Daily Times Editorials 15th August 2026

Inclusive Pakistan

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has put Rs 500 million behind an idea Pakistan’s disability policy has taken too long to embrace: inclusive governance.

The province’s proposed programme will offer interest-free loans to persons with disabilities, while another Rs 700 million has been allocated for scholarships. Both deserve support. Their real worth, however, will be measured far from the announcement ceremony.

Pakistan does not suffer from an absence of disability policy. Its first employment and rehabilitation framework dates to 1981. Later came a national policy, provincial laws, job quotas and ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The State Bank introduced a dedicated small-enterprise financing scheme in 2019 and followed it with a broader financial-inclusion policy, requiring banks to improve accessibility, recruitment and services for persons with disabilities.Pakistan regional tours

When Pakistan appeared before the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in March, it reported that around 3.1 per cent of its population was living with disabilities, a figure experts questioned as strikingly low against wider international estimates. They also raised concerns about inaccessible transport, schools and public buildings, uneven employment opportunities and the small number of persons with disabilities. According to research, even the longstanding government employment quota is poorly implemented.

The scholarship allocation matters for precisely this reason. Education, skills and finance sit on the same economic road. Loans offered after years of exclusion from quality schooling will reach only a fraction of their potential beneficiaries. Nor should self-employment become a convenient substitute for enforcing employment rights. Some citizens will build businesses; others deserve fair access to salaried work, professional careers and public service.

KP also has earlier experience to learn from. Its broader Ehsaas Nojawan programme already reserved quotas for persons with disabilities while offering interest-free loans. The new disability-focused window should therefore publish clear eligibility rules.Executive Branch

It is high time for economic policy to recognise ramps, accessible banking, assistive technology, education and transport for what they also are: productive infrastructure. At the end of the day, the harder assignment for any government is making sure the economy is open enough for people to use it. *

Reconstruction Test

The government’s assurance that Balochistan’s flood-hit families have not been abandoned would have carried greater weight had it not followed weeks of confusion over precisely who remains entitled to housing assistance.

The Planning Ministry insists that all 68,992 houses classified as fully damaged under the post-disaster assessment remain covered and that more than 26,000 have already been completed. It also argues, reasonably, that reconstruction cannot mean houses alone. Roads, irrigation channels, schools, health facilities and water systems are equally necessary if vulnerable communities are to withstand the next disaster.

The World Bank points to a considerably larger pool of verified eligible households and warns that 119,049 may now be without identified financing.

Post-disaster reconstruction is not an ordinary development scheme whose allocations may be shuffled without consequence. Once households have been surveyed, their losses verified and expectations of assistance formally created, any subsequent change in eligibility requires a clear explanation.Executive Branch

There is nothing inherently improper about reallocating resources within an integrated resilience programme. Rebuilding a house beside a broken irrigation system, inaccessible road and non-functional health facility would scarcely amount to resilience.

But suspected irregularities must be identified and dealt with individually. They cannot become a fog behind which legitimate beneficiaries disappear.

The stakes extend well beyond one housing programme. The 2022 floods inflicted damage and economic losses exceeding $30 billion, while resilient reconstruction needs were estimated above $16 billion. Pakistan has since made climate justice a central plank of its international diplomacy, arguing – with considerable justification – that countries contributing relatively little to global emissions should not be left alone to bear the costs of an increasingly hostile climate.

That case, however, carries obligations at home. Pakistan cannot persuasively ask the world to finance adaptation while allowing uncertainty over who receives financing secured in the name of climate-affected citizens.Pakistan travel guides

Pakistan has repeatedly proved adept at assembling pledges after catastrophe. The more difficult work begins afterwards as seemingly mundane administrative tasks often determine whether a billion-dollar programme becomes reconstruction or merely another entry in a donor spreadsheet.

There is a larger lesson here as we seek climate and development finance. Access to money will increasingly depend not simply on the country’s vulnerability but on its capacity to absorb funds credibly, execute projects efficiently and demonstrate results. Every poorly explained beneficiary list today risks weakening tomorrow’s case before international financiers.