Starting from the US, Pakistan has received financial assistance – grants and loans – from all over the world, but the country’s economic condition has kept deteriorating and has now reached a miserable state. Let us seriously look for the reason why foreign aid did not work in our case. While it is true that a lack of pragmatic economic planning halted us to get the desired results, it is also largely because we misused, rather wasted, the finances we received. There are three important elements for success of a development programme. First, it should be ‘clear and achievable’; second, there should be enough ‘resources’ to implement the programme and, third, and most important, there should be a ‘good strategy’. All three elements are equally important, but if, to start with, a project has not been properly conceived and planned on the basis of a proper feasibility, even big resources and good strategy won’t work. Simply speaking, resources were wasted because mega but unfeasible projects were undertaken which couldn’t see the light of the day.
Shahabuddin Khan
Islamabad