The News International: Poverty numbers are made up.

We can’t reduce poverty by changing the numbers

Instead of shooting the messenger, we should be addressing the problem By Kamal Siddiqi Editor Reporting KARACHI: Earlier this month, the number of Pakistanis living below the poverty line dropped significantly when the government termed its own 2001 poverty assessment methodology “flawed” and said the overall poverty level had declined to 23.9 per cent from the till now accepted figure of 33 per cent. In his wisdom, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr Akram Sheikh told newsmen that the number of people “living below poverty line now stood at 39 million”. He said the new methodology had been “verified” by a committee, comprising Secretary Planning Akram Malik and representatives of the World Bank, United Nations Development Program and Germany’s Department for International Development and it “puts the (incidence of) poverty at 23.9 per cent,” much below the government’s earlier estimates. In other words, now one in four Pakistanis and not one in three is below the poverty line. At least, this is the case in the books of planners in Islamabad. Using the same methodology, the Secretary Planning said that the poverty level in 2001 was now estimated to be 34 per cent while the earlier ‘flawed’ methodology had put it at 32.1 per cent. Two weeks later the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) - the two organisations cited by the government in its revised figures, estimated that poverty rate in Pakistan ranges between 25.7 per cent and 28.3 per cent as against the government’s estimates of 23.9 per cent. The two institutions asked the government to “improve the methodology of arriving at poverty estimates” to depict a genuine picture of the overall condition and standard of living of people in the country. They also raised questions about poverty surveys that did not portray the condition of majority of rural people. The bitter truth is the government is once again playing with numbers. The government is happy to let the economy take care of poverty. Our PM holds the view that a higher growth rate will, in itself take care of poverty. However, there are many that do not agree with this assertion. One of the strongest critics of the growth removes poverty policy is a Karachi-based think tank, the Social Policy and Development Centre. Economic growth is only one pillar of the plan to fight poverty. Other areas that need to be tackled are improving governance and devolution, investing in human capital and targeting the poor and the vulnerable. The SPDC view has consistently been while accelerated that GDP growth represents the necessary condition for poverty reduction, it cannot be achieved through growth alone. There is an alternative view that poverty reduction is not only a function of increased economic growth but also of diminished inequality. This was a point brought home in the SPDC’s annual report last year. These views seemed to be too uncomfortable for the present set up and at the time the media speculated that it was one of the reasons why the then head of the SPDC had to quit his job. A classic case of shooting the messenger. Last week, this newspaper reported that the country’s chief economist had been removed from his post after he differed with the government on poverty reduction and GDP growth rate figures. The government has, however, denied this outright. Official sources say that Pervez Tahir, the chief economist of the Planning Commission was removed and posted as head of the National Energy Conservation Centre on May 30 after he reportedly told the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission that he disagreed with the Poverty Reduction Figures. Lets attack the problem not those who diagnose it.