ISLAMABAD, May 12: Participants of the three-day-long meeting of the Pakistan Development Forum (PDF) on Monday asked the government to take steps for reducing poverty, ensuring access to justice for everyone and effective implementation of the power sector reforms, sources said.
The PDF was formerly known as the Aid to Pakistan Consortium.
Participants, including those of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations, United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, while expressing their concern over the increase in poverty, said that fruits of better economic conditions should trickle down to the poorer sections of the society.
The meeting, sources said, also stressed the need for improving the implementation strategy specially on poverty, health, education and gender issues.
Participants, sources said, believed that poverty had continued to increase during 2001 and 2002 and that there was a need for better macro economic policies to lower the incidence of poverty in Pakistan.
Sources said that the government and the donors differed over the poverty figures. Interestingly, the government’s earlier survey suggested that the incidence of poverty was 32.1 per cent, but the current official figures showed that it was 34 percent.
However, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) contested the government’s figures, claiming the figure for poverty in the country was 36 per cent.
The draft version of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), provided to the participants of the PDF meeting, conceded that on the basis of official poverty line, poverty continued to increase through 2000-2001, the most recent year for which data was available, which also provides a reference base-line for impact assessment of PRSP in the period ahead.
According to insiders, the government’s economic mangers showed the reduction in poverty figures by reducing the standard calories intake from 2,550 to 2,350 — an issue that did not go well with the World Bank, IMF, the ADB and other bilateral donors.
Mr. Patrick X. Renault, Belgium’s Ambassador to Pakistan told this correspondent after the main session that there had been a marked improvement in Pakistan’s economy during the last three years. But he said there was a need to focus on reducing poverty.
The increase in poverty, he said, was due to previous persistent drought and various internal and external factors. He said that poverty had been increasing till last year in Pakistan.
The IMF’s senior director Klaus Enders, who was also attending the meeting, when contacted, said that the PDF had expressed its concern over non-implementation on structural reforms, specially in the power sector.
He said that the performance of Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) needed to be improved. He said the line losses of both the utilities would have to be brought down considerably to make them financially viable. “Then the privatisation process during the last three year period was difficult and that was why there was no meaningful privatisation in the country”, he added.
The local chief of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Marshuk Ali Shah said that implementation was one of the major problems which was thoroughly discussed by the meeting.
He said that state sector had to be made viable by introducing reforms and that the government should curtail the sector’s losses.
Minister for Education Ms. Zobaida Jalal reportedly told the participants of the meeting that the government required Rs80 billion to implement the reform in the education sector.
She also said that the government had provided Rs40 billion and the remaining funds should be met by donors for effective implementation of the reform.
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz later said that the participants had mainly discussed the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. He said that vice president of the World Bank Ms. Meiko Nishmizue had told the meeting that last year she was skeptical about the reform agenda but now she saw a lot of improvements in every sector of the economy.
Mr Aziz said that the meeting was informed that the GDP growth target, presently set at 4.5 per cent for the current financial year, was likely to be surpassed. Large-scale manufacturing sector, he said, had shown a growth of 10 per cent against a target of 5.2 per cent, while agriculture growth was expected to be 4.2 per cent in 2002-03.