COVID-19 In Pakistan: Poverty Reduction Hits A Pause. What More Can Be Done? | Insight

pakistan has made remarkable progress in its poverty eradication efforts in the past decades by 2015 approximately 32 million people were pulled out of poverty but covert 19 has reversed the gains the country had made over the last 30 years an estimated 10 million more people are expected to fall into extreme poverty from the existing 50 to 60 million poor people in the country everywhere there is already clearly signals that the number of poors unfortunately will most probably increase if government do not very quickly engaged into particular support packages the reality is pakistan has been in financial trouble well before the start of the pandemic relying heavily on loans to keep the fragile economy afloat and now covet 19 has added an immense pressure on the country's already struggling economy well you know the economy of pakistan is unfortunately and sadly fragile will the government and its leader imran khan be able to bring relief to the pandemic stricken poor communities in the country and can the people of pakistan cope with the devastating impact of the pandemic [Music] pakistan's second largest city and the country's main industrial and commercial center some 12 million people live here making it one of the most densely populated regions in the world on the edge of lahore lies an area called makkah colony the slum region is where many of the city's poor have come to live they can't afford to buy their own homes so they live mostly in small rented houses most of the people who live here are daily wage laborers who work either in factories or the construction industry sixty-year-old ashad mahmood has been living here with his wife and their two daughters for more than seven years now sharing the space with his sister and her two sons works as a helper at a textile factory while his wife is a domestic cleaner who works from house to house with a meager salary of around 60 us dollars a month life is a struggle the amount is hardly enough to feed his extended family to help supplement his income ashad took up a second job as a cleaner at a cafe sorry foreign [Music] his financial situation however took a turn for the worse during the pandemic that was when several major cities were placed under lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of the disease factories were closed and all business activities were disrupted all of a sudden arshad lost whatever little income he had received every [Music] month [Music] had to resort to begging out of desperation in order to survive [Music] [Music] foreign the pakistani government has allocated some 900 million dollars to help mitigate the impact of the crisis through emergency cash transfers each family received around 75 to help them get through the difficult period within two weeks of its launch around seven million of the country's poorest people had benefited from the scheme according to a member of the punjab provincial assembly wasik abbasi the government has even extended loans to those who wanted to set up their own small business every provincial government has their own plans they have their own channels to spend money on programs to spend money and on federal level they have their own so if you talk about the uh the largest province in fact population wise empire on punjab we just launched a couple of months ago we launched up naruto's cars game that huge scheme easy loan schemes to youths to youngsters and to all those who want to who want to start their own business so we are actually we have a lot of plans in second phase and then respectively in third phase where our provincial governments and the federal government will invest more and well more government in light of kovit but also predating the pandemic the government of pakistan had put in place some quite impressive efforts to provide social protection to the poor this was through programs such as the benazir income support program which was a federal unconditional cash transfer poverty reduction program in pakistan these you know efforts are really excellent but what we find and in terms of the i mean and they truly are in terms of the good governance and management and delivery systems that are in place but as we see now with the pandemic they are by no means sufficient or comprehensive and the real vulnerable groups um such as the informal economy workers the abject destitute they just really fall through the cracks so you know while i think the government's efforts are are commendable but they're not entirely effective when it is targeting the real poor and arshad is one of them until today he's been left in the lurch he has been frantically moving from place to place asking for help to ease his financial burden but aid is nowhere in sight has not paid his home rent for the last four months his landlord even threatened to evict him if he doesn't pay his unpaid rent in three days with mounting bills to settle and loans to repay ashat has run out of ideas on how to resolve his financial problems he even contemplated on selling one of his kidneys as a quick way to get out of his predicament and [Music] foreign fortunately the owner of the cafe he works for is willing to offer a helping hand during foreign foreign [Music] pakistan first of all if we look at the world south west asia is home of some of the highest numbers of still poor in the world as well as food insecure so that is also due to the fact that some of the countries have the largest population pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world well this means that there is a lot still of poverty in pakistan although it is a middle-income country and these this poverty is closely linked also to food insecurity now there's been a long battle against poverty in pakistan and it has yielded important results we know that in over 14 years it went from 54 percent of population being poor to now about 24 so there has been halfing a halfing of poor in pakistan this is a big result however it's not enough it's not yet enough and the fight is not over but when will the fight be over or is the fight against poverty a perennial battle that can never be won what else can the government do to help struggling families back on their feet again will ashad and millions of others like him be allowed to go hungry