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The Political
and Social Framework for Overcoming the Crisis: The
emergence of an Islamic Pakistan that is modern, tolerant and
democratic as envisioned by the Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
could provide the political and social framework for overcoming the
crisis of poverty, growth and governance. A key element in the
enabling environment for investment, economic growth and poverty
alleviation is to re-establish the writ of the state, specifically in
the context of violent extremist tendencies. This is particularly
necessary for the poverty alleviation of poor women.
Restructured GDP Growth:
To enable a faster growth with an
enhanced capacity for employment generation and poverty alleviation a
four-pronged growth strategy is proposed: (i) Rehabilitation of the
canal irrigation system so as to reduce transportation losses of
irrigation water and provide more water at the root zone of the crops.
This would not only generate faster employment but also help farmers
to increase their yield per acre. (ii) Develop the ability to produce
and export more milk, marine fisheries and high value added
agriculture products such as fruits, vegetables and flowers. Increased
production and export of these products would not only put more income
into the hands of the small agricultural producers and fishermen, but
also accelerate export growth. (iii) Develop infrastructure such as
dams (for both increased reservoir capacity and cheap energy
production), ports, national highways, railways, farms to market
roads, and cheaper coal based rather than furnace oil based energy
production. (iv) Accelerate the growth of small scale enterprises (SSEs)
which generate both higher output, employment and exports for given
levels of investment. This could be done by facilitating the
establishment in the private sector of Industrial Support Centres (ISCs).
These would constitute the institutional basis for providing unit
specific support to SSEs, to enable them to shift to higher value
added products and accelerate their growth.
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NGOs engaged in human
rights advocacy, Lawyers Associations, and apex organizations of
development NGOs could form a consortium facilitated by the
government to enable the poor tenants and farm labourers to form a
Small Tenant and Farm Labourers Union, at the district, provincial
and national levels. The purpose would be to negotiate within the
existing legal framework to achieve fair wage and tenancy contracts
for the farm sector.
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Facilitating the emergence of autonomous
organizations of the poor and their institutional linkage with each
tier of local government, could enable the poor to break out of the
nexus of the local power structures and unequal access over markets,
and thereby reduce their income losses
Poverty Alleviation by Increasing the Profitability of
Micro-enterprises: The NHDR/PIDE Survey shows that over 52% of the urban poor are engaged
in micro enterprises which predominantly have low profitability.
Enabling the poor to improve the productivity, sales and net profits
would contribute significantly to poverty reduction. An overwhelming
proportion reported that enhanced availability of credit, better
location and transport facilities would help to increase their incomes
from micro-enterprises.
Increasing Incomes of the Poor by
Increasing Productivity: A predominant proportion of the major
earners in both rural and urban areas in poor households are unskilled
workers engaged in low productivity and low income occupations. The
mobility of such unskilled workers across occupations is also low.
Vocational Training and apprenticeship programmes to impart technical
skills after primary education of workers from poor households could
contribute to poverty alleviation.
Increasing the Supplementary
Income of the Poor:
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Remittances constitute a major source
of supplementary income for poor households. The data show that the
reason why the income of poor migrants is low is because 73.9% of
the migrants are illiterate or just have primary education. The
income of non-poor migrants was higher because of their better
educational status. Clearly improved education and skill training of
the poor can play a role in poverty alleviation by improving the
incomes of migrant workers who send remittances to their families.
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Given the fact that the average total
household receipts of the extremely poor are only 80% of their
minimum food consumption requirements, an increase in the volume of
Zakat funds, improved targeting of beneficiaries and greater
efficiency in the administration of Zakat funds is required.
Health and Poverty: Our
analysis has shown that health is a major factor that pushes people
into poverty. Therefore improving nutrition and health conditions are
important for poverty alleviation. Improving the nutrition, preventive
hygiene, provision of safe drinking water, improving the service
delivery of basic health units, public transport, and improved
diagnostic and treatment capabilities of Tehsil and District Hospitals
are urgent imperatives to deal with the crisis of health and poverty.
Women,
Poverty and Governance:
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In making a direct attack on poverty it is essential to facilitate the
growth of autonomous organizations of the poor, especially of women at
the local level to enable the poor to achieve better access over input
and output markets and increase their productivity and incomes on a
sustainable basis. An essential aspect of the emergence of autonomous
organizations of the poor, particularly of women is to enable an
institutionalized relationship with different tiers of local
government. To the extent that this is achieved, it would not only
enhance the ability of local governments to work for the poor but also
broaden the basis of power and decisions related to resource
allocation and resource use.
