Expectations from a development state

In recent articles for Business Recorder, I had argued that the existing governance system in Pakistan needs to be replaced as it had totally failed to deliver the development outcomes needed by the people of Pakistan. Furthermore, Pakistan has miserably fallen behind other countries in the universal ‘race of nations’ in pursuit of Prosperity, Growth, Modernization and Dominance.

The prevailing system has pushed Pakistan to the bottom ranks of the most backward nations in the world. We desperately need a new national consensus in favour of a ‘charter of economic transformation’ to usher in a new governance framework, I had labelled as the ‘8Ds’ Framework, designed to transform the existing ‘Bureaucratic Patronage State’ into a new performance oriented ‘Market-Driven Development State’.

It is heartening to note that the Interior Minister, who is the main trouble shooter and a lynchpin of the current administration, has joined the debate by vociferously and publically lashing out against the prevailing governance system and unambiguously declaring that it has collapsed and will not work for the people even for the next ten years. Unfortunately, the remedy being sought for the malaise is based on enlarging the number of provinces in the country without loosening the bureaucratic stranglehold.

This will certainly not work. It will simply further entrench the bureaucratic patronage state by giving a huge boost to Ministerial, Bureaucratic, Regulatory and Expenditure Sprawl that will truly choke the economy. Regardless of the good intentions of the minister, it will unnecessarily impose a change, which will set us on a path of confrontation that will destroy national cohesion and mitigate the environment for meaningful governance reforms. A more appropriate and doable solution lies in implementing my proposed 8Ds Development State Framework expeditiously and judiciously, with the full backing of the people.

In subsequent articles, I will get into the nitty gritty of the proposed ‘development state.’ In this article l want to clearly highlight what I consider to be the essential national expectations from a reform programme to deliver the outcomes that reflect our collective national needs. The Pakistani people have frustratingly waited for 79 years for the state to deliver the promised freedom, wealth, prosperity, and a befitting global and regional status envisioned by the founding fathers for our large and youthful country. In our life times we have seen many other countries starting from similar starting positions, forging ahead and transforming themselves through sheer clarity, determination, commitment and unity of purpose to emerge as fully developed, prosperous and influential nations.

There are many role models to emulate. Germany and Japan rose from the ashes of the WWII and became economic superpowers. We have keenly seen South Korea and East Asia rise from the destruction of the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Most importantly, we have seen the miraculous rise of our iron brother, China, which within 20 years of Deng Xiaoping’s market economy reforms pulled 800 million people out of abject poverty and positioned itself as a global superpower challenging the mighty United States. In our own region, India and Bangladesh have outpaced us while we continue to dodder around on the crutches of the IMF, the Western financial institutions and largesse of a few friendly countries that prop up our economy and prevent it from collapsing.

Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country of 260 million with an enormous youth bulge. Strategically located at the most important crossroads, connecting Eurasia, West Asia, South Asia and the Greater Middle East, people of Pakistan know that Pakistan can emerge as the lynchpin of the ensuing regional and global world order. To play this role on borrowed resources without a solid economic base is not possible. Pakistan cannot continue to be economically emasculated and hope to play the pivotal role without deep structural reforms. The country needs to effectively initiate strategic initiatives, leading to investment in human capital, regional connectivity, and modernisation of both rural and urban economies so that Pakistan becomes a symbol of growth, connectivity and prosperity rather than a case study of another missed opportunity.

What the people want can be succinctly stated as: We the people of Pakistan envision an economy that truly reflects the actual size of the fifth most populous nation in the world. We want Pakistan to develop and join the ranks of the world’s twenty largest economies by 2047, the year of our centenary. We want our per capita income to grow and multiply several times during this period so that a rich middle class emerges, broad enough to anchor Pakistan’s own large consumer market.

This will be a Pakistan where wealth is created by entrepreneurship, through diversified product and commodities markets, connected with technology-based, highly efficient productive sectors driven by competitive markets rather than bureaucratic machinery. We need a network of modern industries and high-value agriculture spanning the 170-odd districts of Pakistan, which will be a source of growth rather than wealth extracted through remittances, land speculation and rent-seeking; where the wealth reaches every household through well-paid jobs, quality education, accessible healthcare, clean water, and housing as essential pillars of society rather than political favours.

The development state must have measurable benchmarks. A sustained GDP growth rate of 8-10 percent a year: every year consistently for the next twenty years. An investment-to-GDP ratio rising from around 13-15 percent today towards 25-30 percent driven by both domestic savings and foreign direct investment and attracted by a conducive regulatory framework, and a fair, equitable and broad based tax system. A tax-to-GDP ratio rising from roughly 9-10 percent towards 15-18 percent to fund essential state functions of nation building.

Job creation must match the roughly three million young people entering the labour force each year, both urban and rural economies have to generate jobs at much higher rates than before, bringing youth unemployment and underemployment down from their present levels. Monitoring steady yearly improvement across the Human Development Index components will be essential: literacy and years of schooling, stunting and maternal mortality, and life expectancy.

National security in this Pakistan will rest not only on military strength but on economic prowess and resilience, energy self-sufficiency, leadership role in the fourth industrial revolution and manufacturing capabilities of a ‘factory of the world’; high tech agriculture to place it as the bread basket for the region; and economic wealth enabling the country to negotiate from a position of strength rather than dependency, and run its foreign policy in its own interests rather than the terms of its creditors.

Regionally, this will be a Pakistan that leverages its geography, the crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, the Greater Middle east, and China to become an indispensable hub of trade, transit, tourism and connectivity, rather than a state defined by conflict with its neighbours. Its influence in South Asia and the wider Muslim world is earned through economic weight and diplomatic credibility, not borrowed through alliances of convenience. This is the Pakistan that its population size has always implied but its institutions have not delivered and it is this gap between demographic potential and economic reality that the development state must exist to fill.

Thanks to the interior minister, the debate on reforms is hot. It is important that before we embark on the road to reform we choose the right path. This article has spelt out the sky high expectations and objectives of the people. The goals and targets for performance are very tough. The reforms are difficult while time is short. We have run out of easy options. Making more provinces within the existing bureaucratic patronage state will only postpone meaningful reforms. It will plunge the country into another round of political polarisation, another economic dead-end, a more painful and dangerous social turmoil, leaving our goals of technological modernization and transformation in the lurch.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026