting the reality is even grimmer. Out of an estimated 100 million living below these lines, the rural majority bears the heaviest burden, where poverty rates can soar as high as 76.9% in districts like Tharparkar and coastal Sindh even surpassing 80% (Wikipedia, 2025; World Bank, 2025). Why, then, are the poor who form the majority, especially in rural Pakistan, systematically excluded from the development process? The reasons are multifaceted: elite-driven decision-making that favors urban elites and political patrons; bureaucratic silos that overlook grassroots input; corruption and nepotism that divert resources; and a lack of mechanisms for meaningful participation, such as community consultations or transparent budgeting (Ringold et al., 2012). In rural areas, where access to education, healthcare, and markets is already limited, projects often bypass local needs, exacerbating inequalities rather than alleviating them.
Compounding this monetary hardship is the stark reality of multidimensional poverty, which captures deprivations beyond income: in health, education, and living standards. According to the 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), 38.3% of Pakistan’s population lives in acute multidimensional poverty, with an intensity of 51.7%—meaning the poor are deprived in over half of the weighted indicators on average (OPHI, 2025). The rural-urban divide is pronounced: 49.8% in rural areas versus 18.0% in urban zones, highlighting how overlapping issues like malnutrition, lack of schooling, and inadequate sanitation trap nearly half of rural dwellers in vulnerability. Though the national MPI has modestly declined from 44.5% in 2012-2013, these figures which are based on 2017-18 data in fact underscore how excluding the poor from planning perpetuates cycles of deprivation, making inclusive development not just an ideal but an urgent necessity to bridge these gaps.
Inclusive planning honors this humanity, battling inequality by drawing in the rural mother, landless farmers, street laborer, the wise elder, the differently abled soul (OECD, 2020). Shut them out, and roads turn treacherous for women, drains drown the poorest slums, schools rise far from the children who need them most. Bangladesh has woven such voices into disaster defenses, yielding stronger shields. Learning from these lessons from country like us, we can turn vulnerability into strength, as inclusive approaches have proven to enhance resilience and equity (UNDP, 2008).
Beyond Bricks: Vision for Tomorrow
Building is easy; sustaining is the art, management and governance. A hospital demands more than walls; it needs doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff with secure futures, steady streams of medicines, ongoing training, and budgets that breathe life into every corner (OECD, 2019–2021). The same holds for every road, school, or canal. Smart tools like Results-Based Management peer into the future, spotting storms before they strike, by systematically addressing assumptions, risks, outcomes, and impacts (OECD DAC, 2002). With South Asia staring at trillion-dollar infrastructure voids, shoddy planning only deepens the chasm, exacerbating economic losses and social disparities.
When Politics Hijacks the Blueprint
All too often, fanfare precedes facts: leaders trumpet roads for rallies, sketch bridges without studying the waters below, polish plazas while classrooms gather dust. CPEC’s tangled delays whisper this truth: ignoring local hearts and hands dooms even grand visions to dust, as delays in phase implementation stem from inadequate community involvement and mismanagement (The Diplomat, 2025). It’s not one villain’s doing; it’s a cultural trap, where planning becomes paperwork, birthing projects destined to fail under their own weight (OECD, 2023).
Accountability: From Shadows to Spotlight
Raids and probes spark fear, but they rarely heal the system (Ringold et al., 2012). True power blooms when ordinary folks master the language of change: a farmer demanding, “Did you map the risks?” A reporter pressing, “Show me the success markers.” A mother querying, “Why build the school so far from our homes?” This is how things should move and evolve.
Glimmers of Hope: Building on Successes
Yet amid the ruins, there are beacons of what good governance can achieve. In Sindh, the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) stands as a triumph, with 28 hospitals offering free, state-of-the-art cardiac care across the province—from emergency chest pain units to groundbreaking procedures like Pakistan’s longest ECMO survival case (NICVD, 2022). Supported by the Sindh government, NICVD has performed over 4,000 cardiac surgeries and provided free MRIs, revolutionizing access for millions and saving countless lives (NICVD, n.d.). Equally inspiring is the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), a model of compassionate, free healthcare that treats nearly a million patients annually.
On the education front, Punjab’s Daanish Schools offer a ray of light for underprivileged children, providing free, quality boarding education in remote areas. These schools, the largest such network in Pakistan, have empowered thousands from marginalized communities (Balochistan Pulse, 2025). Now expanding nationwide—with federal approval for Rs19.25 billion to build more in Balochistan, Sindh, AJK, and Chitral—these initiatives show the potential when planning is inclusive and forward-thinking (Profit Pakistan Today, 2025). Imagine Danish Schools reaching every corner of Pakistan, bridging educational divides and nurturing the next generation.
These successes prove it’s possible; they must be scaled up, not sidelined, to replicate their impact across sectors.
A Future That Endures
In the end, development isn’t about erecting monuments; it’s about igniting systems that pulse with life: schools brimming with eager learners across generations, hospitals mending bodies with compassion, roads defying decades of downpours (OECD, 2023). This vision demands a seismic shift—to plans rooted in deep analysis, not dazzle; inclusion that weaves in every thread; accountability fueled by shared wisdom, not dread; and citizens claiming planning as their sacred right.
Pakistan, the time for shattered illusions is over. Let’s craft a narrative of resilience, where every project stands tall, every dream takes root, and our shared future shines unbreakable.
References
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Mohammad Ehsan Leghari is Member (Sindh), Indus River System Authority, and former Managing Director, SIDA.
