What is Social Policy?

The term “social policy” seems simplistic at first. Could it be defined as the parameters
within which society works for the benefit of its people? That definition is absolutely
correct, but it opens a complete subset of other queries. For one thing, what benefits
people? For another, do the parameters change from one society to another? When the
idea is examined at close range, it becomes a complex and multi-faceted issue.

Defining the Term

Wikipedia offers this definition: it is “various areas of policy, usually within a government
or political setting. It can refer to guidelines, principles, legislation or activities that affect
the living conditions, conducive to human welfare, such as a person’s quality of life.”
Human welfare is a complicated idea as well. It depends upon the things people choose
to have. That is, equal pay for women may be a welfare issue in some societies, but not
a part of welfare in others where most women are not a part of the workforce. There are
some factors that all cultures have in common; these include things like good health and
individual freedoms.
What is Welfare?
In its broadest sense, according to an article by Paul Spicker on the website Introduction
to Social Policy, it is a study, not a discipline. It involves policies, administration of social
service programs, public health, housing, income maintenance, education and social
work. It also deals with the issues of people who receive these services like old age,
poverty, disability and others. Again, the idea of welfare depends upon the things
people choose to have. In wealthy countries this could include the ability to possess
means of transportation and even access to medicinal herbs like marijuana. Articles on
a website dealing with policies in society recently touched upon the legalization of
recreational marijuana, cyber bullying and striking restaurant workers, among other
subjects. In some countries, policies of welfare are made and administered completely
by the government. In others, like many western European countries, government
agencies work in concert with private organizations and entities to comprise a welfare
system.
How Does Welfare Create Societal Policies?
In other words, how does the concept of welfare spur governments and political entities
to devise the guidelines and principles that we understand as policy? For one thing, the
policies or societal guidelines have to be paid for. That brings the issues of raising
revenue, taxation and redistribution of wealth into the picture. There must be a clear
idea of which people qualify for services addressed by the guidelines. In America, the
government is grappling with required medical insurance and how to ensure that
everyone can afford it, because health is a priority that is included in our understanding
of welfare. In many countries, taxes are higher than they are in the US so that the
government can provide health services to the population, but in America, the citizens
also see lower taxes as an issue of their welfare, so other means of raising revenue
must be considered. Crime impacts the delivery of services and also is a societal
burden because of the financial impact of prisons, and so societal policies must be
devised to deal with crime.

The whole issue of societal control over the welfare of its citizens is complex and as
diverse as the kinds of societies that exist today. The primary ideas of what is good for
people and what systems must be in place to ensure that welfare are complicated by
the factors that create barriers to the delivery of services in those systems. Social Policy
must address the idea of what it considers “welfare” and how to provide it by having
guidelines and principles for its administration, as well as methods to control things that
interfere with that administration.

Our social policy choices

Pakistan is an emerging democracy that has tremendous potential to overcome its

political and socioeconomic problems. The democratic process over the past decade
has helped improve Pakistan’s image as a country that is on the path of political and
economic stability.

However, it has always been a challenge for successive governments to translate the
country’s development potential into actionable strategies. The policies adopted by
previous governments failed to produce a socioeconomic transformation. Pakistan,
therefore, continued to be included in the list of countries that had the worst records in
terms of human development.
Despite being a resource-rich country, Pakistan lags behind in terms of its regional and
global HDI averages. Around 22 million are children out of school; 44 percent of children
suffer from malnutrition; 25 percent of the youth are infected with hepatitis; and 60
percent of our country’s population does not have access to safe drinking water. As a
result, the challenges to provide quality healthcare and education services have
multiplied over the years.

Although disparities in income distribution and gender discrimination are on the rise,
internationally-recognised development ranking agencies have ranked Pakistan among
countries like Afghanistan and the impoverished nations of Sub-Saharan Africa in terms
of its performance in social development. This offers clear evidence of policy failures
and the lack of coordinated efforts towards course correction.

Pakistan has pursued a variety of policies over the last 70 years, with the intermittent
discontinuation of long-term development goals. Over the years, several development
initiatives were initiated at the national and provincial levels by the government, civil
society members and the international donor community to achieve the quantitative
targets of social development and inclusive economic growth. The development history
of Pakistan suggests that the objectives and targets set in policies and programmes
could not be accomplished in most cases.

There have been some achievements, including the increase in the number of higher
education institutions; private-sector investments; women literacy rates; infrastructural
development; and the decrease in terrorism. However, key goals and indicators – such
as the target of universal education – remain a distant dream. A huge disparity exists
among the four provinces in terms of literacy and the education budget still hovers
around 2.3 percent of the GDP.