and suffer a slow death [Music] life has never been this challenging for 65 year old rickshaw driver muhammad hashim he has no job and no money the pandemic has put the brakes on his earnings and put tremendous pressure on him to feed his four children his wife and a few other siblings who rely on him entirely for all their basic needs there are very few people who have opted for his rickshaw service in the wake of the pandemic due to fear over the spread of the disease and that has seriously affected his main source of livelihood all of a sudden his life has come to a virtual standstill and he has nowhere to turn to [Music] china foreign [Music] rickshaw has been lying idle for months constantly exposed to the elements and the lack of upkeep it fell into disrepair it would cost him 200 us dollars to repair something which he just can't afford to pay [Music] [Music] [Music] the sudden loss of income has now forced many rickshaw drivers to take up alternative jobs including hashim hashim now works as a labourer earning much less than what he used to get as a rickshaw driver back then before the start of the pandemic but until today he is yet to recover from the financial hurdles caused by the coronavirus he used to earn 100 us dollars now it's nowhere near that [Music] [Music] today hashim is worried if he can still put food on the table for his extended family fortunately for him he was approached by risk a food bank based in lahore [Music] its co-founder who zaifa ahmad and his partners have been collecting unsold food from the many restaurants around lahore and distributed to those in need during the covet-19 crisis they mobilized 3 000 volunteers across 23 cities distributing over 2.2 million meals is is fortunate that he's been selected as one of the beneficiaries of the food programme at least he and his family members will not have to go hungry foreign pakistan has all the natural resources and capacities in country to feed its people and to eradicate hunger and malnutrition now the issues are more to do with access to the information on how to do this the right policies implementation so pakistan has some good agriculture policies at the provincial level for example their fit for purpose it has a national food security policy uh which was developed and endorsed in 2018 it's first ever in pakistan the issue is more how do you bring it down how do you implement so it's about implementation enforcement of existing rules and regulations and of course this would also entail a bit of a reform uh within the food sector in pakistan [Music] to help hashim be financially independent again who zaifa has even offered to pay for the repair costs of his rickshaw so that he can pick up passengers again and earn extra income once the pandemic situation improves foreign [Music] tens of thousands daily wage workers in pakistan have lost their source of livelihoods during the pandemic many have gone hungry the country's weak health infrastructure and cash-strapped economy have also imposed a tremendous burden on the government to respond effectively to the health crisis the initiative by huzaifah therefore provides hope for the less privileged families in pakistan to carry on with their lives without having to worry about where their next meal is going to come from [Music] [Music] b covert 19 has caused unprecedented pain to both the developed as well as the developing world the loss of lives has been dramatic and the economic damage is immeasurable tens of millions of people have fallen into extreme poverty others have lost their jobs and livelihoods have been destroyed when the economy grinds to a halt in pakistan the pandemic has so far killed more than seven thousand people and almost 380 000 have been infected by the disease the impact on the economy has been equally catastrophic growth has contracted for the first time in 68 years its unemployment rate has also surged from 5.8 in 2018 to 6.7 today you know the economy of pakistan is unfortunately and sadly fragile the worsening macroeconomic situation is the obvious reason i mean slowing gdp growth the rising debt and inadequate domestic resource mobilization which is based on a very weak tax regime continue to keep the economy fragile but you know this is sort of underpinned by the fact that we have a really weak human development base the rural urban disparities are large in a rapidly growing population that faces severe challenges on many fronts the effect is also being felt across all sectors especially the aviation and tourism industries planes have been grounded after the closure of international borders and that has affected industries which rely on air travel for their survival 50 year old tariq mahmood has been working as a travel agent for about 30 years he's had a relatively simple life earning around 370 us dollars a month just enough to raise his family of five including supporting his sister and her four children but everything turned upside down just overnight march [Music] no one was allowed to travel in a bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus across continents and the losses to the aviation industry have been monumental foreign as businesses dried up companies were struggling to stay afloat and tariq was asked to leave his job out of work and with little income trickling in tariq became deeply worried unsure if he could survive financially being the sole breadwinner in the family you see what is one day he met with an accident and fractured his leg [Music] [Music] for his hospital bills having used up all his savings luckily for him there were kind souls who came around to help him bear the cost of the operation but the same can't be said about millions others who've lost their jobs and who are struggling to survive in the post-pandemic world just last month tens of thousands of people protested against pakistan's prime minister imran khan amid concerns over the worsening economic conditions in the country a recent survey done by islamabad-based research organization golob also revealed that pakistan's unemployment rate is predicted to surge to a whopping 28 percent from 5.8 the number of unemployed people in the country is estimated to reach 6.6 million during the fiscal year 2020 to 2021 even the common folk are feeling the impact of the worsening economic conditions 44 year old drink and