Birth rate blues

Pakistan often finds itself in the company of the wretched countries whenever a comparison is made to determine the nations' ranking at regional and global levels. According to "World Development Indicators 2011" released recently by the World Bank, population growth rate in Pakistan was as high as 2.2 percent followed by 1.7 percent in Nepal, 1.4 percent in Bangladesh, 1.3 percent in India and 0.7 percent in Sri Lanka.
The crude birthrate at 30 per 1000 people was also the highest in the region followed by 25 per 1000 in Nepal, 22 in India and 21 in Bangladesh. Similar was the situation in the average annual growth of labour force which was 3.3 percent in Pakistan compared to 3 percent in Nepal, 2.4 percent in Bangladesh and 1.9 percent in India. It was also revealed that employment to population ratio above the age of 15 was 52 percent in Pakistan, 56 percent in India, 62 percent in Nepal and 68 percent in Bangladesh.
Labour productivity at 2.5 percent in Pakistan was also very low compared to 5.9 percent in India and 61 percent population of the country was living below the international poverty line of two dollars per day income and 22.6 percent people of Pakistan were earning an amount equal to $1.25 per day.
Performance of the country with regard to other social sectors was also found to be dismal compared to other countries of the region. For instance, allocation for health sector as a percentage of GDP was only 2.6 percent in Pakistan as compared to 6 percent in Nepal, 4.2 percent in India and 3.3 percent in Bangladesh.
The risk of maternal death in Pakistan was one female out of 93 compared to one in 110 in Bangladesh and one in 140 in India. However, Pakistan faired somewhat better than Nepal where this ratio was one in 80.
The above data are of course depressing but the saddest part is that Pakistan which had the capacity and natural resources to grow at a fast rate and was once hailed as a model of development had to suffer the ignominy of being relegated to a very low level in terms of almost all kinds of socio-economic indicators. Even Bangladesh that was once considered a basket case when it separated from Pakistan about four decades ago is doing much better. This highlights the degree of economic mismanagement that we have had for too long. A high budget deficit, double-digit inflation, dismally low savings and investment rates, stagnation in growth, mounting debt servicing and dependence on outside multilateral institutions including the IMF and other donors to bail out the country from successive crises are only some of the manifestations of a very poorly performing economy.
Tragically, the impact of these failures has been reinforced by the negative fallout of certain non-economic factors like political uncertainty, poor law and order situation, increased militancy, bordering on insurgency, bad governance, rampant corruption and absence of writ of the state in several parts of the country. All these negatives have combined to erode the ability of the government to stabilise the economy and mobilise higher level of resources for allocation to improve the decaying infrastructure and increase spending on social sectors. No wonder then that the country has been sliding down in terms of social indicators for quite some time and there seems to be no end to this profound slide as yet.
In fact, whatever the reasons, Americans also now appear to be cheesed off and this may encourage the multilateral financial organisations including the IMF to either postpone or terminate their assistance with the result that the country may find itself in great trouble in the coming days than experienced hitherto.
This does not, however, mean that Pakistan at its own cannot do much to reverse this highly precarious situation. For instance, many of the problems can be solved if the leadership demonstrate the political will to collect taxes from all sections of society at a uniform rate without playing politics and successfully persuade the electorate about the necessity of such a course of action to reduce dependence on outside sources of finance and provide adequate funds for social sectors.
In other words, the ability of the country to push through difficult but necessary measures has to be enhanced to undertake the needed structural reforms. Everybody needs to understand that such a change in policy strategy would be hard to push through and not translate into more votes but would have a long-term positive impact on economy. Unless the country makes a bold departure from the past and learn from its mistakes, it will not only be left behind in terms of socio-economic indicators but is likely to face a chaotic situation, including mass agitation, due to high unemployment level and the inability of the state to provide any relief through the provision of social services which are generally taken for granted in other countries.