Are we really developing?
In the 1980s both Bangladesh and India were far behind Pakistan in terms of life expectancy as Pakistan’s life expectancy was 57 years while for India and Bangladesh it was 53.9 and 53.5 years respectively
“We want progress and development for the people but the opposition is always stopping us”. This is the mantra of the present ruling party since they assumed power. It has created a lot of hype about its development efforts especially before the last sit in by the PTI. The unique selling point of the present government on which it tries to counter the narrative of the opposition and legitimise its government is the development rhetoric that we are fast pacing the development process and opposition is creating hurdles in our sacred ambitions. The question to be pondered here is “are we really developing”?
Development and growth are two different phenomena in an economy. Growth means an overall increase in the size of GDP and total number of goods and services produced in a country. On the other hand, development means an all-inclusive growth which leads to the increase in living standards of the people in a country. Increase or progress in living standards not only means an increase in income, it is a comprehensive approach which encompasses improvement in access to education, better health indicators and facilities, improved social inclusion, improved holding of assets and other social indicators. In a capitalist economy, unfortunately growth does not automatically translate into development. If action is not taken by the government, growth only leads to more income inequality at the national and regional level and benefits only a small section of society.
The globally accepted indicator of human development is HDI (Human development Index) developed by UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). It is a comprehensive score which takes into account various factors eg per capita income, life expectancy, mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling to gauge the overall development level of a country compared to other countries. The score is measured between zero and one and the more it is closer to one, the better the living conditions in that country. If we compare the regional HDI data, Pakistan is far behind its counterparts. Pakistan’s HDI index for the year 2015 is 0.538 and is at a position of 147 which means that 146 out of 188 countries in the world are better than Pakistan in human development. India has a position of 130 with an HDI index of 0.609 while Bangladesh is also better than us in terms of HDI score. It stands at a position of 142 with a HDI score of 0.57. If we look at the time series improvement in HDI score from 2010–14, still then India and Bangladesh are better than us. The HDI score of India in 2010 was 0.586 which means an improvement of 3.78pc by 2014. Bangladesh even performed better gaining an increase of 4.21pc points in its HDI score which was 0.546 in 2010. Pakistan has had the least improvement in its HDI score from 2010 showing just an improvement of 2.97pc which was 0.522 at that time. Bangladesh, our former east wing, was much behind Pakistan in HDI score in the 1980s. By 1995, it equaled and then it surpassed Pakistan every year. This should ring the alarms for our policy makers as we can now see the outcomes of this focus on human capital development; Bangladesh is not only consistently growing at a higher rate than us now but it has surpassed our textile exports as well.
The present ruling party cannot put the blame on former governments as it has been in power in Punjab since 2008 and in the federal since 2013 so it shares equal responsibility for the stalled development
Coming to education indicators, the basic education indicator is literacy rate which is dependent upon improving primary and secondary dropout rates and gross enrollment rates. It is defined as “the number of people who can read or write a letter”. According to the World Bank’s latest development update report for Pakistan, the literacy rate in Pakistan is somewhere in between 58–60pc. In comparison, the literacy rate in India is now 75pc and Bangladesh has also managed to achieve a 70pc literacy rate. According to the same report, which was released in November 2016, (it also stated that Pakistan is having a high growth rate), Pakistan’s gross primary and secondary gross enrollment have remained stagnant since 2010 at 62pc and 58pc respectively. At the regional level, the report claims that KP is a clear winner which has improved 3pc in gross primary enrollment rate while in Punjab it remained stagnant. This report breaks the rhetoric and the pro-development image created by the Punjab government for its electorate. It testifies that the present Punjab government is more focused on short term measures like Danish Schools and suspending government officials rather than long term visionary thinking and introducing structural reforms in the development paradigm of the province. This report also states that Pakistan has the third highest number of children in the world with stunted growths at a staggering 43pc which is primarily not due to malnutrition but due to lack of access to proper sanitation and safe drinking water.
If we look at the health indicators, a basic one is the average life expectancy. Here also, Pakistan falls below almost every South Asian country except Afghanistan at 66.2 years. Sri Lanka has an average life expectancy of 74.9 years while India has a life expectancy of 68 years. Bangladesh has even made a better stride by achieving a life expectancy of 71.6 years. In the 1980s both Bangladesh and India were far behind Pakistan in terms of life expectancy as Pakistan’s life expectancy was 57 years while for India and Bangladesh it was 53.9 and 53.5 years respectively. Since 2010, Bangladesh improved its life expectancy by 1.5 years, India was also able to improve by 1.5 years, while Pakistan was only able to improve by 1.1 years.
The other two important indicators for health are infant mortality rate and the maternal mortality rate. The situation is more alarming for these indicators. In the infant mortality rate, Pakistan lags behind every South Asian country except Afghanistan. 69 out of 1,000 kids born in Pakistan die within one year due to lack of adequate health resources. While in India, this ratio is 41 to 1,000 births, Bangladesh has managed it to reduce at 33 mortalities per 1000 births which is even less than half of the Pakistan’s figure. In the maternal mortality rate, Pakistan’s progress is also slow compared to other South Asian countries. Data by World Bank shows that Pakistan made an improvement of 15pc in MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate) from 211 deaths/100,000 women at the time of delivery in 2010 to 178 deaths in 2015. While in the same time period, Bangladesh made a remarkable progress of 27pc, almost double than Pakistan reducing its maternal death rate from 242 to 176. India was also able to manage a 19pc reduction in its MMR from 215 to 174 within the same time period.
All this data shows that contrary to the gigantic claims of the federal and provincial government of Punjab, Pakistan has made little progress in development since 2010. The present ruling party cannot put the blame on former governments as it has been in power in Punjab since 2008 and in the federal since 2013 so it shares equal responsibility for the stalled development. The present government should understand this fact that CPEC, spending on roads and other infrastructure projects may lead to growth but not development unless its economic gains are not equally distributed across all the regions of Pakistan and the extra income gained from it is not spent on improving the living standards of people. In the words of the World Bank’s report: “The country’s long term growth depends on its investment in the people – this is what will make growth matter for Pakistan”. Building infrastructure is not more important than building human capital. Spending more on education and health is not an expenditure. The government should think of it as a long term investment with significant gains in the productivity of the labour force. High investments in education and health have the potential of bringing a labour force revolution in Pakistan turning our country from an exporter of basic commodities to high tech products which will bring much higher returns than our current export portfolio. It will also lay the foundations of a pro-democratic stronger middle class which is the backbone of modern consumption based economies. Furthermore, it will also lead to the strengthening of national security as in the past we have seen that we lost our half part because of unequal distribution of resources. Similarly, in the present times we are facing an existential threat to our national security in the form of terrorism which has its roots in illiteracy and an eschewed development model. Spending more on butter than guns will definitely strengthen our national security and will help Pakistan to transition from a security state to a modern welfare state.
