Even with the enhanced and widening social security programmes, coupled with increased financial allocations for UN Sustainable Development Goals projects proposed by parliamentarians for their electoral constituencies, the future of citizens cannot be delinked from the sliding economic growth. The outlook for the economy and the citizens is not promising. Many analysts think that 2023 will be a worse year than 2022.

Though significantly expanded, the social security programme still covers an inadequate number of vulnerable people. It provides meagre relief to compensate them for the abnormally high inflation rate, high energy prices, the increasing cost of living, and rising poverty. Inflation is the top public concern, followed by unemployment.

These issues have also affected the voting pattern in recent by-elections. The PTI lost the by-elections in Punjab when in power, while PML-N was the main gainer. For the same reasons, just a few months after the PML-N-led Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) formed government, PML-N lost the by-elections, shedding some of its political capital in its stronghold province.

Despite the political heat generated by Imran Khan’s strong political narrative, the turnout in by-elections in most constituencies was meagre. This can be attributed to the loss of confidence of voters in the government’s overall uplift programme and service delivery system.

The new year should be dedicated to reinventing the social security programme to achieve sustainable development

However, 2023 may be a people’s moment with rescheduled local body polls and provincial and national assembly elections due this year.

The sharp fall in growth has already resulted in heavy layoffs from the trade and industrial sectors, while another big spell of retrenchment is in the pipeline. However, a positive development with huge potential is that Pakistan is stated to have developed the world’s second-largest freelance IT workforce without the official support it seeks.

About 54 per cent of the employees working in small- and medium-sized enterprises have lost their jobs, as 25pc or 197,658 economic establishments have been destroyed across the country by the recent floods, according to a preliminary assessment by Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Authority (SMEDA). Of those surveyed, 50pc of the respondents are from the services sector, 40pc from agriculture and 10pc from the industrial sector. SMEDA CEO Hashim Raza says 33m or 14pc of the country’s total population and 90 of the country’s 160 districts have been hit by one of worst floods.

Doubtless, social security programmes have been gradually enhanced and widened in recent years though development spending has dropped simultaneously. For example, nine million families with a monthly income of less than Rs40,000 are eligible for Rs2,000 per month from the budgeted Rs226 billion cash transfer scheme under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) for this fiscal year. The PDM coalition government enhanced the overall annual allocation for BISP to Rs364bn from last year’s Rs250bn.

However, the challenges are enormous. Results of a recent Pakistan Institute of Development Economics public opinion survey show that 37pc of the country’s population wants to leave Pakistan for economic reasons. Many seek self-respect. The survey shows that the desire to live outside of Pakistan is highest in less developed Baluchistan, with 42pc, against the lowest in the relatively developed Punjab, with 35pc.

And among the male age group between 15 and 24, about 62 pc of the respondents want to leave the country. Harnessing the demographic dividend requires the right policy mix, including investment in education and healthcare to improve human capital and productivity, says the State Bank’s annual report for FY22.

The year 2023 should be dedicated to reinventing the social security programme to achieve sustainable and inclusive development.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, January 2nd, 2023