he annual budget invariably includes an allocation of funds earmarked for the poor. The list of the poverty alleviation and social protection measures is long and has visible overlaps.

With only a few exceptions, every new government repackages the anti-poverty initiative of the previous government, with little effort devoted to coming up with a unique end product. The Benazir Income Support Programme and the Ehsaas have been among the better known poverty alleviation initiatives since 2008.

While the BISP and Ehsaas programmes may have the same target population, the Ehsaas programme had a significantly broader scope. Among other things, it subsidised essential commodities through Utility Stores and provided free food and free shelter. Minimum wage laws are a routine ingredient of the anti-poverty package.

Only recently, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif set the minimum wage for unskilled workers at Rs 25,000 a month. There is reason to believe that a sizable chunk of the labour force gets less than the minimum legal wage.

Irrespective of the incumbent government’s political identity, the target population is, in principle at least, chosen based on some objective criteria of deprivation and vulnerability. What are the inclusion criteria of the social protection programmes in Pakistan?

Let us consider the BISP first. The BISP brings under its social protection net the “marginalised and underprivileged sections of society, especially the women.” Its objective is to “fight poverty and bring about a sustainable positive change in the lives of persistently excluded and deprived families.”

There have been media reports documenting or allegeing abuse of BISP and Ehsaas funds. Let us agree for argument’s sake that some leakage from poverty alleviation programmes is unavoidable and that it can be ignored in the interest of continuing the effort. The real question is how successful these interventions are in achieving the objective of lessening poverty and bringing about a sustainable positive change in the lives of persistently excluded and deprived families. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not satisfactory.

The reasons why the social safety net fails to end poverty in Pakistan are complex and multifaceted. No intervention against poverty can be successful unless it addresses the root causes of poverty. The poverty rate in Pakistan was 55 percent in 2005. It improved to reach 39 percent in 2015 and was further reduced by 2018. However, it must have increased significantly during the Covid-19 years and on account of the hyperinflation in recent months.

There can be little disagreement that poverty is generated through lack of education and poor health. It routinely manifests an intergenerational path.

From this perspective, the amount allocated for individual households is too little to make a significant dent in the vicious circle of poverty. For example, under Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), Rs 246 billion was allocated out of a total expenditure of Rs 8,487 billion (2.89 percent) in the outgoing financial year. Comparing this ratio to some of the other expenditure heads may be insightful. In the 2021-22 financial year, budgetary allocation for payment of interests on loans was Rs 3,060 billion (36 percent), on defence services Rs 1,370 billion (16 percent), pensions for the military personnel alone cost Rs 360 billion (4.2 percent).

Put differently, Pakistan spends around 56 percent of its budget on debt servicing and defence. The resources earmarked for social protection are too little to sustain a long fight against poverty, let alone providing a chance of defeating it.

With insignificant funds provided for poverty alleviation, social protection risks becoming a vacuous display of self-righteousness. It should surprise no one that the poor and the marginalised are fed up with the platitudes.

The social protection nets are so thinly spread across the population that they rarely make any significant change in the lives of the people. The government led by Imran Khan had launched an ambitious Ehsaas programme - an umbrella covering 288 policies and programmes.

One component of the Ehsaas programme was the Ehsaas Ration Riayat (ERR) programme launched in November 2021. The ERR sought to reduce the impact of inflation on the marginalised segments of society. Rs 120 billion was set aside for the targetted subsidies to cover 20 million families (130 million people) nationwide. The average household size in Pakistan is slightly over six (6.24). Rs 1,000 a month for an average family thus comes to just Rs 5 per person per day. The amount is obviously a pittance unlikely to ease the impact of inflation.

Another initiative under the Ehsaas programme was Koye Bhooka Na Soye (KBNS). It sought to eliminate hunger in the country by running 16 trucks in seven cities – Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Peshawar.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has recently announced a relief package for around 14 million families with an immediate assistance of Rs 2,000 a month. This translates into Rs 10.42 per person per day.

Given that the current level of public expenditure on social protection for the marginalised sections of the society is too little to make any real difference in fighting poverty, there needs to be a rethinking of the paradigm. Evidence from several developing countries points to a compelling case for allocation of funds for skill development. The best way to achieve the objective is through vocational education and training.

By definition, vocational education seeks to expose the individual to short-term education and training programmes to acquire the skills necessary for specific jobs for which there is a demand in the labour market. Evidence shows that vocational education is associated with a significantly higher wage level. In India, for example, individuals with vocational training had 37 percent higher wages in the primary sector and 17.6 percent in the secondary sector compared to the individuals who did not have vocational training. A similar study in Pakistan found that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas Development Authority (FATA-DA) imparted vocational training to more than 52,000 individuals in 70 technologies/ trades. After completing the FATA-DA training, youth employment increased by 1.94 times and monthly earnings by 1.63 times.

India has allocated significant resources to promote vocational education. The list of the skills imparted to the Indian youths includes automative, retail, IT-ITS, media, rubber, healthcare, gems and jewelry, electronics and hardware, agriculture, telecom, leather, food processing, logistics, plumbing, capital goods, construction, life sciences, aviation and aerospace, iron and steel, power, mining, textiles and handloom, apparel, beauty and wellness, handicrafts, tourism and hospitality, infrastructure equipment, sports, oil and gas, green jobs, PWD, domestic worker, furniture and fitting, instrumentation, strategic manufacturing and management.

In Pakistan, under Pakistan Technical and Vocational Education and Training Reform initiative, an impressive range of skills are imparted in the agriculture, energy, information technology and services sectors. There is a need to link these skills with the Ehsaas and the BISP recipients.

It is about time we considered revamping technical education because returns from a general education are often meagre. The skills learnt from general education, especially at low end schools, are often irrelevant to the job market demand.

Additionally, a sharp fiscal adjustment is necessary for poverty alleviation. With insignificant funds provided for poverty alleviation, social protection can become a vacuous display of self-righteousness. It should surprise no one that the poor and the marginalised are fed up with the platitudes. A recent fancy word to enter our national parlance is “difficult decision”, a euphemism for shifting the burden to the hapless.

Consider the massive hike in energy prices. The Pakistani elite are much better organised and strategically placed to safeguard their interests. However, a cut in the perks of the civil and military establishment has a cost no political government dares contemplate. Expanding the tax net and tax base are complex tasks, and taxing windfall profits from the real estate business is not “politically correct.” So the axe falls on the poor and the hapless.

The writer is an associate professor in the Department of Economics at COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus