Make every effort in reducing poverty.

Byline: S. KAMAL HAYDER KAZMI

Income distribution in poverty alleviation also matters. A highly unequal income distribution makes it harder to decline poverty. Reducing the income inequality will raise the numbers who benefit from the same rate of economic growth. Conversely, higher inequality will require even greater growth to yield the same reduction in poverty, according to the Government of Pakistan statistics.

Over the years, in Pakistan, the pattern of income distribution measured in terms of the Gini Coefficient and household income share of the lowest and the highest 20 percent for rural and urban regions has been mixed and moderate. In the report, it is also recorded that the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES) undertaken periodically from 1961-64 to 2018-19, offer facts for the selected years. The Gini Coefficient of household income had been almost 0.35 or below since the 1960s, reaching 0.407 in 1990-91, 0.410 in 1998-99, and after that, it started declining because of enhanced poverty situation and reached 0.30 in 2018-19 as against to 0.33 in 2005-06.

The government of Pakistan also recorded that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased poverty and inequality globally, causing a substantial reversal in progress toward global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to the latest estimates provided by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the report 'The World Economic Situation and Prospects 2022', progress in reducing extreme poverty has been setback by various years in most states. An unprecedented 85 million more people entered extreme poverty in 2020 worldwide.

The number is projected to remain well above pre-pandemic levels for the next several years, probably at a record high for the last decade. Only a slight fall is expected in 2022, to about 876 million people. Fast-developing economies in East and South Asia also developed economies will likely see a reduction in poverty in the near term. But it is anticipated to raise more in the world's most vulnerable economies.

The government also showed that the capacity to reduce poverty will be largely constrained by insufficient fiscal space across the developing world, the slow recovery of employment in some states and the tightening of worldwide monetary conditions.

Extreme weather, wars and conflicts and political fragility could also further affect poverty prospects. The uneven pace of recovery between developing as...

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