poverty in pakistan 2023 essay

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Unraveling the layers of poverty in Pakistan

Poverty remains a formidable challenge in Pakistan, hinder­ing the country’s potential for eco­nomic growth despite its rich cul­tural heritage. With an estimated poverty headcount of 39.4% in FY23, 12.5 million more Pakistan­is have fallen below the Lower-Middle Income Country poverty threshold compared to FY22.

Several factors contribute to Pakistan’s deep-rooted poverty issues. Corruption-related prob­lems deny millions access to basic facilities, including clean water, sanitation, healthcare, and qual­ity education. Limited education­al opportunities, especially in far-flung areas, perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

High unemployment rates, par­ticularly among the youth, cou­pled with low wages, further exacerbate the problem. The in­flation rate, influenced by curren­cy devaluation, continues to esca­late poverty in Pakistan.

China sees robust increase in new foreign-invested firms

Leadership plays a pivotal role in addressing poverty, but cor­ruption in political circles can di­vert funds from essential pover­ty relief programs. While not all leaders are corrupt, acknowledg­ing and combating corruption is crucial for meaningful poverty al­leviation efforts.

KASHAF ASHRAF,

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Income inequality and poverty in Pakistan

Income distribution in Pakistan is more uneven in terms of the way it is distributed among the country’s citizens

In the article today, I will write about how I read Pakistan’s more than 75-year history covering economic, social and political developments. I will deploy some theoretical advances to speculate the directions in which the country seems to be headed in the near term. The focus will be on the widening income gap between the very rich and the very poor. Data collected and published by the UN show income distribution in Pakistan to be more uneven in terms of the way it is distributed among the country’s citizens. The UN uses two measures for estimating income inequality: the ratio of incomes of the lowest and the richest segments of the population and estimates of what is called the Gini coefficient.

By all measures, Pakistan performs poorly compared to other South Asian nations. For it, the ratio of the average income of the poorest 10% of the population to the richest 10% is 6.5. In other words, the average income for the richest is more than 16 times the average for the poorest. The ratio is 7.5% for Bangladesh, 8.6% for India and 11.1% for Sri Lanka. The ratio of the average incomes of the poorest 20% of the population to the richest 20% is 4.8% for Pakistan and Bangladesh, 5.5% for India and 6.8% for Sri Lanka. Gini coefficient — a measure frequently used to indicate the extent of inequality — is the worst for Pakistan: 29.6 as against 32.4 for Bangladesh, 35.7 for India and 38 for the world as a whole.

Why has Pakistan fallen so far behind the rest of South Asia? The question has a long answer but the one that is the most obvious is the absence of public policy aimed at improving income distribution. This is the case in particular in more recent times. In the earlier periods of Pakistan’s almost 76-year long history, those responsible for making public policy twice made it their business to improve the lot off the poorer segments of the population. First, Field Marsha Ayub Khan who governed the country for 11 years, for 1958 to 1969, and then Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was in power for almost six years, from 1971 to 1977, the state got engaged with some diligence in improving the lives of the poor. Ayub Khan’s focus was on the rural poor while Bhutto took steps to help the poor in urban areas.

Called the high yielding varieties, or HYVs, new wheat plants were imported from Mexico while the Philippines was the source of high yielding rice during the Ayub period. The military president got directly involved in bringing the HYV technology to Pakistan. He invited the agricultural scientist, Norman Borlaug, to visit Pakistan. The scientist went around the country and met thousands of wheat growers and told them how to introduce the high yielding wheat into their farms. He was awarded the Nobel Peace for the work he did in Pakistan.

The Ayub Khan government used the multi-tiered system of local governance to introduce HYV’s into the country. It had come to be called the system of Basic Democracies, or BDs, which had directly elected ‘Union Councilors’ at the base. These representatives of the people had access to counterpart funds generated from the sale of wheat given as aid to Pakistan by the US. Washington was appealed to provide help when there were serious declines in the output of the two food grain crops and the Pakistani government feared that the country might be visited by a famine. Pakistan then was divided into two provinces: East and West Pakistan. Each launched Rural Works Program financed by the sale of wheat and rice received from America. The result of these efforts was what in history is called ‘Pakistan’s green revolution’.

The second time the government got involved in closing the income gap between the very rich and the very poor was when Bhutto led his newly formed Pakistan People’s Party, the PPP, to power. Bhutto focused on the urban poor and took several initiatives to improve the lives of urban workers. These workers were encouraged to form unions which negotiated better working conditions. Not convinced that private owners of industries and commercial and financial enterprises would go on to adopt the measures introduced by his government, the prime minister went on to nationalise large privately owned companies. In the second phase of nationalisation, the Bhutto administration brought small wheat and rice mills under government control. Pakistani economic historians have yet to determine whether the measures adopted by Bhutto helped the poor and narrowed the income gap. In my own work on the Bhutto period that appeared in the form of a book published in 1980 by London’s Macmillan under the title, Pakistan Under Bhutto , I argued that Bhutto’s two nationalisations erased the momentum that Ayub Khan had introduced in the economy. In several books written by American scholars in the 1970s, Pakistan was presented as the model of economic and social development other developing countries would do well to follow. Today, Pakistan is considered a failing state.

What needs to be done to address the visible income gap in the country? When I visit Pakistan, I am struck by how well the rich live and how much suffering there is for the people at the lower end of the income distribution scale. That said, Pakistan does not have the kind of poverty, crowding and filth that one can’t help notice on visits to India. A recent well-received book by a French economist examined the data running over several decades and covering several countries and reached the conclusion that the return on capital is higher than the rate of growth of the economy. He suggests that the state must intervene to tax the owners of capital and make transfers to the poorer segments of the population through programmes of income transfers as well as government efforts to bring better education and health care to common people.