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The current government programme of devolution appears to have
considerable potential in terms of enabling greater participation of
women and the poor in governance. However if it is to succeed in this
objective four policy issues may be relevant: (a) There is a
distinction between decentralization of administrative function and
devolution of power to the people. To enable the latter, specific
norms have to be created in the local government structure for an
institutionalized relationship with autonomous organizations of the
poor with respect to selection, design and implementation of
development projects. (b) Putting into
place specific and verifiable
procedures to ensure that women councilors are in practice involved in
decisions within local government structures. In this context it may
be worth considering the institution of women ombudsmen at the tehsil
level to whom women councilors can take their complaints in case they
are discriminated against in the process of governance decisions. (c)
Specifying clearly the domains of authority of local government
representatives in each tier, their relationship with the existing
administrative structure and also ensuring that local government
personnel at each tier are aware of the scope of their authority and
obligatory operational procedures. (d) A large scale programme of
training local government representatives and officials in specific
skills related with local level governance and development. (These
include project feasibility, design, and project management, as well
as skills in financial management and accounting).
NGOs, Governance and Poverty
Alleviation:
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Under the
devolution programme a new structure of local governments at the
district level is emerging, within which elected representatives will
be expected to undertake (amongst other functions) poverty alleviation
at different tiers of local government (district, tehsil, union
council and village levels). Within this structure NGOs that enable
the formation of autonomous organizations of the poor could play an
important role in creating a systematic relationship between local
governance and poor communities. Such a relationship would enable the
poor to participate in the identification and implementation of
development projects as well as decisions related with access over
markets and local power structures. It could also help broaden the
social base of power, authority and the allocation and use of public
resources.
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If NGOs are to play
this role they would need to function at the district level rather
than across districts and achieve full coverage of the poor population
within the district.
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The total coverage
of NGOs currently, is relatively insignificant compared to the
magnitude of the poor population. As the NHDR/PIDE 2001 Survey shows
that of the total loans received by all categories of the poor the
percentage of loans received from NGOs was only 0.8% in the rural
areas and 1% in the urban areas. A quantum increase in the scale of
credit being disbursed by PPAF and Khushali Bank will need to be
undertaken and measures put into place for impact assessment. (see
chapter 4 for details).
Saving Children Engaged in
Hazardous Industries:
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A large number of
children from poor families are working in hazardous occupations which
are causing repeated injuries, chronic diseases, physical and mental
deformities and in some cases, death. Clearly the task is to withdraw
them from such occupations and enable them to go to school. However,
the experience of Pakistan and other South Asian countries is that
mere legislation is not enough to protect these children. (After all
there has been a law against employment of children in precisely such
occupations since 1938 and a much more rigorous law since 1991).
Action is needed as follows:
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An administrative
mechanism targeted towards the ending of child labour in hazardous
occupations over the next five years needs to be urgently put in
place. This mechanism can consist of specifying the number of
children, location of hazardous work units, the details of the hazards
in each work unit and the names of the employers in the area under the
jurisdiction of each District Nazim in the country. This data should
be available to the local government institutions in each district,
whose task should be to indicate specific achievement targets for the
District Co-ordination Officer (DCOs), (in terms of which their
salaries, promotion and benefits should be decided). The achievement
targets would consist of withdrawing children from hazardous
occupations in each locality;
to arrange for an
adult member of their family to start work; and to enable the
concerned employer to hire adults, improve work safety and increase
productivity.
Environmental Management, Health, Productivity and Poverty:
The available studies on the quantitative impact of environmental
degradation on GDP growth, indicate the substantial adverse
consequences of air and water pollution on public health (and hence on
GDP via labour productivity) and the adverse impact of deforestation
and soil degradation on productivity in the agriculture sector.
The capacity to implement environmental
management programmes is yet to be developed. The effort must start
from the strengthening of local government institutions, autonomous
organizations of the poor and civil society associations at all
levels. Particularly important for the coming decades will be: (i)
Implementing the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) that
are already in place and strengthening the professional capabilities
of Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs) (ii) Farmers’
organizations for irrigation and drainage management in the irrigated
croplands. (iii) Community organizations for protecting sub-watersheds
and sustaining livelihoods in the Indus uplands. (iv) Associations of
the poor, empowered for example by grazing licenses, for
self-regulated access to natural resources in the relevant ecological
units, such as the rangelands of Cholistan, Tharparkar, and
Balochistan and (v) Mohalla and lane organizations for sanitation and
solid waste management in the low-income wards of cities and towns.
* NHDR 2003, Page
122-145
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