Local institutions and rural development in Pakistan

Conclusions generally have been that the institutional structure of the Pakistan countryside has been extremely weak. Village-level institutions for organizing the village for collective action and for raising resources to perform new developmental functions have been lacking or ineffective. To some extent and for a limited period, the Union Councils functioned as agents for the Rural Works Program in the rural development effort, but the program soon returned to administrative domination and at no time did the Councils" initiative appear to have been critical to the success of the works program. As organizations intermediate between the farmer, on the one hand, and government and the market, on the other, neither the Basic Democracies nor the cooperatives have proven viable. Local institutions in Pakistan, then, can claim little success in facilitating public action at the local level, in improving rural infrastructure, or in facilitating the farmers" economic activities.