Education, health, environment and financial inclusion remain abysmally low in the
priorities of national and provincial governments in Pakistan. For instance, the focus of
the current government at the federal level is the development of physical infrastructure
– especially roads and transport networks, and power generation. The significance of
integrated human development to meet future challenges has not been recognised.

Human development has been critical to societal welfare – even more so during periods
of rapid economic and social change. Tackling these challenges will be critical to
overcome Pakistan’s development problems and fulfil international commitments.
There are some key international challenges for Pakistan in the coming decades. First,
the Fourth Industrial Revolution will drastically reduce employment opportunities across
the world and machines will replace humans in future workplace (a service-sector
challenge). Second, the revolution in genetic science and technology will dramatically
change the quality and methods of food production and supply, and will have a major
impact on the agrarian economy by the middle of the century (an agricultural-sector
challenge). Third, major breakthroughs are taking place in energy production systems
and technologies. The cost of renewable energy is decreasing, which will have an effect
on the global economy and climate by 2030 (an industrial-sector challenge).

There are many national challenges that could affect our future as well. First, our rates
of population growth and urbanisation are one of the highest in Asia and require high
economic growth and the expansion of employment opportunities (a demographic
challenge). Second, Chinese investment in Pakistan in CPEC-related projects puts
pressure on Pakistan’s industry and service sectors to remain competitive in an era of
the knowledge economy (an economic challenge).

Third, economic disparities and the state’s increasing inability to provide services,
including quality healthcare and education, are creating many socioeconomic problems
in the country. These include the radicalisation of society; violence; and low human
productivity. These challenges pose an existential threat to the country (a social
challenge).

Fourth, the devolution of powers to provinces has created policy ambiguities in terms of
the roles and responsibilities of federal and provincial governments. In the absence of
an inclusive political strategy and capacity assessment initiatives, and due to the
unequal resource distribution among provinces, regional disparities and provincial
differences may be sharpened (a political challenge).

The challenges to the economy and society of Pakistan can be addressed through a
robust and responsive institutional system at the meso and macro levels. There must be
sound social policies, which are future-oriented, integrated, progressive, data-driven
and realistic in terms of their outputs and outcomes.

The civil society and policy think tanks can provide strategic and technical support to the
government in developing and shaping policies to meet the national and international
commitments. Like most well-functioning democracies of the world, Pakistan must help
create think tanks to help the government devise an informed and inclusive policy
narrative.

The policy think tanks can provide support in developing cogent and concise policy
briefs to national and provincial governments. They can also help government ministries
prepare media briefs on key policy matters and provide them with a timely analysis of
ongoing policy debates in the media and policy circles.

Furthermore, these think tanks can be engaged in developing high-quality newspaper

articles that bear policy recommendations for the government. They can also help build
a realistic policy roadmap to engage key stakeholders. Policy think tanks can also come
up with an analysis of key policy dimensions. These include assessing the existing state
of the policy framework and determining how effective the current and previous political
and economic policies have been in addressing development challenges.

Policy think tanks could also be effective in understanding how demographic and
economic challenges can be transformed into opportunities by recommending structural
and policy reforms in the country’s political structure.

Other concerns include determining the capacity and institutional gaps in the four
provinces in tackling the development function of the state after the 18th Amendment.
Think tanks must also gauge some the best and worst practices implemented by the
government and civil society members in different parts of Pakistan over the last seven
decades and determine how these lessons can be incorporated into future policymaking
as a new democratic government assumes office in 2018.

This may achieve some tangible policy outputs, such as short-term and long-term
actions as well as policy adjustments to the national and provincial development policies
and programmes. Another policy outcome that could spring from this include alternative
development financing mechanisms; windows for policy implementation; and increased
stakeholder engagement to obtain a wider buy-in.

The global economic environment is changing rapidly with the polarisation of economic
power centres and the erosion of US hegemony across the world. The global political
dominance is also drifting away from the Western hemisphere and an imminent new
non-Western economic bloc has come into existence that includes China, Russia, Brazil
and India.
In this new context, Pakistan must think about reducing its reliance on America and
engaging on a diplomatic and economic footing with the emerging regional bloc. The
country needs to have a solid network of advisers and policy think tanks to devise a
more coherent perspective of international relations. This paradigm shift in political and
economic thought may usher in a new era of prosperity and self-sufficiency.