Pakistan: failing, failing, failing...

Foreign Policy magazine has published its list of failed states. Pakistan has squeezed into the ‘Top 10’ again. Does it deserve to be there? Let’s have a look. The magazine has listed the “unique set of troubles” the world’s most failed states face. Called the 12 degrees of failure (editors love lists with numbers) these are: demographic pressures, refugees, illegitimate governments, brain drain, failure of public services, inequality, group grievances, human rights, economic decline, lack of security, factionalised elites and intervention by external actors.

Pakistan does not figure in the states named as prime examples of these failures (for instance a quarter of all Somalis are refugees and the economies of North Korea and Zimbabwe have collapsed). But it is not inaccurate to say that Pakistan, like most third world developing nations including India, does poorly on these counts. So Pakistan’s problems are not particular to it to an extent. Pakistan doesn’t figure in the watch list of “Four countries in big trouble” either.

The magazine has published data showing what life is like for the populations of the 10 most failed states. Pakistan’s per capita GDP is shown as $2,590 (presumably calculated by purchasing power). This is 10 times more than the most failed state, Somalia.

Pakistan’s child mortality under age five per 1,000 is 89. This means nine children out of 100 don’t live past the age of 5. In Chad this number is 21 children. Pakistan’s fertility rate (births per woman) is four. In Congo, ranked 5th on the list, it is six. Afghan women produce seven.

Mobile phone subscriptions in Central African Republic, at number eight on the list, are four per 100 people. In Pakistan they are 53, half the population, and the number of internet users per 100 are 11. Iraq has only one.

The length of time the average Pakistani leader spends in office is two years. But such longevity isn’t necessarily a good thing as Sudan’s average of 21 years and Zimbabwe’s 30 years show.

As these numbers show, Pakistan is quite different from the other failed states. Then why does it regularly feature on the list?

Why is China, poor and dictatorial, though growing quickly, ranked at a safe 57? Why is India rated even better at 87?

The reason is that these nations are seen by the west as improving over time. The problems of poverty and governance remain, but it is believed that they are being resolved through a secular process.

Pakistan is seen, rightly or wrongly, as a state that is moving into greater trouble because of religious intolerance. Large parts of India’s tribal areas are also not under state control, but these do not produce as much violence and extremism as the tribal areas of Pakistan. And so the same problem, lack of state presence, is seen very negatively in Pakistan’s case.

The single most significant reason for Pakistan’s inclusion on the list is the slow collapse of the state. The government, Foreign Policy magazine and other experts are convinced, is losing control over its population.

Till this perception is changed, Pakistan will continue to make this list. And it’s not just a plaything of the magazine editors. Businesses will be prejudiced against the ‘failed’ states. Investment will be hard to attract, and capital will continue to flee. Pakistan’s government needs to respond.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2010.