Gathering Evidence for Policy Reforms in Pakistan PAKISTAN
Pakistan faces persistent challenges of poverty, food insecurity, and weak eco- nomic growth: nearly 48 million people survive on $2 or less a day, more than one-third of children under age five are underweight, and the country ranks 52nd out of 84 countries in IFPRI’s Global Hunger Index. Evidence-based policy re- forms targeted to poor and food-insecure people in rural and urban areas could help improve well-being in Pakistan, but achieving them requires marshaling evidence on current conditions and policy options and using it effectively.
In July 2011, at the request of the Gov- ernment of Pakistan, IFPRI launched the Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) in Islamabad to contribute to pro- poor economic growth and enhanced food security in Pakistan. Funded by the US Agency for International Development, the PSSP is working in partnership with a
Pakistani research institution, Innovative Development Strategies, under the guid- ance of a national advisory committee.
Te idea behind the PSSP is to improve the Pakistani researchers’ capacity to generate results that contribute to the country’s development strategy, to im- prove policymakers’ capacity to demand and absorb this policy research, and to foster a broader and more integrated knowledge community—including re- searchers, policymakers, civil society, and the private sector—to support pro-poor policies and strategies.
Te program’s first major research project is a wide-ranging, multiyear survey of ru- ral households in the provinces of Sindh, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. PSSP researchers will work with local research- ers to collect, compare, and analyze data from household surveys covering a whole
Education is among the sectors to be surveyed in the Pakistan Strategy Support Program.
host of topics: agricultural practices, income, assets, consumption, education, employment, health, nutrition, economic shocks and safety nets, migration, and aspirations of household members.
“Tis dataset will provide credible and timely information that permits us to establish a baseline, benchmark progress over time, and understand the dynamics of income and employment. It’s central to determining how best to kickstart growth and promote employment and poverty reduction in Pakistan,” explained Sohail Jehangir Malik, senior policy adviser to the PSSP. “Credible real- time data are not currently available in Pakistan. Policymakers are operating largely in the dark. So this survey will be extremely useful in allowing them to evaluate the effects of various policies on the poor in real time.”
—Marcia MacNeil © 2009 Z. Canepari/Panos
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