Pakistan’s crisis in human development
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Pakistan is in the midst of a growing human development crisis with most indicators of literacy, education, health, poverty and other aspects of human welfare having deteriorated in recent years . The just released Human Development Report 2023-24 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) places Pakistan in the low human development category. It shows Pakistan has slipped in the global human development index rankings from 161 to 164 out of 192 countries. This composite index measures achievement in three aspects of human development: a long and healthy life, access to education and a reasonable standard of living. On the Multidimensional Poverty Index and Gender Inequality Index Pakistan fares poorly. The report also says that as inequality has increased it has led to losses in human development.
This dismal picture of human development prompted the resident representative of UNDP in Pakistan, Samuel Rizk to call for urgent reforms and robust governance. While the Shehbaz Sharif government has moved quickly to engage the IMF as part of its efforts to address Pakistan’s macroeconomic crisis given the country’s heavy foreign debt service obligations ahead, it has yet to focus on issues of human development. They warrant attention because they are also consequential for the country’s future. During the election campaign political leaders said little if anything about these issues. Yet the bleak situation calls out for policies to reverse the negative trends in poverty, gender inequality, access to education, population growth rate and income disparities.
The UNDP report reinforces the grim findings of an earlier report of the World Bank which described the situation as Pakistan’s “silent, deep human capital crisis”. The report titled Pakistan Human Capital Review quantified the crisis and found that the country’s human capital was the lowest in South Asia. It estimated that children born today in the country would only be able to realize 41 percent of their potential. The report urged increased investment in human capital, pointing out that lack of this would continue to limit the country’s growth and development prospects.
No issue is more important for Pakistan’s future than the coverage and quality of education available to its children.
- Maleeha Lodhi
Although political leaders often lament the state of education in the country, the educational crisis, which is nothing short of an emergency, barely figures in government priorities. Yet no issue is more important for Pakistan’s future than the coverage and quality of education available to its children. The facts are troubling. Pakistan has the world’s second highest number of children, over 20 million (aged 5 to 16) out of school. It means 44 percent of children in this age group do not go to school. This violates the obligation set out in Article 25A of the country’s constitution that enjoins the state to “provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years”.
It is therefore no surprise that literacy levels have been stagnant in recent years. Official figures put literacy at 59 percent. This means over 40 percent of people are illiterate. The literacy level has shown little improvement in the past five years or more, with expenditure on education also falling. No country can achieve economic progress with these levels of illiteracy. Yet official efforts to change this are conspicuous by their absence. In youth literacy, which is around 75 percent, Pakistan is second from the bottom in South Asia. The gender gap is also telling. According to the Pakistan Demographic and Health survey (2017-18) almost half of women in the age group 15-25 are uneducated. 61 percent of rural women are illiterate.
The picture of poverty in the country is equally disturbing. According to the World Bank, poverty is estimated to have risen by five percentage points to 39.4 percent in FY23, with 12.5 million more people pushed into poverty as compared to 2022. Poverty has increased as growth has stagnated, inflation (especially food inflation) has soared, investment has declined, which has limited job creation. Of course, the Covid pandemic and mega floods of 2022 – the consequence of climate change – also contributed to this. But the result is that more people have been driven below the poverty line, a situation that needs to be seriously addressed.
The overall state of multiple dimensions of human development is so grim that it suggests Pakistan may be sleep walking to a disaster that can only be overlooked at great peril to the country. Unless significant investment is made in its people, Pakistan cannot hope to achieve economic growth, boost productivity, build a skilled work force and become globally competitive.
- Maleeha Lodhi is a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, UK & UN. Twitter @LodhiMaleeha
