Pakistan's Planning Commission’s new Deputy Chairman, Sartaj Aziz, on 17th August, emphasised the need for striking a balance between social and economic development. He said Pakistan’s development paradigm remained lopsided due to low investment in human development.
High illiteracy, high child and maternal mortality, hunger, unemployment and poverty remained main challenges for every successive government. However, due to government’s focus on mega tangible projects; education, health and job creation remained low on its priority list.
He said internal conflicts at every stage should be ended for survival and sustainable economic growth. Pakistan, a lower middle-income country with the sixth largest population in the world, has an exceptionally high level of child under-nutrition, according to a World Bank report released in May this year.
It states that with the stunting rate at 45%, the country ranks 124 out of 132 nations. Its wasting rate, at 11%, puts it at 106th spot out of 130 countries and its trends in these indicators in relation to the 2025 World Health Assembly targets are viewed to be off track.
He said after the 1973 civil service reforms, the civil service became politicised and after 1990, every political party filled key positions with their loyal bureaucrats.
UNDP has launched district-level disparities in Pakistan based on the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index. Results show that whereas some cities/districts such as Lahore and Karachi are doing extremely well on all development indicators, cities/districts such as Killa Abdullah, Kohistan and Tharparkar are extremely deprived.
This deprivation suggests an inequitable approach to development and thus lowers Pakistan’s performance. If Pakistan has to improve its development rankings and ensure better citizenry for all, the policy-makers will have to invest considerably more in these deprived regions. The choice is simple – spending a billion rupees in Killa Abdullah district of Balochistan will have much higher returns than spending the same billion in Karachi.
The 18th Amendment to the Constitution has granted provinces considerable autonomy when it comes to development policies, especially in key social sectors such as health and education.