Humanist Network
mobile phone as agent of positive change
The Chinese seem to be making good progress....
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Chris Cork
Development work in this multi-sectarian area has always been fraught with difficulty. Work which seems to favour one community arouses the ire of others. Nobody is ever happy that everybody is getting a square deal. From my years spent as a development worker here I knew full-well that some communities were better served than others, and that at least some of the jealousies and anger had a foundation in fact. It was and is also true that the communities have a tendency to shoot themselves in the foot from time to time – when they are not shooting one another between the eyes, that is. My last stint here as an NGO manager was in 2005, a year in which Gilgit once again tore itself apart with sectarian strife. It was a difficult year and I was not sorry to leave. Today, things are quiet and an awful lot has changed in a very short time.
Countless millions of dollars have been spent on developing health, education and infrastructure across the whole of Gilgit/Baltistan. Dozens – perhaps hundreds at the peak – of agencies have worked here with varying degrees of success. Some things worked and some didn’t. Education projects for the most part worked, but a lot of agricultural projects didn’t. Health usually worked but was patchy and uneven. Infrastructure projects – water channels for irrigation, mini-hydels and roads – were painfully slow to get off the ground and often dogged by inter-valley conflict. Conservative areas were slower to develop and harder to reach. Less conservative areas were easier to work with and got a bigger slice of the cake. The missing ingredient, the catalyst that looks like it is for the first time bringing real change for everybody, arrived soon after I left at the end of ’05. It is not some grand scheme worked out by development professionals, nor a durable peace treaty hammered into shape by assorted jirgas… it is the ever-so-humble mobile phone.
The growth of the telecoms industry in Pakistan and the effects it has had on the population is patchily researched and documented, but there is ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that the arrival of the mobile phone in Pakistan is the single largest universal change-agent of the last decade. Nowhere have I seen this change more starkly illustrated than here in Gilgit/Baltistan. The mobile phone has, quite literally, revolutionised life here. Mobiles are for everybody. The mobile companies will sell to anybody whatever their sect, and build relay masts wherever there is a population big enough to justify the cost. This is something for everybody, rich and poor (packages tailored to all pockets) and the uptake has been phenomenal.
The biggest impact has been in the agricultural sector. Soft fruits – cherries, apricots, mulberries, apples – are notoriously difficult to get from garden to market. They spoil quickly and ideally need to be picked, transported and on sale down-country in less than twenty-four hours, thirty-six at most. Local growers were always at the mercy of middle-men who made the deal down-country. They fixed the prices and controlled the market. The mobile phone has changed that and changed it fast. Growers now have direct access to the markets and the wholesalers, and even small producers are able to make their own deals. Local pickers are ready and waiting when the transport arrives, the fruit is at its optimum and is picked, packed and loaded and away far quicker, and without the rake-off of the middle-man, than it was pre-mobile. Potato producers tell the same story – and many is the year I have seen potatoes rot by the road — but now, they say, never again. The beauty of it is that the benefit has accrued to everyone equally. The playing field suddenly got a lot more level courtesy of the mobile phone. Naturally, this is not popular with everybody as it is altering some of the traditional balances but for the first time some of the most deprived valleys are seeing real benefit, real development. Real money in their pockets.
But a note of caution… the Chinese are coming and they are in here for the long haul. There is a strong sense of abandonment by people across the social classes and sects, a sense that the centre has never really paid them much attention, never really listened to them. An angry susurrus that they have always ‘been ruled by Punjabis’. China is the rich and helpful neighbour that is pouring money and resources into the area. Chinese tourists are beginning to trickle in – if there was an air-link to Kashgar the trickle would become a flood. The Chinese are building shopping centres, roads… communications networks. Eyes here turn northwards when they look for change and investment. The message for the centre is ‘wake up’ – because as the saying goes it is the early bird that catches the worm and those up-early Chinese birds are currently having a feast.
