Governance, Decentralisation, and Poverty: The Case of Pakistan

Human development and human rights share a common vision and purpose: to secure the freedom, well being and dignity of humanity. Human development is as essential for human rights as the latter is for the former. Historical evidence suggests that the more civilised societies were those that gave a higher priority to both, for example, the Greek, the Roman and the enlightened years of early Islam. The freedom from want is perhaps the one inalienable right of humanity which stands between dignity and indignity and which must be mitigated against by both state and individual.1 For the first time in history mankind adopted these and other human rights when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Today all but one of the six core covenants and conventions have been ratified by at least 140 countries and state sponsored anti-poverty programmes were initiated globally, most with the help of civil society [UNDP (2000)]. The lessons from history clearly establish that for improving the social endowment of the poor the state and the individual are key players, money is a necessary requirement, good governance is critical to success and the participation of each component of society as a whole ensures sustainability and continued benefits beyond the initial attempts to mitigate the impact of poverty. In other words decentralisation is a key element to improve the lot of the people, particularly the poor and the disenfranchised.

Stress effects on work efficiency: study by professionals at the Cambridge school library of Karachi Sindh, Pakistan.

Librarians, like other professionals, face stress from a diversity of sources around the world. A population of 70 Cambridge school library professionals was studied to see if there was a significant relation between work efficiency and occupational stress. This research study is investigated on the relation of school library professionals working in Karachi\u27s Cambridge schools on Stress at work and work efficiency. The main purpose of this research was to identify the level of occupational stress among school librarians, as well as gender and marital status disparities in occupational stress and work efficiency among school librarians, as well as the consequences of occupational stress on efficiency from work. For this investigation, a survey research strategy was carried out. Census/enumerative techniques was adapted. The sample size of the study was 70, response rate was 60 (87%) and the remaining 10 (13%) did not respond. A questionnaire was used to collect primary data and consisted of close ended queries to measure the information. Cronbach’s Alpha used to check the reliability of the questionnaire. All five hypothesis tested t value and simple linear regression collected data were analyzed by SPSS ver. 22 software. According to the bases of the findings, working in school libraries generates a lot of occupational overload. There was no significant mean difference in the perception of work stress of male and female library professionals (p\u3e0.05), however there was a significant mean difference in the perception of work efficiency of male and female library professionals (p\u3e0.05). \u3e0.05). On seven work efficiency characteristics, men outperformed women: interpersonal relationships with colleagues, ability to handle multiple jobs, communication skills, punctuality and regularity at work, technical skills, problem solving, and quality of library work. When it came to the relationship between occupational stress and performance and performance at work (r=0.0624, p\u3e0.01), the outcome showed a significant relationship (r=0.0624, p\u3e0.01). In addition, roll ambiguity, overload, conflict and career stagnation were some of the factors that negatively impacted the professional performance of school library professionals. The results demonstrated a small but statistically significant negative association between occupational stress and work efficiency, implying that a rise in occupational stress has a detrimental impact on the gender and marital status of school library professionals\u27 work efficiency. Four hypothesis are rejected based on t value analysis, but the fifth is supported based on t value and simple linear regression. This study found that the factors that contributing to work stress is significant with school library professional’s performance and it also concluded that the employees at Cambridge schooling system were experiencing occupational stress

Governance, Decentralisation, and Poverty: The Case of Pakistan

Human development and human rights share a common vision and purpose: to secure the freedom, well being and dignity of humanity. Human development is as essential for human rights as the latter is for the former. Historical evidence suggests that the more civilised societies were those that gave a higher priority to both, for example, the Greek, the Roman and the enlightened years of early Islam. The freedom from want is perhaps the one inalienable right of humanity which stands between dignity and indignity and which must be mitigated against by both state and individual.1 For the first time in history mankind adopted these and other human rights when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Today all but one of the six core covenants and conventions have been ratified by at least 140 countries and state sponsored anti-poverty programmes were initiated globally, most with the help of civil society [UNDP (2000)]