Measuring progress: Mahboobul Haq Human Development Centre report to assess citizens’ empowerment in South Asia

Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre to release 2012 report today.

LAHORE:

A report focusing on governance for empowerment of people in South Asia shall be released by the Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre (MHHDC) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences today (September 14).

Umer Akhlaq Malik, a senior research fellow at the MHHDC, told The Express Tribune said the report, the 15th to be released by the centre, focuses on gauging the ability of governance to improve the well being of people.

He said the report evaluates governance under three broad categories: political, economic and social/civil. “It gauges governance indicators in various countries, including Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh,” said Malik.

He said last year’s report had focused on food security in the South Asian region.

The focus of earlier reports has been on technology, poverty, human security, health and education and their impact on human development in the region, he said.

Malik, who has worked with the MHHDC for four years, said, the centre had identified the empowerment of people through governance policies as the most urgent concern in South Asia.

“With respect to Pakistan, the report tries to understand whether the past 60 years or so of government policies have produced human development,” said Malik.

The report will reveal its assessment of various government institutions, including the judiciary and the parliament. The MHHDC was founded by Mahbubul Haq, an economist and federal finance minister in the 1980s. The centre was established in 1996 and was originally called the Human Development Centre. It was renamed as MHHDC in 1998.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th, 2012.