In evaluating development, Pakistan must also focus on increasing freedoms
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After a period of severe austerity that was further buffeted by the Covid-19 pandemic, Pakistan’s economy is finally showing signs of a V-shaped recovery. Exports, large scale manufacturing growth, inward remittances, forex reserves, and balance of payments clearly indicate that an economic revival is underway.
With the ushering in of a new decade, there is renewed hope of seeing a faster pace of industrialization that can be expected to lead to GDP growth and rising personal incomes, which in turn should translate into improved general welfare.
The turnaround is undeniably welcome news; however, when evaluating economic progress, it is important to not only focus on income-centered measurements. As Amartya Sen has persuasively reasoned in his seminal book, “Development as Freedom”, economic development is a process that enables “the enhancement of freedoms that allow people to lead lives that they have reason to live.”
In effect, as well as focusing on economic metrics such as GDP per capita, development needs to be viewed as embedding practices and institutional frameworks that enable individuals to live lives that they can personally value.
Such a ‘capability approach’ evaluates progress as “person’s ability to do valuable acts or reach valuable states of being.” Its determinants are social and economic arrangements such as facilities for education and health care, as well as political and civil rights such as the ability to participate in public discussions.
It focuses policy makers’ attention as much, if not more, on developing people’s capabilities rather than on simply income generation as the mainstay for sustainable growth at any stage of development. By emphasizing the need to indigenize the processes of growth, it ensures their ownership by the people and thereby sets in place processes that can flourish endogenously. Such an approach explicitly recognizes the interconnectedness of the institutionalized freedoms in making policy choices and how these drive economic opportunities.
Recent government initiatives such as the Ehsaas Programme, the Hunarmand Pakistan skills development programme and the universal health card system have the ingredients to address some of the aforementioned grim statistics.
Javed Hassan
Pakistan’s inability to sustain earlier periods of impressive GDP growth, as experienced in the 60’s, 80’s, and more recently, the relatively short-lived spurt of growth seen between 2016 and 2018, can be attributed to the failure to embed this crucial aspect of development.
In being led by aggregate statistics of income and production, improving people’s capabilities through enabling conditions of good health, basic education, and social choices have been ignored. Similarly, in India, the post-90’s model of liberalization may have brought about impressive GDP growth, but has caused a sense of alienation among the masses with the system, which has arguably forced them to seek refuge in populist promises.
Unfortunately, growth policies that ignore the development of people’s capabilities not only deny themselves the strength of a sustaining force, but also unwittingly create a mass of people who question the very essence of such a development pattern.
On the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index (HDI), which embodies Sen’s capabilities approach for development, India and Pakistan are ranked at 131 and 154 respectively among 189 countries. On almost all its component indices such as life expectancy, literacy, school enrollment, and income, the South Asian nations not only perform poorly compared to other nations but lag in progress over time. Over the last decade, India’s HDI ranking has fallen 12 positions from 119 in 2010 to 131 presently; and Pakistan’s 29 places from 125 to 154.
Pakistani children will, on average, complete only 8.3 years of school which is less than the average of 9.3 years for children in the least developed group of countries. 38 percent of all children under age 5 will experience malnutrition and/or stunted growth. Separately, on the 2020 World Bank’s latest Human Capital Index (HCI), a child born in Pakistan can expect to achieve just 41 percent of their potential productivity as a future worker because of a lack of healthcare and education facilities.
Recent government initiatives such as the Ehsaas Programme, the Hunarmand Pakistan skills development programme and the universal health card system have the ingredients to address some of the aforementioned grim statistics.
These will load people with economic and health entitlements that will help them enhance their freedom to live the lives of their choice. The state needs to consider investing more in such entitlements in order to expand the space of freedoms for its people. This would not only lead to a more inclusive growth model, but also one that is self-sustaining. Improving the health of the nation and its education/ skills level to be able to avail economic opportunities must be prioritized as much as overall GDP growth.
As well as the direct interventions to enhance individual capabilities, the government must also look to ensure greater participation of people in public policy choices that directly impact their wellbeing. In effect, all state interventions should also be measured, among other metrics, against the yardstick of how much they expand the freedoms of citizens in making their own choices.
– Javed Hassan has worked in senior executive positions both in the profit and non-profit sector in Pakistan and internationally. He’s an investment banker by training.
Twitter: @javedhassan
