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The elusiveness of inclusive growth
Debates concerning development are often sparked by the question of whether market-led growth is enough to tackle problems like poverty and global inequality reduction, or else, if more specific...
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An incomplete corruption measure
Transparency International (TI) released its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2013 earlier this week. While corruption remains a worldwide phenomenon, it is no surprise to see misgoverned, poor...
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Remembering Mandela
The whole world has been mourning the passing away of Nelson Mandela, one of the most inspirational leaders of our time. While leaders of major countries and mainstream media outlets remain...
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Punjab’s proposed smart school experiment
Like our other leaders, the Sharifs have long been cautioned against adopting top-down approaches to development, yet this criticism has not been heeded. Recall the Sher Shah Suri-like ambitions of...
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India’s latest poverty profile
India has seen steady economic growth over the past decade. While this growth has helped reduce the overall prevalence of poverty in our neighbouring country, India still faces an enormous challenge...
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Costly cure for hepatitis C
Regulators in the US and Europe have approved a new drug for treating hepatitis C, the deadly liver virus which infects three to five times more people around the world than HIV. Medical researchers...
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Hurdles confronting the BISP
The current government and major donor agencies seem convinced to continue financing the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), which aims to provide an adequate social safety net for poor and...
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Society and women
The role of Muslim women in society has evoked increasing attention over the past decade. While Muslim women are often stereotyped as victims of subjugation within Muslim countries, their status in...
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Accessing next generation vaccines
Public health practitioners agree that vaccines have saved more human lives than all other medical treatments. Preventive immunisation is an efficacious and cost-effective public health intervention,...
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Education for all?
The deadline for achieving the UN devised Education for All (EFA) targets to help make universal education a reality is now less than two years away. Yet, the education situation remains far from...
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Time to abandon our elite farmer strategy
Agriculture is an extremely important sector of Pakistan’s economy not only because it contributes around 21 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product, but because it provides employment to 45 per cent...
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Glaring global disparities
It doesn’t take a poverty specialist to realise that the world in the 21st century remains plagued by disturbing disparities. Some basic statistical comparisons do, however, help illustrate this...
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Afghan refugees in Pakistan
For more than three decades, Pakistan has been home to one of the world’s largest refugee communities due to multiple waves of Afghans crossing over the porous international border to flee repeated...
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Control versus elimination of malaria
Malaria remains a public health problem in developing countries. According to the World Malaria Report 2013, published by the World Health Organisation, there were about 207 million cases of the...
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UAE as an international donor
Leaving aside the Soviet Union, it is mostly Western countries and Japan which have remained the major donors providing support and guidance for international development taking place around the world...
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Attacks on education
Schools and universities have been subjected to increasing levels of violence during the recent past. Two earlier studies were done on this issue by Unesco, in 2007 and 2010, which primarily drew...
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Who cares for internet freedom?
Given the exponential relevance of the internet in the dissemination of information over the past two decades, the need for internet freedom is justifiably being described as a right of freedom to...
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A new push for education?
Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, has announced the international community’s intention to give Pakistan a billion dollars during the next three to four years. Simultaneously,...
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Shifting priorities in dealing with climate change
The latest report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), taking note of major weather-related natural disasters, warns that recent instances of climate change such as...
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Flaws in foreign aid provision
The provision of aid for development purposes can be traced back to historical attempts at empire building and thereafter to colonial aspirations of ‘civilising backward societies’. The contemporary...
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