Current Affairs Activity Class Arooj Shahzad

Topic: Sustainable Development Goals

Editorial: A Neglected Social Sector
THE State Bank’s veiled criticism of the government’s lack of policy focus on the social sector
is but a confirmation of what so many people have long been trying to bring home to the
country’s policymakers.

“One of the key objectives of public policies is to improve the living conditions... improvement
in social welfare requires ‘focused policy measures’ in addition to (the) usual growth enhancing
and stabilization policies,” the bank underscores in its annual State of the Economy report for the
last financial year.

The report’s chapter on the social sector is nothing if not the bank’s disapproval — even if not
total and complete — of the government’s spending priorities. It makes no bones about the
government’s deep inclination towards funding politically motivated, construction-related
projects rather than prioritizing the social sector - education, healthcare, sanitation, water supply,
etc — to improve the quality of public services for the citizens.

“While the country has failed to achieve a number of MDG targets, the clock for achieving the
new SDGs has begun ticking... this will not be possible without a rigorous reform process in
public service delivery”
As a consequence of low public investment on the social sector, the bank points out, Pakistan’s
progress (on MDGs now replaced with SDGs) has “lagged behind its regional peers in terms of
both scale and pace”.

The country’s ranking on the Human Development Index has slipped nine positions from 138 to
147 during the same period. On the other hand, Bangladesh was able to improve its HDI ranking
by three notches from 145 to 142, Sri Lanka by 16 from 89 to 73 and China by six from 96 to 90.

The HDI ranking is based on three principal human development characteristics: leading a long
and healthy life (measured by life expectancy at birth); the ability to acquire knowledge
(measured by mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling); and the ability to
achieve a decent standard of living (measured by gross national income per capita).

For instance, the average life expectancy in 2000 was nearly the same in both India and Pakistan
(62.63 years vs. 62.77 years). But by 2014, the indicator for India had improved to 68.01 years
whereas it only reached 66.18 years for Pakistan. Life expectancy in Bangladesh has risen to 72
years, in Nepal to 70 years and in Sri Lanka to 75 years.

These nations also spend more money on the social sector than Pakistan. India, Sri Lanka and
Nepal, for instance, spend 1.4pc, 2.6pc and 2.3pc of their GDP (gross domestic product) on
healthcare compared with 0.9pc in Pakistan. Similarly, India allocates 3.8pc of its GDP on

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Current Affairs Activity Class Arooj Shahzad

education compared with 2.2pc in Pakistan. Bhutan spends 6pc, Nepal 4.7pc and Bangladesh 2pc
on education.

Several factors are responsible for the country’s poor performance in the social sector compared
with its regional peers: the expensive, prolonged war on terror that has cost it over $118bn;
floods and other natural disasters; increased policy focus on economic stabilization because of a
recurring balance of payments crises; and more importantly, inadequate budgetary resources
(owing to a low tax to GDP ratio, as well as a higher defence spending and debt servicing
obligation) along with poor capacity of public institutions to formulate and implement internally
consistent policies for social service delivery.

The bank also highlighted the rapid population growth and the exclusion of the female
population from the national, economic and social uplift policy framework as a major constraint
to social sector development.

“… A large segment of the female population in Pakistan continues to remain excluded from
formal education and the labour force. Female enrolment lags behind that of males across all
education levels (primary, secondary and tertiary) while Pakistan’s female labour force
participation rate, at around 25pc, is lower than that for regional countries like India and
Bangladesh,” the report said.

The bank also laments that provinces, which have been given greater responsibilities related to
social sector uplift — particularly for education and health — as a result of the 18th amendment
and the 7th NFC Award — are “still struggling to make any notable progress in service delivery,
particularly related to healthcare and education”.

“Although provinces have enjoyed a significant jump in their resources, they are not able to
channelize enough funds towards social sectors. One reason behind this under-spending is a
disproportionate focus on infrastructure projects”.

Another factor that kept the provinces from increasing allocations for the social sector was the
federal requirement to produce fiscal surplus to keep the consolidated fiscal deficit under check
under the IMF programme that completed in September this year. “… they were underutilizing
the resources coming from the divisible pool during the past few years.”

A bureaucrat, who is currently working on a donor-funded project for improving public service
delivery in the Punjab district, says both poor allocations for public services and mismanagement
of the available funds were hampering social sector development, besides leakages and loopholes
in the implementation systems.

“While allocations — both development and current — for social sector fall far short of the
requirements, expenditure issues like procurement processes, lack of planning and bureaucratic

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delays mean that even the available funds are not properly or fully utilized,” he told Dawn on
condition of anonymity.

The state’s failure to deliver quality public services to the vast majority of the population has led
the private sector to penetrate in the education and healthcare sectors over the past few years. But
private services remain too expensive to be availed by larger parts of the population, the bank
states.

The report argues that in view of the population growth rate the country will need to sizably
increase allocations for social development just to maintain the current level of its social
indicators let alone make any meaningful improvement therein.

“While the country has failed to achieve a number of MDG targets, the clock for achieving the
new SDGs has begun ticking.

“However, this will not be possible without a rigorous reform process in public service delivery”.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, November 21st, 2016

An Insight on Sustainable Development Goals

 SDGs are a set of 17 goals for the world’s future, through 2030
 Agreed to by nearly all the world’s nations, on 25 Sept 2015
 Negotiated over a two-year period at the United Nations

Goal # Description
1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable
agriculture
3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4 Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning
5 Achieve gender equality and empower women and girls
6 Ensure access to water and sanitation for all
7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8 Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work
for all
9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster
innovation
10 Reduce inequality within and among countries
11 Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
15 Sustainably manage forests and reverse land degradation

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16 Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies

17 Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
Critical Analysis:
 The underlying countries failed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
 The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have replaced the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) in September 2015 to be achieved by 2030.
 There are four underlying reasons why the MDGs are not being achieved. Sometimes the
problem is poor governance, marked by corruption, poor economic policy choices, and
denial of human rights. Sometimes the problem is a poverty trap, with local and national
economies too poor to make the needed investments. Sometimes progress is made in one
part of the country but not in others, so that pockets of poverty persist. Even when
overall governance is adequate, there are often areas of specific policy neglect that can
have a monumental effect on their citizens' well-being.
 Most economies experience considerable variation in household incomes, so even
middle-income countries may have large numbers of extremely poor households,
especially large countries with considerable regional and ethnic diversity. Economic
development often leaves some parts of an economy, or some groups in society, far
behind. This creates pockets of poverty.

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