The writer is a British social worker settled in Pakistan. Email:manticore73@gmail.com
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Chris Cork
Development work in this multi-sectarian area has always been fraught with difficulty. Work which seems to favour one community arouses the ire of others. Nobody is ever happy that everybody is getting a square deal. From my years spent as a development worker here I knew full-well that some communities were better served than others, and that at least some of the jealousies and anger had a foundation in fact. It was and is also true that the communities have a tendency to shoot themselves in the foot from time to time – when they are not shooting one another between the eyes, that is. My last stint here as an NGO manager was in 2005, a year in which Gilgit once again tore itself apart with sectarian strife. It was a difficult year and I was not sorry to leave. Today, things are quiet and an awful lot has changed in a very short time.
Countless millions of dollars have been spent on developing health, education and infrastructure across the whole of Gilgit/Baltistan. Dozens – perhaps hundreds at the peak – of agencies have worked here with varying degrees of success. Some things worked and some didn’t. Education projects for the most part worked, but a lot of agricultural projects didn’t. Health usually worked but was patchy and uneven. Infrastructure projects – water channels for irrigation, mini-hydels and roads – were painfully slow to get off the ground and often dogged by inter-valley conflict. Conservative areas were slower to develop and harder to reach. Less conservative areas were easier to work with and got a bigger slice of the cake. The missing ingredient, the catalyst that looks like it is for the first time bringing real change for everybody, arrived soon after I left at the end of ’05. It is not some grand scheme worked out by development professionals, nor a durable peace treaty hammered into shape by assorted jirgas… it is the ever-so-humble mobile phone.
The growth of the telecoms industry in Pakistan and the effects it has had on the population is patchily researched and documented, but there is ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that the arrival of the mobile phone in Pakistan is the single largest universal change-agent of the last decade. Nowhere have I seen this change more starkly illustrated than here in Gilgit/Baltistan. The mobile phone has, quite literally, revolutionised life here. Mobiles are for everybody. The mobile companies will sell to anybody whatever their sect, and build relay masts wherever there is a population big enough to justify the cost. This is something for everybody, rich and poor (packages tailored to all pockets) and the uptake has been phenomenal.
The biggest impact has been in the agricultural sector. Soft fruits – cherries, apricots, mulberries, apples – are notoriously difficult to get from garden to market. They spoil quickly and ideally need to be picked, transported and on sale down-country in less than twenty-four hours, thirty-six at most. Local growers were always at the mercy of middle-men who made the deal down-country. They fixed the prices and controlled the market. The mobile phone has changed that and changed it fast. Growers now have direct access to the markets and the wholesalers, and even small producers are able to make their own deals. Local pickers are ready and waiting when the transport arrives, the fruit is at its optimum and is picked, packed and loaded and away far quicker, and without the rake-off of the middle-man, than it was pre-mobile. Potato producers tell the same story – and many is the year I have seen potatoes rot by the road — but now, they say, never again. The beauty of it is that the benefit has accrued to everyone equally. The playing field suddenly got a lot more level courtesy of the mobile phone. Naturally, this is not popular with everybody as it is altering some of the traditional balances but for the first time some of the most deprived valleys are seeing real benefit, real development. Real money in their pockets.
But a note of caution… the Chinese are coming and they are in here for the long haul. There is a strong sense of abandonment by people across the social classes and sects, a sense that the centre has never really paid them much attention, never really listened to them. An angry susurrus that they have always ‘been ruled by Punjabis’. China is the rich and helpful neighbour that is pouring money and resources into the area. Chinese tourists are beginning to trickle in – if there was an air-link to Kashgar the trickle would become a flood. The Chinese are building shopping centres, roads… communications networks. Eyes here turn northwards when they look for change and investment. The message for the centre is ‘wake up’ – because as the saying goes it is the early bird that catches the worm and those up-early Chinese birds are currently having a feast.
The writer is a British social worker settled in Pakistan. Email:manticore73@gmail.com
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