Adopting these findings to Pakistan would mean the government’s deep involvement in taxing the rich and raising resources for the public sector to help those whose incomes are low. Pakistan is one of the countries where both the rates of personal and government savings are extremely low. Tax to GDP ratio must be increased for the government to spend on programmes of social welfare. It is only by making these kinds of efforts that Pakistan will succeed in narrowing the income gap between the very rich and the very poor.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27 th , 2023.

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Poverty eradication in Pakistan: Past, present, and future

Blog 12 Oct 2020 State and COVID-19

While the current government in Pakistan has taken a multi-dimensional approach and introduced some measures to eradicate poverty, along with specific COVID-19 emergency interventions, many challenges still remain. We lay out our thoughts below on whether Pakistan is on track to achieving SDG1 by 2030 , given that another 10 million are expected to move into poverty due to the pandemic.

Over the past two decades, Pakistan has made significant progress in fighting poverty, reducing it by more than half since 2000. As one of the first countries in the world to declare Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of its national development agenda and updating the national poverty line in 2016 [1] , Pakistan has remained committed to improving multi-dimensional poverty measures.

Progress in the last decade

As per the latest official figures , the poverty headcount ratio declined from 29.5% in 2013-14 to 24.3% in 2015-16. Of all 114 countries for which the World Bank measures poverty indices, Pakistan was amongst the top 15 that showed the largest annual average percentage point decline between 2000 and 2015.  Despite this, by 2015, around 50 million people still lived below the national poverty line. Since then, the pace of poverty reduction has slowed down. This is partly due to the macroeconomic crisis resulting from structural economic issues and the lack and inadequate implementation of pro-poor policies.

Measuring poverty

Lack of accurate and consistent poverty estimates has been a key hindrance in formulating effective pro-poor policies in Pakistan. The use of monetary poverty lines tied to currency conversion rates with differing purchasing power parities, along with the use of different methodologies has led to inconsistent measures. For instance, between 2010 and 2015, show a decline in poverty headcount while an independent policy think tank estimated that around 38% of the population was still living below the poverty line in 2015; which in absolute terms meant an additional 13 million people falling into poverty . Bureaucratic and political delays in regularly updating the National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) survey has also led to issues in targeting (the last round of the NSER survey was carried out in 2010-11).

In 2016, the government tailored a widely used global poverty measure, the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI), for Pakistan. The aim was to capture the three main deprivation indicators: education, health, and living standards. Based on 2017-18 estimates , 38.3% of the population was deprived in at least one of the three indicators - an improvement from previous years, largely from progress in sanitation and child mortality. However, deprivation resulting from a  lack of access to electricity increased.

COVID-19 and increased vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities play a central role in perpetuating poverty as poor households lack necessary human, financial, and physical capital to withstand the negative impacts of sudden shocks. It is no surprise that COVID-19 is expected to be up to  10 times more deadly for the poor . A recent UNDP study of 70 countries, including Pakistan, estimated that COVID-19 may set poverty levels back by 9 years, with an additional 490 million people falling into multidimensional poverty.

Prior to COVID-19, Pakistan’s economy was already struggling with a fiscal crisis and undergoing an IMF-sponsored macroeconomic stabilisation programme. With one of the lowest human development indicators around, the government estimates that 56.6% of the population has now become socio-economically vulnerable due to COVID-19. As one of the youngest countries in the world, with nearly two-thirds of the population under the age of 30, a consistent GDP growth rate of 7% is required to absorb the young workforce. With a projected growth rate of only 2% post-pandemic, unemployment rates may rise drastically, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Despite a declining poverty rate over the past few years, the IMF has also projected a sharp reversal ahead, which may push almost 40% of Pakistanis below the national poverty line. The cost of the expected economic slowdown due to COVID-19 containment measures, invariably relying on some form of lockdown, will mostly be borne by the estimated 24.89 million daily wage earners, piece-rate workers, and self-employed in. These groups are more vulnerable to pandemic-induced poverty due to a lack of access to social protection programmes.

What didn’t work in the past

Pakistan has a long history of poverty reduction policies and interventions. However, the persistently high poverty levels reflect the inadequacy of these measures resulting mainly from a focus on static measures and limited outreach. Poverty reduction programmes account for just about 2% of GDP ; due to lack of coordination, inefficient implementation, and inadequate monitoring and evaluation, there is often duplication and fragmentation across these programmes.

Despite deep-rooted economic inequalities and the sheer number of people impacted, policymakers have largely steered clear of addressing the issue of inequality . It is estimated that 40% of all children born in abject poverty will remain in the lowest income quintile, another 40% will improve slightly from very poor to poor, while only 10% will be able to transition out during their lifetime [2] . Research also shows that while relatively high economic growth in 2001-04 was not pro-poor, the low growth period of 2005-10 saw better poverty indices. This indicates that policy interventions for the poor are not all the same; there is a need to have a more targeted approach for transitionary and inter-generational chronic poor.

What Pakistan has done right

Early indications point to the government’s commitment to poverty reduction, as it has pledged to  reduce poverty by 6 percentage points to 19% by 2023. Measures include increasing poverty alleviation expenditures and ensuring that vulnerable groups such as women, children, and people with disabilities receive needed aid.

One such measure is the integration of more than 134 fragmented and insufficiently managed social protection programmes, and prone to political manipulation, under ‘Ehsaas’. This is a new overarching programme launched in 2019, built on the framework developed under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). BISP is one of South Asia’s largest cash transfer programmes and Pakistan’s flagship social protection initiative. Launched in 2008, BISP currently caters to 5.7 million ultra-poor families via unconditional cash transfers to women.

In response to COVID-19, the government quickly implemented the Ehsaas Emergency Program me, under which low-income households gained access to financial assistance through text messages. In the first phase of this programme, 12 million families were provided with a monthly stipend of 12,000 PKR ($72). More recently, the programme has been extended to include 17 million families, around half of the total population of Pakistan.

