‘Growth benefits upper class only’

from The News International

By our correspondent

ISLAMABAD: The gap between the rich and poor has widened in Pakistan during the rule of the incumbent regime, as the higher growth trajectory provides benefits only to the upper class compared to the poorest segments.

This was the crux of the discussion held during a workshop organised by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in collaboration with PRSP Secretariat, Finance Ministry on “Structural Issues in Poverty Reduction” here on Monday.

Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar told the participants in the concluding session that the higher growth was not enough condition to bring the chronic poor out of poverty line.

Dr Talat Anwar who is currently working in the State Bank of Pakistan as Joint Director and previously affiliated with Centre for Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution (CPRID) of the Planning Commission, said that during the period from 1998-99 to 2004-05, the growth effects remained dominant, the redistribution seems to have benefited only in urban areas. On the other hand, redistribution seems to have adversely affected the poor in rural areas. The growth strategy is important for poverty reduction in Pakistan but the redistribution in favour of poor should not be ignored if the government intends to enhance the effect of growth on poverty reduction.

“There are some studies which show that there is an increase of one per cent amongst the poorest population of the country between 2001-02 to 2004-05. This growth strategy is resulting into exclusion of poorest from the whole thinking of the government and there is need to adopt targeted approach to protect the poorest segments of the society,” he added.

Dr GM Arif from Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) said that the unemployed educated youth was a matter of concern especially in NWFP and Balochistan. He said the tackling of chronic poor would be the main issue for the government in years ahead.

Dr Sarfraz Qureshi said on the occasion that there is lack of Independent research institutions in Pakistan. He said the nature of prevailing poverty does not know by anyone in the country and without having in-depth analysis it will not be easy to tackle this complex problem.

The chronic poverty, he said, will remain there as the government in last seven years have done all easier things but the difficult decisions are lying ahead. He said all safety nets have lowest coverage and funding and there are also problems of leakages.

Mohammad Saleem said in his presentation that there are 52 million illiterate people in the country. The government, he said, is planning to bring changes in the definition of literate population as currently all those are literate who can read and write. He said the government will change this definition and all those will be considered literate who can read a paragraph of English with understanding and be able to do simple calculations.

With the existing definition of literate persons, he said the literacy ratio stood at 54 per cent at the moment. The economists also recommended the government to adopt targeted cash transfers for alleviating poverty.

An independent economist Dr Kaisar Bengali said on the occasion in most of the presentation the data and analysis was done on the districts of Punjab, which cannot be replicated for whole Pakistan.

He also criticised the term community participation in development strategy is continuously misused in the context of Pakistan as during the Social Action Program the feudal prevailed on the name of community participation resulting into failure of that scheme.