The World Bank has recently completed an evaluation of its interventions in Pakistan over a ten-year period (1993-2003). Its conclusion is that Pakistan performed poorly in a number of areas, including poverty reduction, social sector performance, agriculture and natural resource management, rural development, power sector, taxes, public sector management and governance.
This list is exhaustive and challenges the contention of the present government that it has made a significant positive impact on the economy as a consequence of its own reforms that date back to late 1999 and early 2000.
The government has a point in that the report analyses the performance of the economy till 2003, thereby focusing on a time frame when Pakistan was undergoing significant political upheaval.
Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif were unable to make any serious headway in implementing their reforms largely because the measures taken in governance (rationalising the staffing requirements in government and autonomous organisations), increasing revenue in an effort to achieve a modicum of fiscal balance, upgrading utility rates or privatisation were, quite naturally, unpopular.
The nuclear tests of 1998 and the military coup in October 1999 isolated Pakistan still further with only a trickle of financial support from bilateral and multilateral donor agencies.
However, the situation changed dramatically after September 11, 2001 and it is unfortunate in one sense that the evaluation report stopped at 2003, because till that time the true impact of funding from abroad as a reward for our support of America's war on terror had not begun to filter in.
It must be noted, though, that while Pakistan may have come a long way in fuelling a very high growth rate and meeting its balance of payment obligations, a reversal is clearly likely with the rise in the international price of oil to over $60 in recent weeks.
The positive trends seen in the last two years would be unsustainable if foreign funding is stopped. Thus the specter of possible aid cessation once Pakistan's geopolitical importance is downgraded with US interest in the region abating is a fear that is potent, as it reflects what has happened in the past. The Pakistan Government has defended itself by stating that the World Bank study focuses on the impact of its own interventions. This is rather a poor defence.
The Bank analysis focuses on whether a range of objectives that each project and programme during the ten-year period was targeted to achieve was indeed met. Some of the objectives of their interventions were macro economic in scope; consequently the Bank assessed the total macro economic conditions prevailing during the period under review.
In addition each project and programme had some micro objectives specific to a sector or region and those too were analysed in the context of their specific intervention. A look at Pakistan's performance during the ten-year period does reveal that little has changed. Few can argue that the social sector has improved in performance.
Poverty, according to a report released by the government, is on the rise. Inflation is in double digits and whether the cause is external - oil price rise as well as a decline in price of our major exports - or internal, the fact remains that the value of the rupee is shrinking visibly. Governance with many appointments on basis of affiliations has not improved in spite of claims to the contrary.
Agriculture and natural resource outputs are determined by weather conditions as opposed to any serious effort to manage these sectors. Tax collections remain a problem area with revenue not able to keep pace with rising expenditures. Electricity supply remains an issue, the number of people able to access clean drinking water is small, and education levels remain low. Thus all in all one would endorse the World Bank's evaluation study as opposed to any claims made to the contrary by the government.
The Government was requested to comment on the draft report, but the World Bank's evaluation department did not consider the comments relevant. It is pertinent to note that the World Bank's evaluation department is distinct from operations where the government can and does exert some leverage. The Bank also noted that the implementation performance of the Pakistan Government has been slow.
This is a serious issue that several bilateral and multilateral donors have raised frequently with the government, but it has never been addressed. Thus frequent requests to delay project closing because of these delays is commonplace in Pakistan and needs to be looked into on a regular basis. It is unfortunate that the government has gone into a defence mode vis-a-vis this report.
It would have been more appropriate for it to learn from the past and ensure that during the next decade it does impact on poverty and the quality of people's lives.
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