The pro-poor budgetary expenditures on the 17 sectors, identified in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP), are projected to grow from the current Rs 434.6 billion or 5.63 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 6.2 percent of the GDP by 2008-09, said official sources.
They expressed the hope that the pro-poor expenditures would be prioritised through a medium-term expenditure framework that would be consistent with the FRDL Act, 2005, which stipulated that the expenditures on social sectors would be 4.5 percent of the GDP in any given year and that allocations for health and education would be doubled as a percentage of the GDP over the next 10 years.
They said the targets for key macroeconomic aggregates, presented in the framework, were the broad direction over the medium term and were indicative and not meant to prompt any future adjustments required achieving the desired targets.
THE FOLLOWING ARE 17 PRO-POOR SECTORS, IDENTIFIED IN PRSP:
-- Market access and community services - (i) roads, highways and buildings, (ii) water supply and sanitation, human development, (iii) education, (iv) health, (v) population planning, (vi) social security and welfare, (vii) natural calamities, rural development: (viii) irrigation, (ix) land reclamation, (x) rural development, (xi) rural electrification, safety nets: (xii) food subsidies, (xiii) food support programme, (xiv) Tawana Pakistan (xv) low cost housing, and governance: (xvi) administration of justice and (xvii) law and order.