February 03, 2008

SHAHID Javed Burki is a man with impressive credentials. A highly educated economist, with a quarter century at the World Bank under his belt, as well as a stint as the finance minister of Pakistan in the 1990s, he is ideally placed to comment on the economy of Pakistan and suggest measures for improving its state.

Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality: Pakistan’s Economy under Musharraf, 1999-2006 is a volume extracted from some of his writings on the economy of Pakistan over the years, collated and updated. The book is arranged in six chapters, each of which focuses on what the author considers a major challenge or opportunity facing the nation as it enters its 60th year of independence. Unsurprisingly for Pakistan, these are often represented by the same thing.

According to Burki, the major challenges facing Pakistan are sustaining growth and alleviating poverty; finding a place for itself in the changing geopolitical environment; increasing the amount of international trade for the country; developing the large and young population of the country into a strategic asset; providing a renewed focus for the agricultural heartland of the country — which should be the engine of the economy; finding ways of using the large expatriate Pakistani population to contribute positively to the economy of the country; and finding a way forward on the issue of Kashmir that is beneficial too all parties involved in the long-standing dispute.

The author is clearly a fan of the South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) and feels that using this agreement wisely could set the nation up for sustained prosperity on a number of fronts. Some of his suggestions appear to be straight from the World Bank’s development handbook, which is unsurprising given his credentials.

Burki points out that many of Pakistan’s development challenges stem from poor, compromised or absent infrastructure and a lack of governance. He contends that history has shown that whenever governments in the past have tried to subvert institutions which posed a threat to their power; this has sown the seeds of their own downfall, in addition to not allowing the development of institutions robust enough to sustain accelerated growth.

He also suggests that the periods of rapid growth in the nation’s economy coincided with large inflows of foreign capital, brought to the country because the nation found itself aligned with the strategic interests of the United States at the time. When that strategic interest, and the money associated with it, was lost, so was the impetus for accelerated growth.

At several points the book underscores the argument that economic development cannot be isolated from the social and political environments of the country. This is, of course, a very important point to make, for the economy of a nation has so many interacting influences that ignoring one or more will result in a skewed picture of the situation. In particular, Burki repeatedly stresses that political and social stability is very important for the prospect of sustained development for a nation such as Pakistan.

A year is a very long time in Pakistan, and a lot has happened in the period since this volume was written. As a result, some of its content feels redundant, and other elements feel eerily prescient. However, the bulk of the comments made by Burki still hold validity even in the current environment in the nation.

The volume is structured in the form of a series of essays, which have been compiled based on some common theme. This structure is understandable as much of the material was originally written for newspaper articles, but this results in the flow of the narrative being slightly disjointed, and some of the sections within the chapters do not necessarily feel very closely aligned with the rest of the narrative.

The prose is highly academic, which makes it a challenge to read, especially for someone who does not have at least an intermediate-level understanding of Economics. This naturally limits the potential audience for this book dramatically, which is a great pity since there are important messages in it for policymakers both old and new. This raises the question, then, as to why books which should really be read by as wide an audience as possible often actually only cater to a very select audience by virtue of the way they are written?

Burki, in his position as an expatriate Pakistani, should have a view of the situation in Pakistan that is different from that of economists who are living in Pakistan. However, his insights do not really seem to offer much in the way of realistic, workable and clearly defined solutions to the challenges being faced by the economy of this nation. Indeed, there are lessons to be learnt from the economies of the world, equally so from the successful ones as the unsuccessful ones, but the challenge is to select those models which are not only going to be the most effective but also which are practicable given the situation on the ground.

And it is this second consideration which casts into doubt the ability of an expatriate to proffer viable solutions to a local problem. Nor are any of his suggestions really groundbreaking or unique; many of them seem to be a rehash of the same development ideas that have been doing the rounds of the development agenda in Pakistan for several years now.

The major lesson to be gleaned from this book is that Pakistan appears once again to be at a crossroads in its development. With elections only a few weeks away, the incumbent government will have an opportunity that, according to Burki, only arose once before in this nation’s 60-year history. The decisions made by that government could launch Pakistan into a true phase of sustainable high growth — or plunge the nation once again into a cycle of dependence on foreign injections of capital.

The suggestions contained in Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality are not new; what is needed are governments and systems that have the will and the ability to take these visions and carry them through. This would be a course of action that requires great courage and wisdom on the part of our leaders, and now is the time for the nation to use its vote to select leaders that exhibit these very qualities.
 

Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality
By Shahid Javed Burki
Oxford University Press, Karachi
ISBN 0-19-547507
373pp. Rs595