The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report offers some muted good news for those concerned with the reach of socially structured human welfare and development in Pakistan. However, given the way the good news is structured, recent events in Pakistan suggest that the prospects of Pakistan’s human development look strikingly bleak for the coming few years.
The Human Development Index, (HDI), the workhorse of the Human Development Report shows that in spite of political and social upheavals, Pakistan had made some marginal improvements in terms of human development and social welfare.
Ranking 125 out of 169 countries, Pakistan was assessed to have made made improvements in wealth and health outcomes between 2005 and 2010. Nevertheless the reasons for the marginal change in the HDI rank is skewed: much of the improvement in Pakistan’s HDI ranking since the last report stemmed from strong macroeconomic growth. Though health statistics showed positive investment and weak returns to individual health in Pakistan, education statistics did not rise in a positive direction. (Perhaps, here the impact of madrasas on public education outcomes needs a closer examination.)
Unsurprisingly, given the recent flood raging from the Himalayas that swamped much of Pakistan and her fertile fields, the economy is projected to growth less than 3% in 2011. Compound that measly growth rate with anemic investments in education and healthcare, Pakistanis are sure to stumble for some solid ground in their search for and defense of some agreeable social welfare capability. Consider, for instance, the disproportionately large impact the flood will have on infant mortality, pediatric health and primary and secondary education outcomes. The impending strategy staggers the step.
Moreover the civil war raging in the streets of Pakistan’s megalopolises and border areas is sure to impact, disproportionately, the development outcomes of Pakistan’s youth and young adults. Count in the spillover effects from youth protests to public investment in the well-being of that youth and the problems for Pakistan’s human development in the near term seems to readily multiply.
The HDI shows that the government of Pakistan needs to resist the easy conflation of wealth and human and social welfare. Given the devastation of the year past, the PPP and the local governments need to redouble their efforts to make sure that whatever economic recovery Pakistan experiences is distributed amongst the whole population–here, equality of opportunity, a broad scope of social welfare matters. The people of Pakistan seek welfare; the current government would do well to take note.