The government has also made efforts to de-politicise poverty measures . There is great optimism that under the current government, the NSER survey, which will cover at least 27 million households, will be completed by 2021 and enable smart poverty targeting.

Is Pakistan still on track to achieve SDG1?

Even before the pandemic, Pakistan was categorised as being ‘off track’ to halve multidimensional poverty by 2030, and less likely to achieve SDG1 with current interventions. This has largely been due to inadequate policy responses from successive governments, despite some good progress on poverty alleviation in the early 2000s. The current government, however, has taken some steps in the right direction. While there is growing consensus on the benefits of a rapid policy response, there has historically been a lack of focus on more long-term sustainable efforts.

There is increasing evidence, across South Asia, that an ‘income-mediated’ approach to SDG1 will have limited success and more ‘expenditure led’ policies are required.  Looking ahead, well-informed income and poverty projections can provide a blueprint for more proactive, targeted and sustainable policies, with a focus on alleviating extreme poverty.

[1] Research by Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in collaboration with Oxfam.

[2] Instead of using the Food Energy Intake (FEI) approach, a Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) approach is now employed

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Presentation on “Poverty in Pakistan: What We Know and What We Need to Know” by Dr. Moritz Meyer, Senior Economist, World Bank and Coordinator, World Bank Poverty Assessment Report Pakistan at GIDS on 25th November 2021

Dr. Moritz Meyer, Senior Economist, World Bank visited the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (GIDS), Lahore School of Economics on 25th November 2021.

He presented the current patterns and trends of monetary and non-monetary household welfare of Pakistan. He highlighted that while there has been an overall substantial decline in poverty between 2001 and 2018, large disparities in living standards remain when observed at provincial and district level. The divide between rural and urban areas is also significant.

His presentation included the impact of Covid-19 on poverty; he mentioned that projected estimates suggest a reversal and increase in poverty trends in the country but the actual impact on household welfare remains unclear. With persistently poor health and educational outcomes and limited progress made in the area, the pandemic is expected to have exacerbated the human capital gap. Adding on, he also brought in the discussion the aspect of gender inequality in the labour market of Pakistan.

From policy perspective, he discussed the role of taxes and transfers on poverty and inequality, as well as the vulnerability of the poor households to natural disasters arising from climate change.

After his presentation he met with Dr Rashid Amjad, Director GIDS and the faculty. He expressed a desire for future collaboration between World Bank, Pakistan Office and the GIDS.

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Essay on Poverty in Pakistan with Outline | Causes and Solutions

Poverty in pakistan essay with outline for class 10, class 12 and graduation.

Here is an essay on Poverty in Pakistan with the outline for students of different classes. A good student should start writing Poverty in Pakistan essay with an outline and later discuss the reasons behind it and should end up with the solutions to deal with the reasons of this problem.

Outline of Essay on Poverty in Pakistan for F.A, FSC, 2nd Year, B.A & BSC

• Introduction with the Poverty in Pakistan.
• Reasons behind this problem.
• Population explosion
• The economic system is based on feudalism
• unequal distribution of wealth
• Politicians of Pakistan
• Solutions to deal with this problem.

Poverty in Pakistan Essay

Pakistan is a poor and underdeveloped country. Most of its population lives in entirely adverse circumstances. Some reports reveal that more than forty percent population of Pakistan live below the line of poverty. The average income of a poor Pakistani is less than two dollars. A large number of people in our country do not have a proper place to live. This miserable condition has given birth to a large number of beggars and needy people, who live on the charity of the rich people. The economic condition of an average individual is very pathetic. Poverty, hunger and unemployment afflict a large section of the population. The causes of poverty’are quite obvious and known.

Firstly: We are facing a population explosion. There are more mouths to feed than there are hands to earn. One member of the family has to feed and support a large family. His income is limited. He cannot afford to maintain a large family. He works hard and consequently, he falls ill and dies. Then his wife steps in, work in village field or city homes to bring up her children. This cycle of poverty goes on. A poor remains poor the whole of his life. The main cause of poverty in Pakistan lies in the difference between the resources and the population increase.

Secondly: Most of the people in Pakistan are uneducated. They are ill-equipped to lead a good life. They do not know the modern methods of farming. They are ignorant to better ways of earning money in the mills and factories. With poor knowledge of life, they cannot increase production in mills and factories. Modern machinery is mostly computerized. An uneducated person cannot understand and operate the computer. How can he add to his income? The result is that he remains poor till the last moment of his life. It is very sad that rulers do not educate the workers. The workers do not get a chance to earn more money.

Thirdly: Our economic system is based on feudalism. A big landlord keeps the small farmers and workers under his political slavery. The “Haries” in Sindh, for example, have tried to get freedom from the feudal lords but who avail. In Baluchistan, there exists the “Sardari system”. This system does not allow the children of a poor farmer to get the education and find good jobs. Higher education is open only to the children of big landlords and sardars. in Punjab and NWFP the same condition exists.The economic condition of the small farmers and workers cannot become better in the presence of feudal lords i.

Fourthly: Pakistan is a country where there is no social, cultural and economic justice. The rich people in Pakistan are becoming mere rich, while the poor are becoming more poor. The economic disparity between the rich and the poor has eaten the very vitals of society.

Fifthly: Poverty in Pakistan exists due to Scarcity of jobs in the public and government sector. Our rulers are not responsible, dedicated and missionary. They failed to build new dams, a network of industry and roads in the country. The shortage of electricity and gas has resulted in the lock up of mills and factories. New factories were not set up in the past. The result is that our uneducated worker remains unemployed. The educated people have degrees, but they do not have opportunities to get a job. Many countries in the world have solved this problem. Pakistan too can solve the problem by adopting the following measures.

The rulers of Pakistan must discard their lavish way of living. They must be “one” with their people. They must lead a life of a common and hardworking person. This will go a long way to bridge. over the disparity between a rich and poor person. The population explosion must be controlled. People should be educated and guided to produce a small number of children. More industries, mills and factories should be set up to provide jobs to the workers and Small farmers.

