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December 8, 2002
REVIEWS: Number crunching
The fourth Annual Review of the Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC), Karachi, released a few months ago, focuses on economic growth, poverty and regional and personal income inequality. There has been considerable debate on these issues in academic and policy circles in the past, and the role of public policy has been frequently discussed.
While the intervention made by SPDC is welcome, the quality, nature and direction of the debate is rather disappointing and lacks any sort of perspective.
The first chapter looks at Pakistan’s development journey through a series of tables and statistics about selected social sector indicators in 1947-2001. The authors argue that Pakistan has not done very well compared to ‘other developing countries and even countries in the region’ because it started with very little. They then try to show, quite unconvincingly, the great strides made by the economy in the last 55 years, with growth trends in per capita income, some social services, and industry.
They conclude that there are very serious shortcomings despite some achievements. This is the main contribution of this chapter, where little commentary has been supplied about the meaning or reasons for the numerous trends. Neither have corresponding statistics from other countries been presented. Much of the data provided in this chapter can easily be accessed from the annual Pakistan Economic Survey, and one would have expected far greater depth of analysis from the SPDC. Unfortunately, for the most part, this chapter sets the trend for the following five.
The only chapter in the Annual Review which has some degree of intelligent commentary and analysis, is the one on macroeconomic policy and poverty. This discusses many of the important trends which have taken place in the economy, ranging from a discussion on stabilization and growth, and with an incomplete, superficial and very simplistic analysis of the state of the economy since 1988, followed by a somewhat competent discussion of the state of the economy in the 1999-2001 period.
The authors argue that most of the economic reforms have continued unabated since 1988, with far greater vigour in their implementation since 1999. Amongst the findings of this chapter is that stabilization objectives have been achieved at the cost of suppressing economic growth, and while the fiscal deficit has been reduced, this has been done largely by cuts in development expenditure. This brief analysis on this last period is, perhaps, the main contribution of the Annual Review, where a number of critical issues regarding the economy are raised.
These issues range from questioning the many claims made by the Musharraf government regarding the state of the economy to a discussion on how the budget deficit, current deficit and inflation have been reduced in recent years. The publication also takes up the question of how Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have been increased.
Next follows the chapter on the nature and profile of income inequality, and numerous tables and sets of statistics are presented to show the extent of inequality in Pakistan. There is a commentary on how inequality is measured and the cost borne as a consequence of inequality. While some of the tables and statistics provided are useful, there are a number of serious flaws in the analysis undertaken. For one thing, part of it would be completely unintelligible to any non-economist. Secondly, the authors seem to get bogged down in numbers and ratios, without ever explaining their significance. There is too little explanation on why these trends take place and their implications.
The next chapter looks at each of the four provinces and ranks each district against a set of indicators. Thus the provincial capitals are, not surprisingly, the most ‘developed’ districts in the provinces, with Rajanpur, Tharparkar, Kohistan and Musakhel, the least developed in their specific provinces. While the information provided is useful for those comparing district- level social indicators, the ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’ behind the numbers are seldom explained.
Chapter five is supposed to deal with social policy and includes sections on housing, the Five-Point Programme, and the Social Action Programme. The discussion on the latter two is adequate, but the choice of treatment of housing is odd, to say the least. It seems very clear from the way housing has been discussed that the authors have no clue as to the nature of issues in the housing sector in Pakistan and have not even consulted the main experts on the subject.
There are numerous serious misperceptions regarding the role of the government, and the private formal and informal sectors in the housing arena. It is clear that the authors are not at all familiar with the workings of the land and housing market in low income settlements in the country, particularly in urban areas. Moreover, it seems that none of the authors has ever visited a katchi abadi where there is abundant infrastructure, and human and social capital evident.
The last chapter of the Review, summarises many of the earlier chapters and offers some policy advice. The review suffers from many serious conceptual and intellectual shortcomings. Despite the long list of contributors, the team lacks a good analyst who could think through many of the issues raised by SPDC, making the important intellectual connections between issues. The weakness in the SPDC team emanates from the fact that it does not have a single political economist in its midst, someone who can talk about issues of transition and change and its dynamics. This is most evident from the section on housing discussed above, and by the discussion on land inequality in chapter three. Any social scientist with some understanding of political economy would have looked at the nature of transition in agriculture in a far more dynamic manner rather than offering some inane and dry sets of statistics.
Another important critique of the Annual Review is that it confuses the key issues of inequality and poverty. The two terms are at times used interchangeably, and at others, the nature of causality seems a little odd. For example, the authors write that ‘inequality breeds poverty’, a statement which is not true, and one cannot agree with the statement that ‘inequality is more important than poverty’. These are not merely ideological statements, but suggest severe conceptual weaknesses, a characteristic of the entire Annual Review.
Social development in Pakistan: growth, inequality and poverty, annual review 2001
Social Policy and Development Centre and Oxford University Press, 5 Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal, Karachi-75350
Tel: 021- 4529025
Email:
ouppak@theoffice.net
ISBN 0-19-579859-7
xxv+247pp. Rs395
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