Among the many economic policy credits, eg, NFC Award, publishing of MDG Report 2010, that go to this government, the winding up (as reported in the press) of the Centre for Poverty Reduction and Social Policy Development is a belated but bold step that will be another feather in its cap.
The finance minister is also to be further commended in refraining from pulling out any poverty number from the hat until the announcement of poverty number based on household survey till next year. The above two comments are by no means a sarcasm as it will be argued in the following paragraphs that research in general (or by local researchers) on poverty has no future in Pakistan as a proliferation of the cottage industry research is dominating this area. It will remain as the PC Chairman correctly said a 'tallying of old numbers' and I may add 'numbers out of hat and back of the envelope exercise' unless there is change in the mindset of politicians, economic gurus, NGOs, media, bureaucracy and even multilateral and bi-lateral donors along with discipline and respect in its research as shown by the current finance minister. I further feel that after the 'bastardisation' of the poverty number of 2007-08, the contemplated action by the Planning Commission will be the most logical step.
As long as poverty research is politicised by vested interests ie, politicians, economic consultants, economic gurus, bureaucracy, media and NGOs, any number whether it is small or large will be looked upon doubtful and promoting the self-interest of the researchers. One wonders why the same was not the case in India and Bangladesh that usually used to have higher poverty, most of the years, than Pakistan? With neighbours it continues to remain a centralised academic endeavour to be researched, studied, refined and fine-tuned over the years? It is a million dollar question here and is related to the 'cashing-in syndrome' prevalent in Pakistan. We have always been proud to advertise our higher numbers and question our lower poverty numbers while our neighbours have remained prudent and unemotional in both situations.
We always love to advertise higher poverty numbers to:- do political point scoring and strengthen our begging bowl (politicians), extract money for grandiose projects in the name of poverty reduction from the Ministry of Finance and Donors (Planning Commission and NGOs), obtain consultancies (economic gurus and research institutes) write juicy headline news to attract readership and downplay the government's achievements (media), and protect jobs and leverage (bureaucracy and multi-lateral/ bi-lateral agencies). Advertisement of lower numbers by successive governments and accusations of number fudging by the outgoing governments is seen by many as playing the blame game and enhance popularity and the vote-bank, while rarely are such tactics adopted by the political parties of our neighbouring countries.
One wonders why isn't the yearly open unemployment number not that politicised? After all since last 10 years it has officially hovered around 5-6 percent, which by western standards is full employment. If this is the case, then why are we still promoting growth to reduce unemployment? In this case, the ILO methodology to estimate the unemployment rate is taken as the gospel truth. Why is the intelligentsia not touchy to double-digit underemployment rate? Or the huge backlog of unpaid family workers? Because vested interests cannot cash it easily as the poverty ghost. It is less volatile than poverty numbers so less eye-catching for the politicians and for headlines, more difficult to tackle and requires consistent structural and governance reforms, while 'handouts' into the begging bowl in any form and any direction are easily welcomed and can be justified for poverty alleviation.
Institutional gains and value for money in winding up of the CPRSPD may be seen by many as:- a) an implicit admission by the government that at this stage of development, poverty is no longer a pressing issue (quantitatively and qualitatively) to the extent that it is exploited politically, by economic gurus or in the media. This is in line with the approach taken up by neighbouring governments, b) whether the national poverty number is high or low it is just as meaningful or useless as some other macro indicators, more likely to be less useful as it is the poverty at the local level that matters most for policy intervention c) its estimation has been contracted out to the World Bank and the BISP and any attempt at its measurement by local professionals will always be dismissed. However, the risk that numbers produced by the World Bank not to the liking of government will be taken with a pinch of salt, not dismissed, alas as they have the purse strings, d) the realisation that with nearly 40 percent of the economy operating underground, less than 2 percent tax payers and no reliable estimates of household wealth (a factor cushioning consumption in times of contractionary incomes), any poverty estimates (based on current consumption) will always remain doubtful.
In advocating that there is no future for research on poverty in Pakistan, one can briefly look back at the performance of the Centre, against the objectives it was set up by PC and UNDP. One of its objectives was to profile poverty and income distribution at the national, provincial and local level and then conduct evidence-based analysis on the causes of poverty and ultimately suggest policy interventions at all three levels. It failed miserably at the last two levels as the bureaucracy continued to flip flop over the ownership and reliability of the national numbers during its existence. Moreover the provincial profiling of poverty was not encouraged from the national data as the revelation of such numbers may be challenged by the provinces and impact on the inter-provincial harmony, thus initiating another round of squabbling at the sub-national level. Moreover, it is not in the interest of any province to accept a lower number by the Federal government as it would shrink the size of their 'provincial begging bowls' and handouts from the federal government. Ideally, one could have shifted the focus to districts poverty profiles but an attempt to undertake such a detailed exercise was never encouraged nor organised again in the name of promoting inter-district harmony.
Lastly, research institutions in developing countries require patronage, nurturing and ownership until they come of age in terms of financial and academic sustainability. This is amply demonstrated in the case of many research institutions functioning successfully outside the bureaucratic set-up in the country. Unfortunately, none of the above was practiced in the case of the CPRSPD, simply because professionals as outsiders were perceived as threats to the established bureaucratic order. The CPRSPD emerged as a reaction to the fine research but politically unacceptable numbers generated by the Federal Bureau of Statistics at the time, but its ultimate death knell was sounded when numbers generated by it were also unacceptable to the government and economic gurus as it weakened the eternal begging bowl growth strategy.