If you have ended up reading with Essay on Poverty in Pakistan, you can go for Essay on Child Labour .

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UNDP’s 2023-2024 Human Development Report points to a global ‘gridlock’ of increased inequality and political polarization

Pakistan ranks 164th with a ‘low’ human development status

March 14, 2024

14 March 2024 – Islamabad:  Uneven development progress is leaving the poorest behind, exacerbating inequality, and stoking political polarization on a global scale. The result is a dangerous deadlock that must be urgently tackled through collective action, says the 2023-2024 Human Development Report entitled “Breaking the Gridlock: Reimagining Cooperation in a Polarized World” released this week by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“The widening human development gap revealed by the report shows that the two-decade trend of steadily reducing inequalities between wealthy and poor nations is now in reverse,” said Achim Steiner, Administrator of UNDP. “This gridlock carries a significant human toll. The failure of collective action to advance our response to climate change, digitalization or poverty and inequality not only hinders human development but also worsens polarization and further erodes trust in people and institutions worldwide.”

The 2023/2024 Report places Pakistan in the ‘low’ human development category with a Human Development Index (HDI) value of 0.540 and global ranking of 164 out of 193 countries. In the 2021/2022 Report Pakistan had a Human Development Index (HDI) value of 0.544 with a global ranking of 161 out of 191 countries[1].

“Despite managing well the Covid-19 pandemic, Pakistan's HDI and global ranking have suffered due to persistent social, economic and political pressures, including macroeconomic challenges as well as the lingering effect of the 2022 floods,” said UNDP Pakistan Resident Representative, Dr. Samuel Rizk. He observed that there is a notable 33 per cent decline in Pakistan’s inequality-adjusted HDI, bringing it to 0.360. In the Gender Inequality Index (GII), the country’s rank remains the same at 135 out of 166 countries. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) score stays unaffected at 0.198, indicating persistent challenges.

The Report reveals that following pandemic-caused setbacks for their HDI in 2020, the South Asian region has demonstrated an overall more resilient recovery compared to East Asia and the Pacific, as well as the global average. However, significant disparities remain between ‘high’ HDI and ‘low’ HDI countries, indicating ongoing challenges in achieving equitable development.

“With a new government in place, and high ambitions for reform, prosperity for Pakistan requires significant mobilization of climate and SDGs financing, along with a fit-for-purpose governance architecture that provides planetary and digital ‘global public goods’,” said Dr. Rizk. “The role of global public goods is different from humanitarian aid and development assistance, which target certain populations in need. Global public goods, by definition, aim to reach everyone and can improve the prospect of human development of all people and societies as whole.”

The latest UNDP Human Development Report calls for reevaluating global interdependence and outlines four critical areas for action: prioritizing planetary public goods for climate stability, fostering digital global public goods for fair technology access, implementing innovative financial mechanisms for low-income countries, and adopting new governance approaches to reduce political polarization and combat misinformation.

To view the full report, visit https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2023-24

Media contacts For more information or to request an interview, contact:

In New York City: [email protected] +1 347 653 1980 or [email protected] +1917 995 1687

In Geneva: [email protected] +41 79 934 11 17

In Islamabad : [email protected] +92 51 835 5679

[1]   Pakistan‘s HDI value and rank for 2021 has subsequently been adjusted to 0.537 and 165 respectively in the latest HDR 2023/2024. This is because national and international agencies continually improve their data series which result in data changes including revisions in HDI values and ranks. 

About UNDP UNDP is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. Working with our broad network of experts and partners in 170 countries, we help nations to build integrated, lasting solutions for people and the planet. Learn more at undp.org or follow at @UNDP.

About the Human Development Report Office The mission of the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) is to advance human development. The goal is to contribute towards the expansion of opportunities, choice, and freedom. The office works towards this goal by promoting innovative new ideas, advocating practical policy changes, and constructively challenging policies and approaches that constrain human development. The office works with others to achieve change through writing and research, data analysis and presentation, support to national and regional analysis and outreach and advocacy work.  

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Essay on Poverty in Pakistan with Outline

• November 27, 2023

Kainat Shakeel

Poverty is a pervasive issue affecting millions of lives encyclopedically. In the environment of Pakistan, this socioeconomic challenge has been a longstanding concern that demands comprehensive disquisition and strategic interventions. 

Economic Challenges:

• Unemployment: One of the primary contributors to poverty in Pakistan is Unemployment. A significant portion of the population struggles to find stable employment, aggravating the fiscal rigors faced by numerous homes. 
• Low Agricultural Productivity: The agrarian sector, a vital part of Pakistan’s frugality, faces challenges similar to outdated husbandry practices and inadequate access to ultramodern technology. This results in lower productivity, affecting both growers and consumers. 
• Profitable inequality:  A widening gap between the rich and the poor composites the issue. profitable inequality hampers the distribution of coffers and openings, immortalizing the cycle of poverty. 

Social Impacts of Poverty:

• Lack of Access to Education: Poverty frequently deprives individuals of educational openings, limiting their eventuality for particular and professional growth. This lack of access perpetuates the cycle of poverty through generations. 
• Healthcare Challenges: Impoverished communities face shy healthcare services, leading to an advanced frequency of preventable conditions. The incapability to go to medical care further deepens the impact of poverty on health. 
• casing and Living Conditions: Poor living conditions, including shy casing and sanitation, pose significant challenges to those living in poverty. Addressing these issues is pivotal for breaking the cycle of poverty. 

Government Initiatives:

• Poverty Alleviation Programs: The government has enforced colorful poverty relief programs to address the issue. These enterprises aim to give fiscal support, education, and healthcare to vulnerable populations. 
• Social Welfare Initiatives: Social weal programs play a pivotal part in supporting marginalized communities. still, challenges in perpetration, similar to regulatory hurdles and corruption, hamper the effectiveness of this enterprise. 
• International Assistance in Combating Poverty: transnational associations contribute coffers and moxie to palliate poverty in Pakistan. Collaboration between original and global realities is essential for creating sustainable results. 

