Wrong solution to the right problem

PAKISTAN’S governance crisis is fundamentally institutional rather than geographical. While the creation of new provinces may address certain concerns relating to regional identity, representation, and administrative reach, it cannot by itself remedy systemic deficiencies in governance. Without meaningful institutional reform, decentralisation, and fiscal planning, new provinces risk reproducing existing problems at a greater administrative and financial cost. Modern federal democracies increasingly function through a three-tier system of governance, in which constitutional authority is distributed among the federal government, provincial governments and elected local governments. The…