Pakistan

To regain the strong growth it had before the global crisis, South Asia will have to manage a combination of persistent external economic headwinds and increasing regional... Show More + macroeconomic and structural vulnerabilities. Macroeconomic policies to tackle the adverse effects of the global downturn have left the South Asian countries with weaker fiscal and monetary options to stimulate growth today. With the exception of Afghanistan, economic growth across other South Asian countries- Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka-has been moderating or stagnating. In Bangladesh, with export and investment growth slowing, Gross Domestic product (GDP) growth is likely to fall to around 6 percent in FY2013/14, down from 6.3 percent in FY2012/13. Over the same period, Bhutan saw its growth rate decline from almost 9 percent to 7.6 percent. India's economy slowed significantly. As a result, growth of a subdued 3 percent is expected in FY2012/13, down from 4.6 percent in FY2011/12. A significant drop in the region's exports and fixed investment are primarily responsible for South Asia's growth moderation. Private consumption remained stable, helped by resilient remittance flows, and is expected to only pick up slowly due to effects of persistent inflation, fiscal consolidation and slow recovery in disposable income. The overall real effective exchange rate depreciation across South Asia reflects weak economic fundamentals. International reserves fell below critical levels of two months of import coverage in Pakistan and one month in Maldives, reflecting the two countries' difficult external situations. During the first eight months of FY2012/13, Pakistan's net international reserves fell to 1.8 months, down from 2.6 months in the previous fiscal year. Show Less -

The vision of Pakistan's social protection strategy to reach the poor and vulnerable (2007) is 'to develop an integrated and comprehensive social protection system,... Show More + covering all the population, but especially the poorest and the most vulnerable'. Consistent with this vision, the goals of the strategy are identified as: 1) to support chronically poor households and protect them against destitution, food insecurity, exploitation and social exclusion; 2) to protect poor and vulnerable households from the impacts of adverse shocks to their consumption and well-being that, if not mitigated, would push non poor households into poverty, and poor households into deeper poverty; and 3) to promote investment in human and physical assets, including health, nutrition, and education, by poor households capable of ensuring their resilience in the medium run and of interrupting the intergenerational cycle of poverty. This vision is fully consistent with the World Bank's social protection and labor strategy for 2012-2022, which recognizes that effective social protection and labor policies and programs help create the resilience, equity and access to jobs and opportunities essential to save lives, reduce poverty and promote sustainable growth. The focus of this report is Pakistan's main safety net program: the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), which is only one part of the broader poverty reduction and social protection interventions. In particular, social protection includes labor policy, contributory social insurance, and social care services as well as safety nets. Pakistan's social protection system comprises safety nets, social security and employment promotion and protection. Show Less -

This report provides an overview of the government-to-person (G2P) payments sector in Pakistan, highlighting the progression of payment mechanisms and the ways in which... Show More + the growing branchless banking industry has facilitated this. While some level of detail on schemes, providers and monetary flows are included, the broader aim is to provide an overview of the digitization of the government flows and to explain the role of both public and private actors. The report has three sections: (1) status of branchless banking in Pakistan, where we highlight key deployments and the role of regulators and donors; (2) overview of G2P payment schemes, where we detail the flows and implementations involved in both social cash transfers and government employee salaries and pensions and provide a brief history of those flows; and (3) challenges and opportunities in digitizing government flows, where we briefly discuss key lessons from the Pakistani experience. Show Less -

The government of Balochistan is preparing a medium-term strategy for the development of the province, the first phase of which is expected to cover 5-7 years. This... Show More + report has been developed in response to a request from the Government of Balochistan to help with the analysis of issues in certain key sectors, to recommend policies for them, and to prepare sectorial action plans with estimates of the resources (financial and human) that would be required to implement the recommendations. The report takes as its starting point that the primary role of a government is to provide a better life for its citizens. An important component of such a life is a higher income, because this gives persons command over the goods and services that enable them to lead lives that they have reason to value. Show Less -

The government of Balochistan is preparing a medium-term strategy for the development of the province, the first phase of which is expected to cover 5-7 years. This... Show More + report has been developed in response to a request from the Government of Balochistan to help with the analysis of issues in certain key sectors, to recommend policies for them, and to prepare sectorial action plans with estimates of the resources (financial and human) that would be required to implement the recommendations. The report takes as its starting point that the primary role of a government is to provide a better life for its citizens. An important component of such a life is a higher income, because this gives persons command over the goods and services that enable them to lead lives that they have reason to value. Show Less -

The government of Balochistan is preparing a medium-term strategy for the development of the province, the first phase of which is expected to cover 5-7 years. This... Show More + report has been developed in response to a request from the Government of Balochistan to help with the analysis of issues in certain key sectors, to recommend policies for them, and to prepare sectorial action plans with estimates of the resources (financial and human) that would be required to implement the recommendations. The report takes as its starting point that the primary role of a government is to provide a better life for its citizens. An important component of such a life is a higher income, because this gives persons command over the goods and services that enable them to lead lives that they have reason to value. Show Less -

