PROFESSIONALS have lamented the failures of the successive governments in bringing down the poverty rate, which according to them was 42 per cent.

Dr Sher Shah Syed, a leader of the Pakistan Medical Association, attributed tardy progress to non-seriousness of the governments. “They sign the international protocols, but they don’t come up to the expectations”.

“Had the rulers tried most of the issues confronted by the people could have been resolved,” he remarked.

He said that 42 per cent of the country’s population is living below the poverty line, and they have no assets to bank on.

Arif Hassan, an architect and town planner who had remained associated with the UN task force on housing in slums, said that because the governments don’t consider itself accountable to people, it feels no compulsion to resolve their problems. The fact is that the rulers care more for opinion of multilateral institutions such as WTO and IMF than people of the country.Neither the UN, nor the governments have a solution to the question of poverty, because they don’t address the housing needs of the people. They judge poverty on the basis of income per person, and it was the reason that they don’t consider that someone should have a house as an asset.

UN wants to reduce slums, but who will address the emergence of new slums that were going to be set up because housing needs of the people are not being fulfilled. It is the basic fault that was not being addressed.

So when we say that the solution of the poverty is in delivering $1 per person, the question of housing cannot be addressed and people may not have assets. So this is not the right method to reduce poverty.

Kaneez Fatima, a labour leader, was of the view that poverty cannot be reduced because all the money goes down the drain due to corruption and malpractices in governance.

She said that change in the system was the only solution to reduce poverty.

She said that demonstrations are held but no one pays attention to resolve grievances of the protesters.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2015

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