OneWorld.net (U.S.)

NOT surprisingly, the figures cited by the government for people living below the poverty line have come to be widely questioned. With poverty alleviation being the buzzword these days in our economic and social development and a key criterion for aid givers, it is understandable that the policymakers are desperately trying to prove the success of their strategy in terms of falling poverty levels. But unfortunately wishes are not horses and the government will have to do better to achieve its goals. It now appears that the government’s claim of poverty being 23.9 per cent is being challenged not just by economists in the country but also the World Bank and the UNDP. Both these agencies have come up with different figures — 25.7 per cent by the UNDP and 28.3 per cent by the World Bank. This is no doubt embarrassing for the government which has repeatedly claimed that its estimates have been endorsed by the donor agencies. But it is still not too late to rectify the error so that our economic planning is not based on illusionary statistics.

The fact is that accuracy of facts and figures is not Pakistan’s forte. Worse still, exactitude is at a discount. This can create colossal distortions given the size of our population. The difference between the government’s figure and the World Bank’s estimate amounts to over seven million people who remain unaccounted for. Hence it is important that these calculations are carefully and honestly done. A simple shift in the yardsticks adopted can distort results beyond belief. For instance, a new methodology has led the government to change the poverty line figure for 2001. Moreover, some assumptions appear to be quite unrealistic. Thus an income of Rs878 per month per capita has been taken as the poverty line. Inflation has been calculated at seven per cent per annum. Both these amount to stretching the truth too far.

The most worrisome aspect of the poverty situation is the growing economic inequality in the country. The Pakistan Economic Survey 2006-07 acknowledges that the gap between the rich and the poor in the country widened in the period 2001 and 2005 (when the two surveys that have provided the data were held). The ratio of the income of the richest 20 per cent and the poorest 20 per cent went up from 3.76 to 4.15. The Gini Coefficient, which is universally regarded as an efficient measure of income equality, changed from 0.2752 to 0.2976 (that is for the worse). The thrust towards privatisation of facilities in the social sectors, especially education and health, has made these services more costly and less affordable for the common man. People are now compelled to spend more on some basic necessities. The government’s own figures say that the poor are now spending 14.6 per cent more (as compared to 2001) on health. Ironically, the rich are spending six per cent less — thanks to the better food, environment and living conditions they can afford. The poor are spending 50 per cent more on transport and 11 per cent more on food. It is time the government attended earnestly to the problems of poverty rather than gloss them over by juggling around with figures. Without real progress in this field, the millennium development goal of halving poverty by 2015 will never be achieved.

Source: Dawn