The Government of Pakistan's (GoP's) 2011 framework for economic growth seeks to place Pakistan on a sustained high economic growth path of 7 percent per year through... Show More + measures to reduce the cost of doing business, improve the investment climate, and strengthen institutions. Trade and transport reforms are central to achieve the Framework's goal. The transport sector constitutes 10 percent of Pakistan's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provides 6 percent of the employment in the country. The sector plays an important role in linking other sectors in the economy, contributes to both domestic and international trade, and helps facilitate the spatial transformation occurring in Pakistan. However, present patterns in transport and trade logistics generate inefficiencies that are costing Pakistan's economy roughly 4-6 percent of GDP per year, which is a major constraint to the aspirations set out in the Framework. This analytical work on Strategic Environmental, Poverty, and Social Assessment (SEPSA) of trade and transport sector reforms examines poverty, social and environmental aspects associated with reforms that would increase the freight transport sector's productivity to meet the framework goals. it focused on the following areas: (i) SEPSA's methodology and aims; (ii) description of key challenges in Pakistan's freight transport sectors, including the road, trucking, railway, port, and aviation sectors, as well as trade and transport interventions and reforms proposed by the GoP and other stakeholders; (iii) identification of stakeholders, particularly the most vulnerable groups that could be affected by reforms aimed at increasing freight transport productivity, and analyzing the priority poverty issues associated with freight transport in Pakistan; (iv) identification jointly with stakeholders of priority social and environmental issues associated with freight transport, and analyzing such issues; (iv) examination of potential freight transportation social and environmental policy options for enhancing positive effects or reducing adverse effects associated with increases in freight transport productivity; and (v) identification of options to strengthen governance and the institutional capacity of agencies to manage the environmental, social and poverty priorities associated with Pakistan's freight transportation. Show Less -

This paper outlines the contribution of mobile sources to the urban air pollution problem in Pakistan, particularly in Karachi, and examines a series of options that... Show More + address the significant cost imposed upon the economy and populace by ever-worsening air quality. The environmental health and economic analysis relies on primary data obtained from various ministries, agencies and institutions in Pakistan as well as from international development agencies. The analysis also uses several hundred reports and research studies from Pakistan and other countries. Quantification of health effects from environmental risk factors is grounded in commonly used methodologies that link health outcomes and exposure to pollution and other health risk factors, and the economic costs of these health effects are estimated using standard valuation techniques. The assessment of the benefits and costs of interventions to mitigate health effects and improve natural resource conditions is based on these same methodologies and valuation techniques, as well as on international evidence of intervention effectiveness, and, to the extent available, on data regarding the costs of interventions in Pakistan. Show Less -

Fostering the entrepreneurship of women is important for Pakistan's economic growth and inclusion agenda, and access to financial services is an important component... Show More + of starting and growing a business for women entrepreneurs. Most women?owned businesses are small, household?based cottage industries; microfinance products should be a natural source of start?up and working capital finance for this clientele. Microfinance portfolio data suggest that although Pakistan's sector has shown improvement in reaching women, it still lags its regional peers, only 59 percent of microfinance clients are women. The original purpose of this work was to determine whether women entrepreneurs have access to, and are using, microfinance loans as a source of finance for their businesses. However, the findings of the report go beyond the narrow objective of understanding whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) are reaching Pakistan's businesswomen. As the research unfolded, the evidence suggested that not only are women entrepreneurs not being served, but also that the outreach to women in general is potentially more limited than previously assumed and that the issues of consumer protection and responsible lending practices in Pakistan might merit further exploration. The report raises and addresses two distinct issues. First, some evidence suggests that women are often not the final users of loans, but rather are conduits to male household members. The report documents findings that suggest that the practice of passing on loans to male household members is potentially quite widespread; women may be bearing all the transaction costs and risks of accessing loans, but are not the final beneficiaries. Second, a very low proportion of female microfinance clients are entrepreneurs. The report explores why businesswomen in Pakistan may not be using microfinance products to meet their start?up and working capital requirements, in spite of identifying access to finance as a key constraint to their business operations. The report focuses on products, services, policies, and other elements of the business model of microfinance in Pakistan that affect both demand for and access to microfinance by women borrowers, some of whom fall into the narrower category of entrepreneurs. Show Less -

The health equity and financial protection datasheets provide a picture of equity and financial protection in the health sectors of low-and middle-income countries.... Show More + Topics covered include: inequalities in health outcomes, health behavior and health care utilization; benefit incidence analysis; financial protection; and the progressivity of health care financing. The tables in this report show how health outcomes, risky behaviors and health care utilization vary across asset (wealth) quintiles and periods. The quintiles are based on an asset index constructed using principal components analysis. Benefit-Incidence Analysis (BIA) shows whether, and by how much, government health expenditure disproportionately benefits the poor. The distribution of subsidies depends on the assumptions made to allocate subsidies to households. Under the constant unit cost assumption, each unit of utilization is assumed to cost the same and is equal to total costs incurred in delivering this type of service divided by the number of units of utilization. Show Less -