Cultural Factors:

• Impact of Cultural Morals on Poverty: Cultural morals can either immortalize or challenge the cycle of poverty. Examining and addressing artistic factors is pivotal for enforcing effective poverty reduction strategies. 
• Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Through Cultural Changes: Encouraging artistic shifts that prioritize education, gender equivalency, and community commission is essential for breaking the cycle of poverty. 
• Addressing pastoral Poverty: fastening agrarian development, structure advancements, and access to education can help palliate pastoral poverty, contributing to overall profitable growth. 

Technology and Poverty Alleviation:

• Technological inventions in Poverty Reduction: Advancements in technology, similar to mobile banking and digital communication, have the eventuality to hoist communities by furnishing access to fiscal services and information. 
• The part of Digital knowledge: Promoting digital knowledge is pivotal for ensuring that technological advancements profit all parts of society. Education in digital chops opens doors to profitable openings. 

Education as a Catalyst:

• Empowering Through Education: Investing in education is an important strategy for poverty reduction. Empowered individuals are better equipped to break free from the constraints of poverty. 
• Vocational Training and Skill Development: Beyond traditional education, vocational training, and skill development programs empower individuals to enter the pool with marketable chops. 

Women commission:

Empowering women is central to poverty reduction sweats. furnishing women with education, healthcare, and profitable openings appreciatively impacts families and communities. 

Public Mindfulness and Advocacy:

• The significance of Raising mindfulness: Creating mindfulness about the impact of poverty fosters a sense of responsibility and solidarity, encouraging collaborative sweat to address the issue. 
• Advocacy for Policy Changes: championing policy changes is essential for creating an enabling terrain that supports poverty reduction enterprise. 

Conclusion:

In conclusion, understanding and addressing poverty in Pakistan is a multifaceted approach. Economic, social, and artistic factors must be considered, with a focus on collaboration between the government, NGOs, and transnational mates. By empowering individualities, communities, and women

Kainat Shakeel is a versatile Content Writer Head and Digital Marketer with a keen understanding of tech news, digital market trends, fashion, technology, laws, and regulations. As a storyteller in the digital realm, she weaves narratives that bridge the gap between technology and human experiences. With a passion for staying at the forefront of industry trends, her blog is a curated space where the worlds of fashion, tech, and legal landscapes converge.

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 How to Break the Cycle?

According to the United Nations, 10 percent of the world’s population lives on less than $1.90 a day. Globally five percent of people (368 million) are living in extreme poverty and the majority belong to India, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia and Bangladesh. Globally 13 percent of people do not have access to electricity and 40 percent do not have access to clean fuels for cooking.

Approximately 22000 children die each day due to living in poverty. It is a fact that at this time there are 2.2 billion children in this world and one billion of them live in poverty. In the last decade, global poverty has decreased by half but it is a reality that 71 percent of the world population is still living in low-income or poor conditions (less than $10 per day income).

If the government helps poor children to get a good education (either technical/skill-based or higher education) then in the future they would be able to get good jobs or develop entrepreneurial setups. It will boost their income, they will not remain poor and such families would come out of the cycle of poverty. So free of cost & purposeful education for poor children, the creation of jobs and financing of small entrepreneurial setups are effective ways to break the poverty cycle in Pakistan. Government must formulate and implement policies for the above said three paradigms because it is a way toward a prosperous and sustainable future.  

The trend of a gradual decrease in poverty in the last decade was interrupted in 2020 when poverty rose due to the disruption caused by the covid-19 crisis combined with the effects of conflict and climate change. Surprisingly, the wealth of the top 100 people in this world is enough to eliminate extreme poverty in this world.

It is very important to understand the cycle of poverty before statring to think about poverty reduction. It is simple to understand. If there is a poor family then due to poverty their children will grow up in poverty and such poor children have little or no access to education and skills. As a result, in the future, they would be unable to find suitable work. Their income will be low then again they become a poor family and this cycle of poverty will remain to continue.

According to HIES surveys, in Pakistan, the poverty rate was 61.6 percent in 1998 which has reduced to 21.5 percent by 2018. But on the other hand, it is a fact that 77.60 percent of Pakistan’s population lives in poor conditions (less than $5.50 per day income).

In Pakistan, the government tried to reduce poverty by introducing different poverty alleviation programmes. In March 1967, the government introduced the Social Security Programme for employees. In 1970, Workers’ Welfare Fund Scheme and Workers’ Children Education Ordinance were initiated by the government. In 1976, the Employees Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) was established. The Zakat and Ushr department was established in 1980. Government set up the Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal (PBM) as an autonomous corporate body in 1992. The Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) was founded in 1997 by the government to help the poor through loans. Now, it is working with the World Bank. The Benazir Income Support Programme was launched in 2008 especially to help poor women. The Ehsaas Programme was introduced in 2019.

No doubt, the government seriously took the above measures to decrease poverty but these are not enough to achieve the goal. It needs innovative and deep thinking to rapidly reduce poverty. No doubt, inequality is the main cause of poverty. The biggest inequality that needs to be addressed is gender inequality. So, women’s empowerment is the remedy to reduce poverty. Government must introduce innovative climate change solutions and must promote climate justice to develop resilience against climate change. Education is an effective tool to reduce poverty and improve the lives of people.  According to UNESCO, if all students in low-income countries had just basic reading and writing skills (nothing else), an estimated 171 million people could escape extreme poverty.

