Speakers at a recent conference, organised by the Lahore School of Economics, on "Human Capital Development for Sustained Economic Growth" articulated an important but little recognised fact that Pakistan is facing not only a macro-economic crisis but also a social crisis with some of the worst social indicators.
In their considered opinion, the country continues to be critically deficient in health, education and poverty scores compared to other developing countries. And the existing administrative, cultural and political institutions may be perpetually leaving out poorer and more vulnerable groups from receiving public and private facilities. Sadly, human development has never been a governmental priority which is obvious from the minuscule budgetary allocations successive governments have been devoting to healthcare and education-building blocks of socio-economic progress. And to make a bad situation worse, an exclusionist policy towards poorer and vulnerable sections of society has exacerbated the problem of violent extremism and its concomitant condition of intolerance. Evidence suggests that the prevalent levels of poverty serve as fertile recruiting grounds for extremists.
One of the conference participants employed the Engel Curve approach to measure the differential economic impact of education across income groups and province in Pakistan, and demonstrate that improvements in the primary and matriculation education enrolment ratios could bring a significant improvement in public welfare. It goes without saying that the basic responsibility for providing education to all lies squarely on the shoulders of provincial governments. Despite financial constraints, a strong will to make things work can help. As it is, ghost schools are widespread, especially in Sindh and Balochistan. And in the ones that are functional, conditions are too bad. As a World Bank official serving with the Bank's South Asia Human Development Unit pointed out, in rural Sindh, where about 1.8 schools cater to 1000 people, less than 15% of these schools have at least two teachers and access to basic facilities, including toilet, drinking water, electricity and boundary wall. Several surveys have shown a profound lack of such basic facilities that acts as a disincentive for students to stay enrolled. Considering the high incidence of corruption in government departments, it is not difficult to see why these facilities are missing. An effective monitoring policy to ensure the resources allocated for the purposes for which they are meant can change things for the better. There is need also for the provincial governments to make appropriate interventions to ensure private sector education and health services meet the required quality standards.
Poverty in its worst forms is endemic in rural and tribal areas - which is where majority of the foot soldiers for extremist come from. The usual prescription of setting agro-based industries to provide employment to the poor and limit rising rural to urban migration has failed to take practical shape. It is about time to try a tested prescription like the one successfully employed in Thailand by a former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (brother of the current Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra) more than a decade ago in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. He introduced a micro-credit development fund for rural areas with a three-year moratorium for the farmers. It brought huge dividends in the form of poverty reduction and putting the country on the path of sustainable development. Needless to say, letting people live in abject poverty in itself should be unacceptable; combating poverty is also important to free this society from the stranglehold of intolerance and violent extremism.