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RESPONDING TO POVERTY:
First, developing countries must embark on strategies that help them attain these goals. In the areas of poverty and social development, this implies particular attention by policymakers to:
• Accelerating economic growth. Growth is the most powerful weapon in the fight for higher living standards. Faster growth will require policies that encourage macroeconomic stability, shift resources to more efficient sectors, and integrate with the global economy.
• Improving the distribution of income and wealth. The benefits of growth for the poor may be eroded if the distribution of income worsens. But policies that promote better income distribution are not well understood; learning more about the impact of policies on distribution should be high on the agenda.
• Accelerating social development. Social indicators will benefit from improvements in economic growth and income and wealth distribution, but there is stillroom for policies that target interventions that appear to have a large impact on health and educational outcomes. At the top of the list are female education, safe water and sanitation, and child immunization, as well as safety nets to protect the most vulnerable. Attention is also needed to the social structures and institutions, which affect development. Second, donors and international agencies must support countries that show a determination to take up the challenges of the goals for sustainable development. Third, international agencies must work with developing countries to strengthen country capacity to monitor progress on outcomes. This will involve ensuring that the statistical infrastructure in key countries is adequate to mount periodic surveys and analyze the data, and that there is capacity to conduct participatory studies and hear the voices of the poor.
FROM MEASURING PROGRESS TO ACTION
Changes over time and differences across areas in poverty measures and social indicators reveal whether poverty reduction policies are working or not, both at the country and at the global level. Project-level indicators indicate whether a project has worked or not. Knowledge about what works in reducing poverty has to inform, first and foremost, a country's policies and programs. This is why it is essential that there exist in each country capacity to monitor poverty and analyze the impact of policies and projects.
THE PHASES OF POVERTY REDUCTION - OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS
Creating effective pro-poor policies and building meaningful participation into the process are the major challenges. The process of drawing up and implementing any policy varies from country to country. It takes place on the background of the specific situation of its society, economy, ecology and culture.
Research brings out five main themes of concern:
(1) Governance and accountability;
(2) Pro-poor policies;
(3) Effective monitoring;
(4) Donor practices;
(5) Lack of priority setting.
PHASES
Assessment:
Understanding poverty, its diversity, its causes, its effects
Strategy design:
Participatory analysis of a range of policy options and identification of the most promising strategies
Approval:
The country's authorities (government, parliament) decide on poverty reduction strategies and its budgetary implications
Implementation:
Those entire involved national–local, public–private, individual–institutional put the plans/ strategies into practice
Monitoring:
The progress is monitored to provide regular feedback
PAKISTAN –CASE STUDY
“A country is poor because it is poor”
If you carry out a survey in Pakistan and ask the people what their No1 problem is, it will not be Kashmir, or a fear of the Taliban of Pakistan. It will be unemployment followed by bad governance and leading to poverty. There is general consensus among the economists that during the last 12 years, the number of people living below poverty line has increased tremendously, in 1988 it was 22 per cent, now it is about 36 per cent.
In the government statistics the rate of unemployment is shown as 5.6 per cent. Is this believable? Even in industrialized countries, 8-10 per cent unemployment is quite common. Whatever the number of unemployed in the country, the government can say that we are spending huge amounts of money on “poverty alleviation”. Programs for helping the poor have been launched under different names by various governments.
When we say that poverty in Pakistan is neither because of natural causes nor is it accidental, its corollary is that it is a political issue. It is the by product of the elitist model of governance and misconceived macro-policies that our ruling oligarchy has followed during the last 54 years. Tragedy is that the authors of these policies were highly trained economists who came from the top universities of the first world.
MAJOR FLAWS IN DEVEOPLEMT STRATEGIES
In Pakistan the major flaws of the development strategy were
a) Industrial development without agriculture development;
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Writer Profile
aneel SALMAN
aneel SALMAN Lecturer, Dept of Economics Forman Christian University, Pakistan. Currently a Fulbright Scholar, pursuing PhD in Economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Troy, NY USA 12180-3590 Email: aneelsalman@yahoo.com
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Comments
Great job John | Mar 25th, 2003
great job
Very true Bash Balogun | Jun 16th, 2003
I completely agree with you, and I hope those in authority get a full understanding of this.
Good job.
It is Good Madan Paudel | Jul 4th, 2003
The issues you raised is very good.Keep it up.With best Regards
Madan
paudelmadan@hotmail.com
graet job aneel ImranAmeen Khan | Oct 6th, 2003
assalam o alaikum aneel
i m really glad to see ur comments specially on Pakistan, as a patriot Pakistani we should join hands together to keep our country from developing to a developed country,i fully agree with ur views, as i have no time so far to write an article, but i wish u write more about the other burning issues of Pakistan. keep in touch aneel
regards.
imran.
Allah Hafiz
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