Government must provide technical or skill-based education to the children of poor families or must provide scholarships to a maximum number of students. Technical or skill-based education will provide skilled labour to industry. Peace is required for economic activities and it is a basic requirement of any poverty alleviation programme. The Government must provide micro-financing schemes to issue loans to skillful people for small businesses. But to promote small businesses, efficient and easy cash transfer services are also required. Good health is required for focused working. So, the government must provide free or low-cost health facilities for poor families

In Pakistan, 60 percent of labour is dependent on agriculture. In rural areas, it is possible to reduce poverty by adopting sustainable agriculture techniques. Home gardening is an effective way to reduce kitchen expenditures and it helps to reduce poverty. Dairy and livestock development could help to improve the financial status of poor families. Government must provide ICT training to poor students and develop ease for ICT or outsourcing-related working. It is an effective way to reduce poverty as well as to bring foreign remittances to Pakistan also.

If the government helps poor children to get a good education (either technical/skill-based or higher education) then in the future they would be able to get good jobs or develop entrepreneurial setups. It will boost their income, they will not remain poor and such families would come out of the cycle of poverty. So free of cost & purposeful education for poor children, the creation of jobs and financing of small entrepreneurial setups are effective ways to break the poverty cycle in Pakistan. Government must formulate and implement policies for the above said three paradigms because it is a way toward a prosperous and sustainable future.

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Today's Paper | March 24, 2024

Poverty in pakistan.

A STUDY on poverty has brought Pakistan face to face with a reality that it will find hard to accept: every third Pakistani is caught in the ‘poor’ bracket i.e. some 58.7 million out of a total population of 180 million subsist below the poverty line. This includes more than half the population in the forever remote Balochistan, 33 per cent in Sindh, 32 per cent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 19 per cent in Punjab. These are daunting figures. But they are much needed for planning, especially when the government appears too embarrassed to release statistics related to poverty. The Sustainable Development Policy Institute, which has carried out this economic-mapping exercise, is justified in calling for the release of government figures and for a policy to combat acute poverty. These are facts which are being kept under wraps at great peril to the country.

Quite clearly, the dilemma as we know is yet to be overcome. Areas such as defence get the better of development; the more affluent are able to deny the less affluent in the name of sustaining themselves; and the small change that reaches the marginalised segments is never enough to pull them into the promised mainstream. The formula that channels resources and attaches due importance to the underdeveloped is yet to be found. Worse, an earnest search for such a formula is yet to begin. Consequently, development has proceeded in the only manner it could: the gap between the more privileged and the more backward has increased with time, even as successive governments have dangled ‘special packages’ in front of those with the greatest need. This reflects in social, political and, quite often, ethnic tensions, in revolts and in militancy.

The SDPI study identifies the 20 poorest districts, 16 of which exist in Balochistan that has been long agitating for attention. There are no marks for guessing that the other four poorest districts are also located away from the train of progress, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The exercise doesn’t identify the causes behind this continued and unfortunate disparity, but the basic factor responsible for the situation is not very difficult to list. The primary reason is the lack of proper, meaningful and non-discriminatory representation for all regions in decision-making. Those who are able to some extent participate in the running of affairs do manage to secure a better deal. Others are denied participation, and democracy for them remains an illusion. The first resource they are looking for is the space from where they can speak and be heard. This is the most essential prerequisite to progress.

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Poverty in Pakistan: Impacts, Causes, and Way Forwards

• March 26, 2022
• Current Affairs , Pakistan's Domestic Affairs , PMS
• 39919 Views

Poverty in Pakistan: Impacts, Causes, and Way Forwards | Best for CSS, PMS Current Affairs, Pakistan Affairs, and Essay Papers

The answer is solved by Syed Muhammad Hamza on the given pattern, which  Sir Syed Kazim Ali  teaches to his students, who consistently score the maximum because of their attempting the questions.

Introduction:

Supplementing and, in some ways, overshadowing the other socio-economic malfunctions of society, poverty in Pakistan is perhaps the most dreadful fact. Inept governance, high unemployment rate, substandard education system, and other factors have grasped Pakistan ever since its creation. However, the development of economic ventures, pragmatic economic policies, and political stability may strengthen the fragile economy of Pakistan. 

1- What is poverty?

2- Current situation

3- Impacts of poverty

• Increasing terrorism 
• Boosting the rate of unemployment
• Declining Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
• Increasing child labour

4- Causes of poverty

• The crisis of good governance
• The political instability
• The uneducated and unskilled segment of youth
• The population explosion 

5- Way forward

• To ensure a well-functioning of governance
• To build an efficient and peaceful political environment 
• To draw out schemes and reliefs packages for the poor people
• To create new economic ventures 
• To utilize man resources critically and effectively for the economic betterment of the state
• To revive the education system 

6- Critical analysis

7- Conclusion

Answer to the Question

Introduction

Undoubtedly, poverty is the malice that destabilizes a state socially, economically, and politically. Like other underdeveloped countries, Pakistan is also suffering socio-economic declivity due to poverty. Moreover, it has led to many other social evils: corruption, unemployment, child labour, injustice, and terrorism. However, the deep study of Pakistan’s economic situation since its inception shows several factors behind the rise of poverty. The state’s political instability, a considerable chunk of the uneducated and unskilled population, the crisis of good governance, and unequal distribution of resources are a few factors contributing to poverty in Pakistan. Nevertheless, introducing pragmatic economic policies, restructuring the education system, creating working opportunities, reducing corruption, and sorting political and governance chaos may help pull the country out of the very malice. The following answer discusses the impacts and causes of poverty on the polity and the measures needed to alleviate poverty in Pakistan. 

Poverty is a condition in which a person or a household cannot meet their necessities, like food, clothing, shelter, and education. Usually, poverty is defined in terms of money, called income-based poverty. According to Syed Akbar Ali Zaidi, “ Traditionally, poverty is defined as some measure of monetary income considered adequate for subsistence .  However, income in monetary terms may not be an adequate measurement of living conditions of the poor population” . 

