A World Bank report notes that in 2002-2003 approximately 13.6 million people in Sindh were living below the poverty line - a figure contrasting unfavourably with the 1993-94 total of 6.5 million people. In addition, the upper and middle classes also experienced a decline in numbers from 211.1 million to 21 million.
The report expresses serious concern over the possibility of the current poverty trend persisting which would lead to an increase in the number of poor by 8.3 million and the number of middle and upper income contracting by 3.7 million.
It is unfortunate that we, as a nation, tend to give greater credence to figures released by donor agencies as being less biased and, therefore, more believable. In this context, however, it must be borne in mind that the majority of the macro economic figures quoted by the World Bank are taken from local sources.
The reason is simple: few governments around the world would borrow money, concessional or at market rates, for undertaking expensive surveys requiring considerable manpower.
Donor agencies do undertake an analysis that is based on macro economic statistics provided by the countries concerned and this particular report may well have been an analysis of existing government compiled data as opposed to a survey undertaken by the Bank.
Be that as it may, there is an obvious need to look at the reasons behind these worsening poverty figures in Sindh, especially considering that the province has historically experienced high employment levels, a high growth rate propelled by Karachi as the financial capital as well as the main port city of the country and a high per capita income in comparison to the other provinces. The World Bank report cites two interrelated factors as the main contributory elements to the worsening situation in the province: poor governance and the quality of public services.
Critics of the present government may take this as proof positive that there is not much concrete evidence to support the tall claims made by the federal government that governance has improved significantly. They can well cite the increasing number of military men in key civil institutions who, without the appropriate knowledge of the public utilities they are heading, have focused on disciplinary issues relating to attendance as opposed to streamlining over-staffed public organisations and pursuing a policy of performance-based promotions and capacity building in their institutions. These are valid assertions.
However, it is also pertinent to note that the government has embarked on some governance reforms spearheaded by the donor community which stress not only capacity building in key public service sectors but also incorporate organizational change that has been quite dramatic in some cases, for example, WAPDA.
The pace of the reforms though remains slow and there is evidence of considerable resistance from within organisations to change, especially when change consists of privatisation.
The most serious issue noted in the report is that water scarcity is still not one of the top five challenges of the government. With a large percentage of the population still without access to clean drinking water - an inadequacy with obvious implications for the health budget, and given the heavy reliance on agriculture as a component of GDP, a sector requiring irrigation - it is vital that water scarcity be taken as the challenge for the next two years.
The President has already noted that clean drinking water for all must be achieved by 2007, however adequate resources are yet to be mustered to meet this objective. The government must bear in mind that donor agencies are increasingly harmonising and aligning their interventions in an effort to maximise the impact of their funding. Unless the government meets its obligations in loan agreements, obligations that the government has agreed to, funding from several concessional sources would dry up, and the government's poverty reduction targets would suffer further.