School of People Environment and Planning

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    Transport and women's social exclusion in urban areas in Pakistan : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2018) Ahmed, Waheed
    This thesis explores women’s everyday experiences of transport-related social exclusion, factors responsible for this, and how women negotiate restrictions on their mobility in urban areas of Pakistan. Although there is an emerging realization in the transport literature about the importance of studying social exclusion and marginaliation, little research has been carried out focusing on women’s social exclusion in transport, especially with regards to urban areas in developing countries. The present study fills this research gap by analysing the case studies of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, in Pakistan. These cities have been selected to explore how the highly contrasted urban form of planned and unplanned cities, as well as socio-cultural norms and institutional arrangements, impacts on women’s mobility and transport choices. The theoretical framework combines rights-based and empowerment approaches to identify constraints and opportunities for change to women’s mobility. The right-based and empowerment approaches have been selected over other theoretical lenses because they see women as active agents of change rather than portraying them as passive victims. In doing so, the emphasis is placed on rights, accountabilities, and structural injustices in society, which are imperative to study women’s transport issue in developing country contexts. The design of the research is largely qualitative in nature, thus methods such as in-depth interviews, life stories, and structured observations have been used. Fifty-two in-depth interviews exploring the life stories of low-income women, business women, administrators and professional women in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, were particularly illuminating. Besides interviewing women as users of transport system, the viewpoints of males including drivers and conductors of public transport, and a range of stakeholders, were also considered. Enriched by stories of the everyday experiences of women in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the findings of this study highlight that women do face structural and social barriers to their mobility in the shape of: stereotypical norms about women’s travel; negative attitudes of men about women in public spaces; difficulty in accessing walkways, bus stops, and public transport; safety and security concerns; and gender insensitive policies and projects. The findings also highlight that, despite these problems, women are seen to be coming out of their homes and shattering stereotypes. Although few in numbers, these women can be regarded as success stories as far as women’s empowerment through mobility is concerned. The present research develops new insights into women, gender and transport issues within cities of developing countries by finding that transport is a development issue where patriarchal attitudes, fear and safety concerns, and quality of transport service are highly relevant to women’s capability to travel, yet there are cases in which women have been able to negotitiate highly gendered power relations in order to gain greater freedom of movement.
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    Walking with broken crutches : exploring the effects of host-state fragility upon refugees : a research project presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Development, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (The Author, 2015) Foreman, Mark
    This research report explores the relationship between state fragility and the hosting of refugees in the context of the protracted Afghan refugee crisis, where fragile state Pakistan hosts Afghan refugees. The reality for the majority of the world’s refugees is that their hosts are neighbouring countries which are in varying conditions of state fragility. Some states are bearing the brunt of the global refugee burden despite their general struggle to provide basic services and livelihood opportunities for their own citizens. For these ‘fragile hosts’, providing for an influx of refugees would be untenable without significant international assistance. Following a comprehensive literature review looking at the complex interplay between conflict, state fragility, underdevelopment and forced migration, the report case study is prefaced by background chapters surveying the factors which triggered Afghan forced migration, and Pakistan’s fragile status as host respectively. This report then offers an analysis of two region-specific UNHCR documents which explores the relationship between Afghan refugees and Pakistan as ‘fragile host’. Various host-state incapacities were found to entrench endemic poverty and insecurity in the Afghan refugee population in Balochistan due to a lack of livelihood opportunities, and availability and access to quality services. These issues have also created barriers to local refugee integration, and the fluctuating interest of international donors has historically served to exacerbate these challenges. This report argues that a much-improved understanding of the multi-layered and complex regional, national and local relationships between protracted conflict, state fragility and refugee-host dynamics is needed in order to approach a sustainable solution.
