Annual Report 2009-10 - Sustainable Development Policy Institute

Annual Report2009 - 2010Message from the Executive DirectorWhile this report is being sent for printing we are about to say good byeto year 2010. One can say that as a nation we achieved very little onsu stainable development in 2010. The country, which had been facingthe six Fs (food, fiscal, fuel, functional democracy (read governance),frontiers (read security), and fragility of climate) challenge had to face yetanother challenge “Floods”. Floods have a multiplier effect on Pakistan'sexisting challenges and indeed one sympathizes with the government aswell as the people of Pakistan.The only point of optimism is people's resilience and courage in dealing with these natural andman made crises. This resilience is reflected at all levels and SDPI is no exception. Research isheavily underfunded both in the developed as well as the developing world. There is extremelylittle fiscal and policy maneuvering space for independent research organizations and independentresearchers in countries like Pakistan. Despite the lack of any endowment or core funding,the SDPI team kept on delivering its best.We carried out primary research in areas of food security; climate change; gender justice; sustainableindustrial development; international financial institutes and economic development inPakistan; impact of micro-credit schemes on poverty reduction; quality education; forest management;livelihood security; electricity governance; institutional arrangement for renewable energy;water and sanitation; regional trade and imagining a new South Asia etc. SDPI is a participatorymember of all of the Ministry of Environment's core groups on climate change. It is also amember of other Ministry's core groups on climate change such as the Ministry of Commerce,Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Water and Power. In its policy development roleSDPI has actively contributed to the ongoing discourse on Green Economics', technical groups,adaptation and mitigation, climate change and food and domestic security and inter nationalboundary matters.Like always, during 2010 we again remained active in policy outreach and continued to turn ourresearch into policy recommendations. In addition to holding our weekly public seminars, specialpolicy dialogues and roundtable, conferences, and press briefings, we also served on variouspol i cy maki ng forums such as the Pl anni ng Commi ssi on's Task Forces, as wel l as Advi soryBodies, and Steering Committees of various governmental, non governmental, and bilateral projects.We were part of the official delegation to Copenhagen Climate Change negotiations aswell as Cancun Climate Change negotiations. SDPI proposes to continue its involvement in thedevelopment of dialogues and policy discourse on sustainability and takes this opportunity toboth thank and encourage all parties, who have and may have an interest in the ongoing prosperityof Pakistan to become and be actively involved.One of our colleagues, Mr. Ahmad Salim (Mohammad Salim Khawaja) was conferred the PresidentialPride of Performance Award for his literary services. All of the above mentioned (andmuch more which is not reported here) is a proof of our resilience as well as dedicated teamwork. This is what we delivered despite the worst financial crunch that SDPI in particular andindependent research organizations in general are facing in this country.Finally, I am happy to report that our hard work seems to pay off. In September 2010, after a rigorouscompetitive process, we were selected by Canada's International Development ResearchCentre (IDRC) for its Think Tank Initiative Grant. SDPI is amongst another 27 think tanks or independentpolicy research institutions, in Latin America and South Asia who would receive atotal of US$35 million to strengthen their roles as influential players in national policymaking.Each think tank will receive long-term funding, enabling them to conduct research that is fundamentalto the development of sound policy.8S u s t a I n a b l e D e v e l o p m e n t P o l I c y I n s t I t u t e