Advisor to Prime Minister on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz Tuesday emphasised the need to adopt a national strategy for fighting poverty and ensuring more job opportunities in the country.
Addressing the inaugural session of 30th annual general meeting and conference of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) at Pak-China Friendship Centre in the capital, Aziz said that the government had taken a number of steps for providing opportunities to attract foreign and local investment in various sectors.
Aziz said there were social and economic challenges being faced by the country but there was need to find the solution to these problems. He said it was unfortunate that there is a large population in Pakistan which is still living below the poverty line of one dollar a day.
Aziz said there were many root-causes for the poverty but with effective and comprehensive policies, the government would be able to alleviate poverty. He said land holding and lack of equitable distribution of resources were one of the major causes of poverty coupled with manmade policies which were not in favour to the poor community.
The PM’s advisor said that decentralization of power could be one of the major solutions for solving the issue of poverty and improving the living conditions of the people especially living in rural areas.
While commenting on the political structure, Aziz said that the political power structure was another factor for creating the gap between rich and poor. He emphasised the need to adopt measures to improve growth rate that can be helpful in fighting poverty. He said new resources and new insights had to be explored to attract investment that will increase growth rate to improve economic conditions of the country.
Emphasising the need to invest on human resources, Aziz said there was need to invest human resources especially skilled labour so that everyone could participate in improving the economic growth of the country.
