Saud bin Ahsen

During times of great crisis, such as World War II, citizens have proved willing to accept-even embrace-greater government control of the economy. Already, there has been economic intervention on a scale that hasn’t been seen for decades, if at all. Governments across the globe had announced stimulus plans amounting to $10.6 trillion-the equivalent of eight […]

Just a few weeks ago, all of us were living our usual busy lives. Now, things normally taken for granted-an evening with friends, the daily commute, a plane flight home-are no longer possible. Daily reports of increasing infections and deaths across the world raise our anxiety and, in cases of personal loss, plunge us into […]

Restricted choices and power imbalances-a lifecycle perspective. Gender inequality within households and communities is characterized by inequality across multiple dimensions, with a vicious cycle of powerlessness, stigmatization, discrimination, exclusion and material deprivation all reinforcing each other. Human development is about expanding substantive freedoms and choices, and too often women face heavily restricted or even “tragic” […]

Are social norms and power imbalances shifting? Gender inequality has long been associated with persistent discriminatory social norms prescribing social roles and power relations between men and women in society.Social norms held by individuals and their reference groups are values, beliefs, attitudes and practices that assert preferred power dynamics for interactions between individuals and institutions.As […]

Year 2020 marks the Twenty-fifth anniversary of the gathering which produced the Beijing Declaration & Platform for Action, an ambitious and visionary document that outlines a world in which women have the same rights and opportunities as men. Leaders from 189 countries agreed to pursue gender equality in an unprecedented display of solidarity during the […]

Genesis of RFPs is the awe-inspiring and provocative idea which germinated the change in Dr. Haque’s story, was an unrealized change that he had actually perceived through his framework of economic growth. An economist at heart, Dr. Haque intersperses his fictional work with real life economic policies and goes to great lengths in explaining his […]

‘Looking Back‘ reads like a history book imbued with comic fiction. The very thought in today’s Pakistan that our country may one day become the Asian tiger is laughable in itself. An historical account of Pakistan’s reformation set in an alternate future, the book was written by Dr. Nadeem UlHaque, an economist, giving a blow […]

Civil service refers to the body of government officials who are employed in civil occupations that are neither political nor judicial. A well-functioning civil service helps to foster good policymaking, effective service delivery, accountability and responsibility in utilizing public resources which are the characteristics of good governance. Thus, civil service, as the primary arm of […]