HRW urges IMF to protect Pakistan’s vulnerable people

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to work with the Pakistan government to protect the economically disadvantaged by broadening social protection systems, minimising reform measures that risk further harm to the most vulnerable people.

The New York-based rights watchdog warned that Pakistan faced its worst economic crisis and stressed that both the IMF and the Pakistan government shared responsibility to address the crisis to protect the people in low-income group.

“The IMF and the Pakistani government have a responsibility to address this crisis in a way that prioritises and protects low-income people,” Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement issued in the New York on Tuesday.

“The IMF should provide Pakistan the time and flexibility to achieve a sustainable, inclusive, and rights-based recovery,” she said. “Pakistan’s government should use the influx of funds to expand support for those worst- affected by the economic crisis,” she added.

Formal negotiations between the Pakistani government and the IMF team began on February 1, to discuss a plan to rescue the economy, including an instalment of $1.1 billion in loans from a $6.5 billion bailout that had been designed to ward off economic meltdown in 2019.

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves decreased by 16% to $3 billion in the week ending January 27 – an amount that covered less than three weeks of imports, while the acute shortages of foreign currency made many imports, including essential medicines, scarce or unobtainable.

Besides, the HRW noted several other factors impacting the Pakistani economy, including the highest inflation levels since 1975, a drastic depreciation of the rupee’s value and the devastation caused by cataclysmic floods in the first half of the current fiscal year 2022-23.

“The IMF programme should conduct a thorough assessment of the direct and indirect impact these adjustments would have on low-income people and adequately mitigate them, the HRW said, adding that the IMF should use its procedures to make the needed funds available as soon as possible.

“It should use part of the anticipated savings to strengthen social safety nets by including a structural benchmark to significantly broaden coverage and increase social spending. The IMF should urge Pakistan’s government to enact policies to increase women’s access to employment by reducing barriers, including by providing state-funded maternity leave and access to affordable menstrual hygiene,” the HRW continued.

It said that the new tax measures should be progressive in nature and should not exacerbate inequality and increase the cost of living in ways that undermined rights, adding that any cuts in subsidies for electricity, fuel, and natural gas should be preceded by a comprehensive reform plan that ensured that everyone was able to access energy supplies essential for basic rights.

The global human rights watchdog emphasised that the IMF recommendations should encourage government spending on social services, such as education, health care, and poverty-reduction programmes, while shoring up the government revenues by improving tax collection infrastructure and adopting stringent and transparent accountability measures.

Pakistan’s negotiations with the IMF, which continue through February 9, are meant to clear the IMF’s ninth review of its Extended Fund Facility (EFF), aimed at helping countries with balance-of-payments crises.