Who’s to lift Pakistan’s poor?

UNDP’s latest Human Development Index (HDI) report is in, and it is quite an embarrassing sight for Pakistan.  With HDI value at 0.56 Pakistan is just shy of being classified as low human development country (the cut-off being 0.55). And while Pakistan’s peer economies in the region have also performed poorly in the ongoing decade, Pakistan’s has been the worst. But rankings aside, the real question is how to lift the poor, and who’s responsibility is it?

In a straight-shooting PIDE blog earlier this week, Dr Nadeem ul-Haque asked a host of critical questions that all and sundry ought to reflect on, of which one strand of thought stands out in particular: “More than handouts, the poor need space in cities. Include them.”

The gist of his argument being that the poor need space in political, economic, and social spheres – not with a sense of dole-outs by the state or the elite nor by being paternalistic about their fate but with a sense of inclusion and various notions of freedom i.e. letting them make their own choices.

Later, yesterday, Sabina Alkire Oxford University’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative director, echoed some of Nadeem’s thoughts when she stressed: ‘speak to the poor’.  Speaking at the launch of HDI report in Malaysia, she said, “governments should get information directly from the horse’s mouth before forming policies to end poverty”, adding that “two findings surprised UN officials in El Salvador: the poor asked for places for their children to play due to a lack of green space, and spaces for senior citizens to drink coffee and spend leisurely time.”

A much better way to address poverty, however, is by letting people take decision. Alkire’s El Salvador story reminds of a story that Anwar Hussain, Executive Director of Local Councils Association of the Punjab (LCAP) once told BR Research.

Giving a rare example of citizen partnership in Pakistan, Hussain reported that a few years ago local councilors went for a host of town hall meetings with local populace of a few villages in Punjab. They were “expecting citizens to demand clean water, education. But instead they found out villagers actually wanted a playground for their children in the absence of which the children were getting involved in negative activities”. Turned out getting a permission for the playground had to come from the provincial government in Lahore, which was obtained after nearly a year of hard work and lobbying. With this kind of centralist mindset, there is little hope for the poor to find inclusion and make their own choices.

The begs the question, who’s to lift Pakistan’s poor or give them a ‘say’? The poor is too poor to raise its voice and demand its rights, save for means and methods such as riots and revolts that the elite equate as uncivilised behaviour, and will tramp down by the full might of the law and narrative that they dominate.

Academic literature suggests that poverty and inequality reduction happens when circumstances (such as threats of revolt by the poor or inter-elite rifts) arise which force the elite to make strategic alliances with the poor. Does anyone see those circumstances emerging in Pakistan?

In August 2016, UNDP Pakistan’s former country director Marc Andre put the elite to task in a scathing interview to BR Research. “Pakistan’s needs to decide do they want a country or not.” Despite what PM Khan and PTI optimists might think, the Pakistani diaspora is not coming back, whereas the elite currently living in the country have all sorts of nationalities and iqamas to fly out faster than the proverbial ‘hot money’. Those who haven’t are well protected in the DHAs, Bahria and other gated communities.

Is it then the middle class which will champion the cause of poor? Does the burden of responsibility to lift poor out of poverty fall on the middle class? The same middle class that is stuck in a nine-to-five rut as ‘working urban professionals’, does not read, and uses all their free time in dining out? The one who’s members have been exiting the country lured by skill-based immigration policies of the likes of Europe, North America, Australia? There are no clear-cut answers to this. But sooner or later, the answer will emerge itself. One can only hope that’s it’s not a bloody one.