Real development

While Pakistan has shown some economic growth as evidenced through increases in the GDP and the stock exchange index, there has been no sustained economic development that indicators like health, education and poverty alleviation highlight. The incumbent government is proud of the economic survey reports of Bloomberg and PWC which have given a positive picture of the economic growth in Pakistan and have also predicted that the country will become the 16th biggest economy in the world by the year 2050. However, these forecasts are based on economic growth figures that only take the GDP increase and stock market performance into account and bypass other factors. Our human development index has slipped from 119th to 147th.There are around 85 million people in the country who are living in poverty out of which almost 70 million face food insecurity.

The irony is that our policymakers do not realise the contrast between economic growth and sustained economic development. They are investing domestic resources and foreign loans on infrastructures like the Metro Line, the Orange Line and the Motorway without understanding that these must come after basic facilities are available to a large majority of the population. Moreover, a small percentage of the urban population benefits from these expensive projects and that too, at the expense of millions of schoolgoing children and poor patients who get no civic amenities. The present economic growth is in a bubble which is sustained on debt and can quickly evaporate without solid and sustained economic growth.

Zaheer Ahmed

Islamabad