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    Exploring the role of the mosque in dealing with disasters : a case study of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan : a dissertation presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2012) Cheema, Abdur Rehman
    This dissertation explored the role of the mosque, a community-based religious institution, in disaster management by documenting and analysing its role in rural settings in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. The role of community-based religious institutions has been largely undocumented, underestimated and overshadowed in the development and disaster studies literature. This research was informed by post-development theory. The study addressed two research questions. The first examined the role of the mosque in relation to key actors from the state, civil society and private sector during response, relief, recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake. The second explored the potential roles of the mosque in similar situations in the future. Using qualitative research methods and a case study design (in three villages of Mansehra district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province), this dissertation analyses primary data collected throughout five months of fieldwork (in 2009 and 2010). Socially and culturally, the mosque served as an entry door, facilitating access to communities for private, government, local, national and international organisations during the earthquake response, relief, recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation phases. The mosque building was destroyed but the institution of the mosque remained intact. It continued to function, as men in the surviving community gathered to pray on the rubble or in the open, and served as the collection point of the community. Women did not benefit from the mosque, as a physical place, because of the social, cultural and religious limitations in communities. However, the mosque‘s institutional support was critical for the engagement of women in other culturally and socially appropriate development and disaster risk reduction activities. Religious interpretations of the earthquake lead communities to turn to God, increasing meditation and prayer, fostering psychosocial and spiritual healing and creating resilience. Conversely, however, religious interpretations of the earthquake also promoted fatalistic tendencies, which negatively affected communities‘ attentiveness to some of the disaster risk reduction measures advised by the government. Economically, the affected communities exchanged livelihood-related information and coordinated their income generating activities using the institution of the mosque. In the political context, the study questions simplistic pejorative labels attached to the mosque such as it being a centre for preaching radical views in society and argues that such labels belittle and fail to recognise the distinct position of the mosque as a central community institution. This research suggests that state, civil society and private sector actors and organisations involved in disaster management need to understand the complex relationships involving people and their religious institutions, and their impact on the social environment. This study calls for engagement: acknowledging and valuing the role of community-based religious institutions including churches, mosques, synagogues and temples in building a synergy between secular and religious efforts for disaster risk reduction. This dissertation contributes to the scarce body of knowledge about the multi-faceted and potential role of a community-based religious institution, the mosque, which could be used to strengthen disaster management to save human lives and reduce the extent of losses from natural hazards in the future.
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    The politics of development aid : the allocation and delivery of aid from the United States of America to Pakistan : a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2012) Ali, Murad
    This thesis investigates two aspects of the United States of America (USA) foreign aid to Pakistan: allocation and delivery. Regarding the former, the study explores the principal determinants of USA foreign aid to Pakistan during three distinct periods: the Cold War, the post-Cold War of the 1990s and the =war on terror‘ since 2001. In order to have a comprehensive, in-depth and balanced analysis of the primary motivations behind the USA aid disbursement to Pakistan, the study also examines the provision of USA aid to other important USA allies including Egypt, Israel and Turkey. The focus has been to explore to what extent USA foreign aid policies are driven by USA geo-strategic ambitions, and to what extent widely espoused international principles such as poverty reduction as well as democracy and respect for human rights determine USA aid allocations. This research has found that the USA aid regime, both historical as well as contemporary, has largely been motivated and sustained by USA geo-strategic, security and political goals. In the context of USA aid to Pakistan, the thesis finds that the contemporary USA-Pakistan alliance in the =war on terror‘ has striking similarities with the Cold War period. Then, the primary objective of USA aid to Pakistan was anti-communism; now it is anti-terrorism. In relation to the second aspect of the study, the thesis examines the delivery and utilization of USA aid in Pakistan within the 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) framework that contains five interrelated principles aimed at enhancing ownership, alignment, harmonisation, management for development results and mutual accountability between donors and partner countries. Both Pakistan and the USA are signatories to the PD; hence the respective roles of different ministries and departments of the Government of Pakistan (GoP) and the role of Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID) are examined in USA-funded projects. The aim is to investigate to what extent the PD commitments are being implemented in actual practices during the selection, design and execution of development projects. The study has found that there are issues from both the GoP and USAID ends that hinder the actual implementation of the PD commitments. On the part of the former, lack of institutional capacity and corruption are the key challenges. Concerning the latter, USAID still does not delegate authority to GoP institutions to design and implement projects and instead comes up with its own plans and executes these through its international partners working as substitutes for GoP institutions. As a result, almost half of the aid is being consumed by USAID‘s international contractors on the management and administration of USA-funded projects. Furthermore, most aid is being spent on activities which do not address the actual problems of the targeted population. The thesis contributes to the body of knowledge concerning the allocation and delivery of aid from =rich‘ to =poor‘ countries. Its two-fold contribution is, first, it has uncovered the primary determinants of the historical as well as contemporary USA aid provision to Pakistan. Second, it is one of the very few in-depth studies that has looked into the implementation of the PD principles at the country level and has uncovered the constraints responsible for the lack of progress towards achieving the PD partnership commitments in the context of USA aid to Pakistan.