Compared to the days of inception, Pakistan has made notable progress in eradicating poverty in the last couple of decades. As per an estimate, by 2015, approximately 30 million people have pulled out the poverty, but covid-19 has reversed all the efforts made in the last 30 years. About ten million more people are expected to be added in nearly fifty million poor people. As per the Human Development Index 2020, Pakistan was ranked 154th among 189 countries. Despite many efforts and progress, Pakistan needs to take more measures to cure poverty. As per the statistics, about 40 per cent of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line and could hardly meet their necessities. Thus, poverty stands as the biggest challenge for Pakistan. 

Poverty, as a matter of fact, has distorted the socio-economic fabric of the state. Poverty and a poor administrative system have given rise to injustice and corruption. People deprived of the necessities of life become easily engaged in terrorist activities; hence, poverty has acted as a catalyst in spreading terrorism. Apart from the poor law and order situation, poverty has also added fuel to the fire of unemployment. Lack of Foreign Direct Investment has brought a decline in the country’s economic growth; consequently, the youth of the country find no economic opportunity. Moreover, poverty has also given rise to child labour. According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics and National Child Labour 2018-19, about twenty million children less than 14 years of age are working to meet their family economic needs. To conclude, poverty has an adverse ripple effect on the country’s socio-economic fabric.  

The number of factors explains the spike in poverty. For instance, the crisis of good governance has been the paramount reason amongst all the other factors. A huge chunk of Pakistan’s population is deprived of clean water, health, food, and education facilities. Moreover, political instability has blurred the country’s image. So that the quick shifts of powers between governments and dictators have shrugged the population’s confidence, the political stability of the polity has distant itself. In addition to political instability, the lack of skilled and educated youngsters has halted the economic progress of Pakistan. As per the report of UNESCO 2019, about 37 per cent of the youth of the country is out of school. Pakistan spends the least expenditure on the education system in its region, nearly 2.4 per cent of GDP in the fiscal year 2018-2019. Last, the explosion of population, becoming one of the prominent reasons for poverty, has immensely burdened the fragile economy of Pakistan. Pakistan ranks fifth amongst the most populated countries of the world. Thus, to combat the burgeoning poverty rate, Pakistan needs to plan critically. 

In response to the challenges aroused by poverty, Pakistan needs to come up with critical, pragmatic measures:

• The state government must ensure the necessities of the population: health, food, and shelter are fulfilled. In addition, proper distribution of resources among the provinces should also be made practical.
• A peaceful political environment is the need of Pakistan’s economy. The political leaders and religious personnel must work on bringing stable and pragmatic policies in the interest of Pakistan.
• Different relief schemes may help poor people to meet their needs.

The proper function and distribution of packages, like the Ehsas Ration Programme, may help feed millions of poor people. 

Moreover, new economic ventures should be introduced to indulge the state’s youth in uplifting the country out of poverty. Pakistan stands among the sixth in the top overpopulated countries, but a proper and effective opportunity can be drawn out of this challenge. Pakistan can use its human resources to flourish in agriculture, construction, and IT to unburden its fragile economy. The most overpopulated country may combat poverty critically and successfully by bringing new economic opportunities. And the most important solution to poverty lies in the revival of the education system. Unfortunately, the education system of Pakistan is obsolete and obscure. By rejuvenating the system, the youth of Pakistan would surely be able to draw new trajectories to pull the country out of the crisis. Thus, the abovementioned suggestions would surely help in plucking the malice of poverty and many other social evils. 

It is high time for Pakistan to consider poverty seriously. By creating economic opportunities, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) would surely get a boost. Consequently, the economic condition of the state would enhance. Similarly, Pakistan being a baby booster country, can enlighten its future by making its youth educated. As it is aptly said,  “Education is indispensable for the success of a state” . To sum up, the government of Pakistan needs to appoint competently and well-qualified economists to tackle the uprising challenges. And other stakeholders must take their responsibility equitably. 

Unfortunately, Pakistan has been suffering several challenges. Amongst them, poverty stands the most crucial. It has hampered the socio-economic fabric of the state and has also killed the creativity of many young and charming minds. Moreover, lacking food and other necessities have engulfed the dreams of many poor people. Thus, building economic opportunities and technical and educational institutions would surely help lift the helpless population. 

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Facing the Challenges of Girls’ Education in Pakistan

Juan d. barón.

Girls’ education is smart economics , and Pakistan has committed to guaranteeing the right of both girls and boys to access quality education ( SDG 4 ).

In fact, Pakistan has dramatically expanded enrollment for girls and boys in the last 14 years. Net enrollment for both has increased by roughly 10 percentage points (Figure 1). With a school-aged population of around 50 million children, there have been substantial gains in the number of children enrolled in school. However, the country faces a number of challenges in ensuring a quality education for all children: 75 percent of 10-year-olds in Pakistan cannot read a simple text, and that rate may have increased to 79 percent due to COVID-19 and the 2022 floods .

Despite progress, girls in Pakistan face more challenges in accessing quality education and their education outcomes lag boys. Bringing more girls and boys to school will require using data to target interventions to specific challenges. At the current pace (which already incorporates strong assumptions on progress), it will take Pakistan at least 50 years to enroll all girls and 31 years to enroll all boys. Below, we present potential solutions to challenges facing girls access to education.

Figure 1. Net enrollment rates by sex (%)

Challenge 1: 12 million girls out of school

About 2 million more girls than boys are out of school in Pakistan–or about 12 million girls in total—and account for most of the out-of-school population in Pakistan. Estimates of the number of out-of-school children in Pakistan range from 20.3 to 22.1 million children.

Solutions. One solution includes using available data and targeting specific programs to specific types of out-of-school children. For example, bringing back young kids who may have dropped out of primary school is a targeted intervention for young kids who were in school, but not for teenage children who may have left the system years ago. A literacy, numeracy, and life skill programs would be a more targeted approach for this group.

