By Misbah ur Rehman
The Prime Minister, Imran Khan, on 14th of January 2022, initiated the first National Security Policy of Pakistan. The policy document includes every aspect of national and human security and has also presented different policy options, statements and challenges on issues of national interest. An extensive study of the document tells about the level of hard work put in to give the reasonable framework to it. All the stakeholders and team involved in the making process of this National Security Policy deserve appreciation for this piece of work.
It’s indeed a big initiative because this policy document is the very first in nature that has put the citizens at the core of development of national policy. The National Security Policy document is separated into eight parts.
First section contains the conceptual elements of National Security of Pakistan. Desired objectives and goals along with six thematic sections of the policy are mentioned in the section II of document. National Cohesion is mentioned in section III, with special emphasis on the preservation of culture and ideology, hence making the public service more centered on responding to citizen needs. While education, specifically trade, energy, economic security, and emerging technologies are mentioned in section IV. Space and Cyber security, deterrence, defense, territorial integrity are mentioned in section V, along with the policy guidelines.
Section VI, talks about the Internal Security and threats of terrorism, organized crime, extremism and nationalism. Pakistan’s overall approach towards diplomacy, bilateral relations and multilateral relations, and global alignments are discussed under Foreign Policy module in section VII. Whereas, section VIII is all about “Human Security”, that includes migration and population, climate and water security, health security, food security and gender equality.
Hence, the policy document provides a detailed framework of all the National Security matters that are to be achieved by the government in the coming five years.
A remarkable shift has brought in by the policy makers, which is of vital importance, i.e. a shift from geo-strategic to geo-economics, state centric to citizen centric, reactiveness to effectiveness, one single entity to whole government approach and from cellar to inclusiveness.
For now, we would only focus on the all-time ignored, human security domain that this security policy document has shed light on. Health of the population depends on the state’s health, political, economic, environmental, communal, food and security policies. When diseases cross the borders and affect a large number of society, leaving the system helpless, then health becomes the matter of National Security. Therefore, the issue needs a wholesome approach to be dealt with. Pakistan responded in the same way, when the country was hit by COVID-19, by the immediate formation of the National Coordination Committee and National Command and Control Committee.
These significant steps resulted in remarkable results, especially when our strategic capacity and health systems are compared to the other well developed countries. Twenty first century can be rightly said as century of virus, from polio to HIV/ AIDS to Ebola to Zika to SARS to MARS and then finally COVID-19, the viruses have affected the humanity at large in all parts of the world, and shook not only health sectors but national security and economy of the states like United States and China.
Whole world is the eye witness of the disaster Coronavirus has caused to most developed health systems like Germany, Italy, and the United States. But, this virus is indeed not the first or the last one.
Another major challenge faced by health security is frequent mutation of viruses, other zoonotic diseases and rise in drug resistance among humans. Whereas, threat of biological and chemical warfare and bio-terrorism pose a greatest threat to the peace of world. Globalization poses another major threat to the health security of the globe, where a disease or virus from one corner of the world, can travel to another part of the world in just no time.
The policy paper highlights some generic statements regarding Sehat cards, nutrition and COVID-19 safety protocols. The paper also briefly points out health security of citizens with a focus on enhancement of national capacity for health emergency response and surveillance. But, the document lacked the basic National guidelines, which are necessarily required for the development of infrastructure of a secure health system in Pakistan. Not many measures to ensure the development of prompt response and preparedness have been taken despite the recent challenges posed by pandemic.
Pakistan was scored at 48.3 % in a World Health Organization Joint external evaluation report on Pakistan’s Health Security of the year 2018. The current situation of the country is more pro-virus than anti-virus, as a result of which future viruses can be more disastrous.
Keeping in view all these loopholes, the health ministry of Pakistan should design a comprehensive national health security layout along with a suggested mechanism for its smooth implementation. A focused person for Global Health Security should also be notified and the Global health security agenda to be straight and precise. Risk mitigation strategies should also be developed along with thorough risk analysis to develop the smooth implementation of National security policy documents.
This policy has set a new benchmark and depicts an out of the box thinking and fills national psychological and spiritual vacuum, which is much needed for the state to achieve its true goals.
The author can be reached at: misbahrehman81@gmail.com.
