Developed without being human?

Pakistan has been consistent in its Human Development Index (HDI) ranking. It maintained its ranking of 147th amongst 188 countries in the latest HDI ranking and also had the distinction of being the last country in the medium development category. In South Asia, it beat Afghanistan in the ranking but was comfortably edged out by Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives and, of course, India and Sri Lanka. These reports have a predictable future in Pakistan. They are going to be archived without being read by policymakers; very few analysts will write on them; they are not going to make front-page headlines in the newspapers; they are not going to be breaking news on the electronic media; they will get minimal attention in the social media. Which, of course, means that next year the HDI ranking will be either the same or lower. As they say if you keep on doing what you were doing yesterday, you will be where you were yesterday.

So the question is: what have we been doing or not doing to earn this consistent position? Even more important is the question that does it really matter where we are ranked in these indices? The answer to the second question is it matters if we are serious about coming out of this vicious cycle of a socio-economic slide. Research proves that for nations to become developed human development focus is a major if not the only prerequisite. No amount of physical resources, financial resources, natural resources can on its own provide sustainable development if human development is ignored. The most basic economic development indicator is the GDP growth rate. India has a higher HDI ranking 131 and a higher GDP growth rate of 7 per cent. Even Bangladesh has a higher HDI ranking of 139 and a GDP growth rate of 7.05 per cent. Other countries that experienced massive geopolitical turmoil like Vietnam have also done much better as their focus is on human development. Vietnam has an HDI ranking of 115 and a GDP growth rate of 6.68 per cent. Pakistan has the lowest HDI ranking comparatively, ie, 147 and also the lowest GDP growth rate of 4.47 per cent. The GDP rate has many important components but human development is a wildly important component.

If the economics of investing in human development proves it produces a high return on investment why do policymakers not make this logical investment? Perhaps because the Return over Investment (RoI) formula of economics is not really applicable in politics. Politicians and voters, especially in Pakistan, have a mindset or a set mind on the meaning of development. Development is perceived as roads and highways, infrastructure projects, mega schemes, hefty packages and multilayered schemes. These are definitely part of development but should not be invested in at the cost of human development. The nature of politics is such that with a basic illiterate vote bank these political offerings are perceived as signs of progress and development. There are three main reasons for this political prioritisation. First reason behind this perception is that seeing is believing. Tangible and physical investments such as roads or buildings or plants make great ostentatious sense that have showcasing value, are easily advertised and comfortably quoted in manifestos. The second benefit is that physical investments can be on ground and running during electoral terms. Intangibles like education and health may take decades to show results and those also may not be directly attributable to a particular political regime of a political party. The third factor may be the most important one and that is the more educated the populace, the more difficult it is for them to fool through sloganeering.

The human development index is based on multiple factors such as life expectancy, mean years of education, quality of life, gender empowerment, etc. Pakistan has failed to improve in many of these areas. Education has been a major manifesto item for nearly all governments and the present government, too, promised to increase the education allocation to 4 per cent of the GDP from an embarrassing 2 per cent. Unfortunately, even in the fourth year the government has not really made any attempt to increase it. In fact, with shortage of funds the meagre 2 per cent further gets depleted as funds are diverted to rapid show and tell projects. This narrow vision and definition of development in Pakistan has now caught international attention. A report in the Economist recently criticised Pakistan’s overspending on infrastructure. In an article titled “Road to Nowhere- Pakistan’s misguided obsession with infrastructure” the economics and wisdom of building highways, expressways, motorways, signal-free corridors and under- and over- passes has been challenged. All these are facilities for a small rich minority at the cost of educating 25 million children out of school. This statistic is staggering as it makes every fourth child in the world who is under the age of five and is out of school, a Pakistani. The provincial analysis conducted by Alif Ailan, an NGO that has been promoting more investment in education, has shown that instead of increasing the education budget has decreased in the last few years. In 2013-14, the Punjab budget was 26 per cent of the total provincial budget whereas only 18.6 per cent of the total budget in 2016-17 has been allocated for education.

Even more serious is what happens to these children and students when they do manage to get to schools, colleges and universities. Poor investment in facilities, technology and quality of teaching has now started producing graduates who have degrees but no education. A clear proof of this was in results of one of the best assessments in the country, ie, CSS exams that by its very name are known as Central Superior Service exams. In 2016, 9,642 students sat for the CSS exams, of which only 202 which is 2.09 per cent managed to pass. The 92 per cent who appeared also failed in their English paper. The committee was told that CSS results have been deteriorating over the past few years with 3.33 per cent students clearing the exam in 2014, 3.11 per cent in 2015 and 2.09 per cent in 2016.

A World Bank report has stated that Pakistan’s long-term development is clearly linked with improvement in nutrition, education and health indicators. On the contrary, the mindset of those who make budgets is more attuned to considering roads and corridors as game changers. That set mind has to change to create the real change in the development game plan of the country; it requires a paradigm shift from mega power projects to mega empowerment projects, from mass transport programmes to mass literacy programmes, from express road highways to express information highways, from special amnesty packages to special scholarship packages and from super house building schemes to super skill building schemes.

However, the people ruling this country insist on treating spending on human beings as cost and spending on roads and highways as investment. To an answer to the usual question on why allocation on education and health remains the lowest in the region a minister typically responded by explaining the “budgetary constraints”. The cost of not doing a rethink is a guarantee to speed up the socio-economic nosedive. As Derek Bok said: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2017.

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