Daily Times

Social sector development is crucial to provide services for citizens. However, whenever there is an economic crunch in the country, social sector development is often under-prioritized. It might be worthwhile to review the social sector development issues. This article refers to some literature (Aisha Ghaus et al. 1996; Economic Survey of Pakistan 2018-19; State Bank Annual Report 2015-16; SPDC 2018; ASER 2019) to illustrate the discussion.

It was SPDC back in the mid-1990s that came up with social development ranking of districts of Pakistan. It was a useful contribution to the knowledge base on social development. SPDC used eleven indicators including health, education, water supply, amongst others, for its social development districts rankings. It also analyzed regional differences in social development across districts. For regional variation, it looked at criteria such as the prevalence of urbanization, geographic significance, and administrative development. In 1996, Punjab had the highest level of social development and the then NWFP, Sindh, and Balochistan followed suit in that order respectively; a development ranking that might not have changed much since then. There were also significant intra-districts’ variations within the provinces. The district ranking identified the least developed districts within every province, so that special development funds could be allocated to it.

Currently, Pakistan’s rank is 150th out of 189 countries, according to the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2018 and its Human Development Index value is 0.562 out of maximum 1. Challenges in social development are enormous. As I have stated elsewhere as well, in education, the net enrolment rates (NER) in primary education have not changed that much and actually, NER has even decreased in some provinces. Geographical variation in disaggregated enrolment statistics reflects the deprivation suffered by the less developed areas. According to the State Bank report (cited above), NER scores decline particularly for the middle education (classes 6-8) in all provinces. There are not adequate middle schools physically available to cater to middle education needs. The ratio of primary schools (both public and private) to middle schools is three to one.

Currently, Pakistan’s rank is 150th out of 189 countries, according to the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2018 and its Human Development Index value is 0.562 out of maximum 1. Challenges in social development are enormous

In terms of health, there have been some positive developments in the recent past with improvements in infant and maternal mortality rates, checking HIV spread, provision of immunization coverage, and some improvement in the environment. In terms of social progress, there have also been moderate improvements in poverty alleviation, mainly due to BISP. According to the latest Economic Survey of Pakistan, the slight improvements in the health indicators are reflected by “…as in 2012-13, 45 percent of children were stunted which dropped to 38 percent in 2017-18. Childhood wasting declined slightly from 11 percent to 7 percent, while the?prevalence of underweight children declined from 30 percent to 23 percent. Childhood mortality rates have declined since 1990. Infant mortality has decreased from 86 deaths per 1,000?live births in 1990 to 61.2 in 2017. During the same time period, under-5 mortality has markedly declined from 112 to 74 deaths per 1,000 live births. Neonatal mortality declined from 55 in 2012 to 42 deaths per 1,000 live births.” According to some other literature, the under-5 mortality rate is still high and so are the infant and neonatal mortality rates. There is also a prevalence of polio, tuberculosis, diarrhea, malnutrition, stunting, and respiratory illnesses, amongst others.

Lack of proper sanitation and water supply are the two other major social development issues and are also linked to health issues. According to the State Bank report of 2015-16, 21 % of households lack toilet facility with a majority of this in rural areas. Only 50% of garbage is picked up in the urban areas and sent for dumping. In terms of access to clean drinking water, piped water is available to only 20% of households in rural areas. Similarly, only 20 % of households in urban areas and 1.5 percent in rural areas can take appropriate measures to access clean water for drinking.

In terms of availability of budget for social development, the education budget (inclusive of both federal and provincial) is 2.4% of GDP (as per a news report) and it has been gradually increasing since 2013-14 and the provincial governments are also prioritizing expenditure on education. The budget for health has been less than 1% of GDP for quite some time. According to a recent news report, in the latest budget 2018-19, the allocation for education has been decreased by more than 20% and for health by more than 28%. It shows that human development is not being prioritized recently. Yet, according to the SPDC (2018), the 7th NFC award and devolution of power to the provinces has had overall a positive impact in terms of provision of resources for social development.

One major reason cited for the possible under-allocation for social development is a greater priority given to the infrastructure projects of construction and transport. Though the infrastructure projects lead to jobs creations, yet they also provide rent-seeking opportunities for the decision-makers.

In addition to the allocation issues, there are also significant gaps in the provincial governments’ capacity to provide service delivery in the social sector and they need to improve their capacity, delivery, and governance. The provincial governments also need to effectively monitor and in-build the essential checks and balances for effective and pro-citizens’ social sector service delivery by the private sector. The government also needs to subsidize the poor to facilitate their access to social services through the social protection programme.

The writer is an Islamabad-based social scientist