LAHORE: Four years of economic downturn and devastating floods of 2010 are feared to have wiped out at least part of the gains that were made on the back of robust growth between 2002 and 2007 with regard to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Punjab.
The populist development policies of the Shahbaz Sharif government in the province, some economic experts argue, must also have slowed down progress on MDGs during the last four years.
“Indeed, the floods and economic downturn have slowed down the province’s progress on MDGs. Still, the provincial government could have done a lot had it set its development priorities right and diverted greater funds to bridge the social and economic infrastructure gaps to revive growth and create jobs,” commented a development economics professors at a private university in Lahore.
Progress on the goals had been slow to begin with, but it has been severely derailed by the economic downturn, the difficult security situation and the effects of the devastating floods, says a UNDP report, titled Punjab Millennium Development Goals Report 201 (check the exact year), which provides an in-depth analysis of the progress made on the implementation of MDGs at the provincial and district levels.
The report is based on surveys and social and economic data till 2007. The report confirms fears that the province will not be able to achieve any MDG in its entirety. “Data and trends suggest that no MDG can be achieved in its entirety in the province by 2015, although some indicators for reducing child mortality rate (MDG-4) and ensuringenvironmental sustainability (MDG-7) could be met on average for the province,” it says.
“Substantial improvement has yet to be made for achieving any MDG although Punjab’s indicators are for the most part higher than national averages,” it asserts. “Punjab’s progress towards MDGs is better than the national average for a number of indicators, indicating significant contribution Punjab has made to progress seen for those indicators at the national level.”
This means that the province’s slow progress towards and its inability to achieve the goals by 2015 will have substantial impact on the national social indicators as the province accounts for 60 per cent of the country’s total population.
Additionally, its relatively better performance in terms of some indicators is not evenly distributed across districts and along the urban-rural divide, showing a regional bias in allocation of development expenditure. South Punjab remains poorer with its residents having limited access to education, healthcare, drinking water, and other public services than the rest of the more ‘urbanized’ parts of the province, especially its central districts.
“The incumbent government has lost a big opportunity not only to escalate progress towards achieving the goals, but also to bridge the regional developmental imbalances after the increased flow of federal funds under the new National Finance Commission ((NFC) award,” the professor said.
“It is unfortunate that the government has used additional funds from the federal divisible pool to dole out laptops and untargeted food and miscellaneous subsidies and undertake expensive election-related projects like metro bus system in Lahore instead of diverting funds for programmes that would have increased the poor people’s access to education, healthcare, drinking water, etc and created sustainable jobs to cut poverty,” he said. He pointed out that the reported cost of metro bus project at Rs70bn was almost double the amount budgeted for the development of southern Punjab, which is 32 per cent of the province.
His point is supported by the government’s failure to release Rs8.5bn budgeted in the last financial year for the MDGs. This year the amount has been decreased to Rs5.5bn. Even this amount is unlikely to be released; let alone spent.
Officials, however, are happy to note that the province had performed better in comparison with other provinces. It should be enough to show the government’s strong commitment with the goals, an official said. “The provincial government has considerably improved allocations for improving the quality of public services like education, healthcare and economic infrastructure in the province over the last four years,” a Planning and Development Department official said.
“It is incorrect to say that we are not doing anything to achieve the MDGs. The UNDP report is a testimony to our commitment to make fast progress on these goals. The programmes to provide social protection, food security, education and healthcare to the poor and the vulnerable groups are aimed at achieving the MDGs,” he asserted.
But another economist said the government’s development priorities were focused on programmes that can help it win the next election. “The government programmes to provide untargeted food subsidy didn’t reach the hungry nor would its free laptops for the middle-class students help a poor, unemployed get a job to sustain his family. It would have been much better if the provincial government had initiated a targeted cash transfer scheme to help the poorer segments of population rather than putting the money in the pockets of corrupt officials and politicians of the ruling party. The same is the case with Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s obsession for ‘Daanish Schools’. The same amount of money could be used to provide missing facilities in the public schools and initiating projects meant to lure parents into sending their children to schools,” he said.
“If the government had got its development priorities right, it could have performed better on MDGs in spite of slow economy and losses caused by the 2010 floods,” he argued.