Another solution is increasing school supply: Punjab has done it successfully in primary education with public-private partnerships (PPPs). Expanding PPPs to other levels of education and enhancing regulations can deliver big returns. Expanding and better managing public schools in rural areas is another solution, like the SELECT project in the Sindh Province.

Challenge 2: Girls are more likely to have never been to school

In 2018, 26 percent of girls and 19 percent of boys had never been to school, a 7-percentage point difference (Figure 2). Pakistan has made progress compared to 2004, when the difference was 13 percentage points. The effort, however, has left girls in the same position as before relative to boys. Figure 2 shows that in 2018, the number of girls who have never attended school was the same as the number of boys who never attended school in 2004 (14 years earlier).

Solutions . Expanding conditional cash transfers to incentivize parents to send children to school, with a premium on girls, could be effective to enhance early enrollment and reduce gender gaps. Enrollment drives focused on first grades and pre-K enrollment can also be effective.

Figure 2. Children who have never attended school by sex (%)

Challenge 3: Girls in poor families are less likely to attend school

Poverty is a major challenge for girls’ education. Girls in poor families are 22 percentage points less likely to attend school than boys (Figure 3). This gender gap gets narrower with better-off families, ending with no gap for families in the wealthiest quintile, where enrollment is around 87 percent, for both sexes.

Figure 3. School enrollment by sex and household wealth (%)

Moreover, girls in poor families are 52 percentage points less likely to attend school than girls in well-off households (Figure 3). This highlights what families express as the biggest constraint to sending girls to primary school: the cost of education. Girls in rural areas, who are more likely to be in poor households, are also less likely to be enrolled than any other group, including girls in urban areas and boys in both rural and urban areas (Figure 4). Girls in rural areas are the most disadvantaged group.

Solutions. Pakistan has recently expanded the conditional cash transfer program to all districts in the country and has had girls’ stipend programs with positive outcomes. Expanding and consolidating this financial support to families—differentiating by gender and rural areas—could help in closing these gaps. These financial conditionalities will only work if there are enough schools available, which is not the case in many rural areas of Pakistan. For example, there are nearly 130,000 primary schools in rural Pakistan, but only 33,000 middle schools, leaving many middle school-aged students in rural areas without education options after primary school.

Figure 4. In all provinces, girls of all ages in rural areas are less likely to be in school than boys

Challenge 4: Security of girls and women at school

Girls face harassment in school and on the way to school. They face challenges to their security in public spaces, transportation, and near schools. Girls express anguish at all types of harassment in these spaces, the Center for Gender and Policy Studies reports. Given this, parents in Pakistan either delay girls’ education or prevent them from attending school altogether. The second most important reason parents give for not sending girls to school is the distance to schools, which is a factor that exacerbates parents’ security concerns: the more distant the school, the more risk for girls.

Solutions . Improving transport services for girls and female teachers, as has been done in KP Province , and making school safe for students (for example, building boundary walls in schools).

What’s next?

Pakistan has shown that increased enrollment for girls is possible even in a context of high population growth. To accelerate progress, programs could be based on cost-effectiveness, potential for scale, and new research. For example, countries can advance girls’ education through un-targeted programs as effectively as targeted programs, as outlined in research by Evans & Yuan . This is true in some domains, but targeted interventions would work best for specific constraints faced by girls. The above potential solutions reflect both.

Solutions, however, require adequate and well-executed funding. Pakistan spends 2.5 percent of its GDP on education, far from the 4 percent international average. Reducing gaps and ensuring that all children, in particular girls, have access to quality education would require at least 4.5 percent of GDP, the World Bank estimates.

Senior Economist, Education Global Practice, World Bank Group

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Pakistan witnessed worst air quality in 2023

Pakistan remained one of the three smoggiest countries across the globe in 2023, as Bangladesh and India re­placed Chad and Iran, with particulate matter about 15 times the level recom­mended by the World Health Organiza­tion.

Only Australia, Grenada, Iceland, Es­tonia, Finland, Mauritius and New Zea­land met WHO standards last year.

According to the data average con­centrations of PM2.5 - small air­borne particles that damage the lungs - reached 79.9 micrograms per cubic metre in Bangladesh in 2023, and 73.7 micrograms in Pakistan. The WHO rec­ommends no more than 5 micrograms.

'Because of the climate conditions and the geography (in South Asia), you get this streak of PM2.5 concentrations that just skyrocket because the pollu­tion has nowhere to go,' said Christi Chester Schroeder, air quality science manager at IQAir, a Swiss air-monitor­ing organisation.

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'On top of that are factors such as ag­ricultural practices, industry and pop­ulation density,' she added. 'Unfortu­nately, it really does look like it will get worse before it gets better.'

In 2022, Bangladesh was ranked as having the fifth-worst air quality, and India was eighth.

About 20 per cent of premature deaths in Bangladesh are attributed to air pollution, and related health­care costs amount to 4 per cent -5 per cent of the country's GDP, said Md Firoz Khan, an air pollution expert at Dhaka's North South University.

Indian pollution also increased last year, with PM2.5 levels about 11 times higher than the WHO standard. India's New Delhi was the worst-performing capital city, at 92.7 micrograms.

China also saw PM2.5 rise 6.3 per cent to 32.5 micrograms last year, after five consecutive annual declines.

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The IQAir report was based on data from more than 30,000 monitoring sta­tions in 134 countries and regions.

Chad, the world's most polluted country in 2022, was excluded from the 2023 listings because of data is­sues. Iran and Sudan were also taken off the 2023 list.

Christa Hasenkopf, Director of the Air Quality Life Index at the Universi­ty of Chicago's Energy Policy Institute, said 39% of countries have no public air quality monitoring.

'Considering the large potential benefits and relatively low cost, it's stunning that we don't have an or­ganised global effort to deploy re­sources to close these data gaps, es­pecially in places where the health burden of air pollution has been largest,' she said.