POVERTY

1. Introduction
a. Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor
access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack
of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one’s life. —
World Bank
b. POVERTY is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of
human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively
in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not
having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow
one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit.
—United Nations
c. International labor organization presented poverty as a situation in
which a person is not able to fulfill its basic needs.
d. Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as clean water,
nutrition, health care , education of the inability to afford them
e. According to Homer “This is misery! The last, the worst that man can
feel”.
f. According to Jean Guenon “He is poor who doesn't have enough; he is
poor who cannot get enough".
g. “A person is considered poor if his or her income level falls below some
minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. This minimum level is
usually called the poverty line”.
h. A situation in which a person or household lacks the resources
necessary to be able to consume a certain minimum basket of goods.
The basket consists either of food, clothing, housing and other
essentials (moderate poverty) or of food alone (extreme poverty). The
most common method used to define poverty is income based.
2. Types
3. Situation in Pakistan
a. Pakistan is the country having more than 97 % Muslims following
Islamic rules, Zakat is included in 5 pillars of Islam, which apparently
shows that Pakistan have the well distributed wealth, but the ground
reality is exactly opposite. The poverty level in Pakistan is increasing
day by day and more than 40 % people with in the country are living
their lives below the poverty line on average they are earning less than
300 RS/day, and because of poverty and hunger more than thousands
of people commit suicide with their families.
4. Reasons/Causes
a. Political
i. Political Instability
ii. Ineffective government policies
b. Social and culture
i. Structure of society and Gender inequality
ii. Exponential population growth
iii. Inflation
iv. Age of retirement
v. Marital Status
c. Bad Governance and Poor Administration
i. Lack of accountability and Transparency
ii. Absence of Rule of Law
iii. Outdated judicial system
iv. Lack of meritocracy
v. Centralized administration
vi. Corruption
vii. Job dissatisfaction and employment discrimination based on the
caste,religion, race etc., in the companies, an employee loses
the ease to work in the organization
d. Economic
i. Energy crisis
ii. Decline of agriculture sector (40% of employment, seasonal
occupation, fall of cottage industry and diseases)
iii. Lack of FDI
iv. Unemployment
v. Slow economic and industrial growth
e. Education
i. No Skills
ii. Produce only good clerks
iii. University offering degrees without market considerations
5. Efforts made to eradicate poverty
a. Waseela-e-Haq (BISP) under PPAF(During the period July-December,
2013-14, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund)
i. Micro-finance
ii. Vocational & Technical Training
iii. Life & Health Insurance
 iv. Education
b. Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal Pakistan Bait-ul-Mall (PBM) is an autonomous
body set up under the 1991 Act of the Government of Pakistan.
i. Individual Financial Assistance
ii. Establishment of Pakistan Sweet Homes (Orphans)
iii. Endowment Fund (Institutional Rehabilitation for NGOs)
iv.
c. Zakat
d. Child Support Programme (CSP)
i. National Centres for Rehabilitation of Child Labour (NCsRCL)
ii. Vocational/ Diversified Vocational Dastkari
iii. Schools (VDS/DVDS)
e. Employees Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI)
f. Emergency Relief Packages and Health Insurances
g. Workers’ Welfare Fund (WWF)
i. established under Worker Welfare Fund Ordinance, 1971 and
was placed under the administrative control of the Ministry of
Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development. WWF
is providing services to the industrial workers in the areas of
housing, education and health, besides which, financial
assistance is also being extended in the form of death grant,
marriage grant and post-matric educational scholarships.
h. Sehat Insaf Program
6. Impacts of Unemployment:
a. Social
i. Terrorism and extremism
ii. Poverty leads to mental states which can lead to drug abuse
which leads to addiction
iii. High Inflation
iv. Poor standard of living and lack of access to basic health
facilities
v. High mortality rate, especially infant mortality
vi. Criminal victimization
vii. Illiteracy and Brain drained
viii. Poor social indicators
ix. Increase in crime rate
b. Political
i. Political instability and fear of revolution
ii. Buying votes is easy and leads to undemocratic norms
iii. Promoting feudalism
c. Education
i. No access to education
ii. Failure of genuine research
iii. Loss of skills
7. Remedial Measure:
a. Providing benefits to small entrepreneur
b. Encouraging overseas companies for investment
c. Improving agriculture sector
d. Dumping extremism and feudalism
e. Elimination of discriminatory policies
 f. Meritocracy and Equal distribution of resources
g. Controlling population
h. Decreasing age of retirement
i. Education system must be revised and improved according to national
needs
i. Skill based education
ii. Market evaluation
iii. Technical and vocational colleges
j. Reviving major job-generating sectors
i. Textile, auto, electronics and subsidising housing
ii. Improve efficiency of manufacturing sector
iii. self-employment schemes should be introduced and reasonable
funds should be provided to the educated and skilled jobless
people.
k. Alternative employment opportunities
i. Exploring new markets in other countries
ii. CPEC
iii. Identify new export markets opening due to ongoing US-China
Trade war
iv. Facilitation of Freelancers (Pakistan 4th in freelancing)
8. Conclusion