fruit seller mohammed atik has been out of a job for at least five months now many customers are simply afraid to buy anything from him for fear of contracting the disease and that has made it harder for him to earn a living to feed his wife and foreign until today has been waiting for help he feels that cash assistance will at least help ease the burden that he and his family members are facing right now but none has arrived is there hope at the end of the horizon or none at all it has abandoned lives taken away livelihoods and left the perth struggling to fend for themselves it's the same story being repeated worldwide as countries across the globe make painful adjustments to life in the post-covet world and pakistan is no exception its economy is projected to shrink for the first time in 68 years the country has also been brought to its knees by soaring international debt burden amounting to 112 billion dollars so far 16 million of its people are now living below the poverty line its weak financial situation coupled with an economic crisis has made it difficult for the government to reduce the plight of the poor and respond effectively to the country's health needs according to pakistan's 2020 and 2021 budget the government spends only about 151 million dollars on health despite pakistan having the highest number of covet 19 cases per capita in south asia its national budget for health care constitutes a mere two percent against the global average of at least 10 percent pakistan has been spending less than one percent of its gdp on health for decades it's just simply not sufficient and the same can be said about education so you know clearly this allocation and what you saw in the budget this year it's not enough and it poses a number of risks particularly in a context where an already um struggling fledgling health public health system is failing to deliver on you know the longer term goals of providing education health for all but under covert it's come under an immense amount of strain the community health worker you know system the vaccinators midwives and family welfare assistants i mean from our programs on the ground you know are reporting that they're unable to perform their outreach services just because they're you know they just don't have the resources [Music] dr assad ali chaudhary is a gastroenterologist who works at a private hospital in gujarala dr assad is also the vice chairman of parsar trust an ngo which helps the poor who suffer from liver disease he has seen firsthand how hospitals across the country are struggling to provide decent medical care to the people during the covet period strictly speaking they are not enough bed in the hospital to be very honest with you it's not uh the matter of beds only it's also about the resources we have to handle this patient it all start from diagnosis isolating the patient and then you should have facilities where you can handle a patient who gets very sick who gets short of breath who's low on oxygen and you have supplemental oxygen supply or you have you know patients who can go on ventilator so we we we didn't have enough beds we received patient we we diagnosed them and we appropriately referred them dr assad also feels that many of the hospital medical staff lack the necessary training to deal with a health crisis of this magnitude and that has further compounded the problems faced by the medical workers many of them are simply not able to deal with the infected patients well even the medical staff are unsure on how best to protect themselves against the disease due to their lack of preparedness and training it's not simply about how to deal a patient we we have to know about the infection control measures that's where i i found the staff lacking so they did not know the basics of infection control measure how to respond to a situation where they are dealing the highly infective patient and how to protect themselves how to protect others and similarly how to teach them how to raise awareness about a disease and similarly if we go one step ahead the other thing was we did not have enough staff who were trained on ventilator so we need to have a robust training system for nurses it's the corvette epidemic actually the pandemic actually has has taught us a lot of things the shortage of ventilators etc that's one thing but i think the um more significant underlying the health system are based on the fact that we have not invested enough in pakistan another unique aspect is that a large part of the basic health services as well as basic education services are provided by the private sector private providers many of these are public health officials public health doctors who are doing private practice and it's uh it's a tragedy because you know people just cannot afford to pay for often low quality health care back in the village fruit seller muhammad atif has been struggling to earn enough money to feed his family he's also worried about the condition of his son his son is suffering from a rare growth hormone disease and is in need of a constant supply of medicine otherwise he will grow weaker as the days go by unfortunately he is just foreign for now the government can only offer a promise that help is on the way and that the health care situation in the country will improve over time with better budget allocation to meet the growing needs of its population definitely the government has to tackle the situation of current health issues in in covet so you can say that in future government has to take a very strict my years need to put more money in it so we are more focusing to increase the budget on provincial level as well and the federal level as well on health so that we can we could uh tackle the situation of pandemic as we all know that it's gonna swear and worse [Music] but not everyone thinks enough money is being allocated so it's it's a combination of lack of ex you know adequate expenditure allocations and expenditure for health but also poor governance low accountability and that's very common now in in rural areas and peri-urban areas i mean you'll see in pakistan because it's not well regulated there are private providers everywhere to some degree one can say that um you know this they have also served to help um you know promote like say a good immunization program and re decent coverage of some basic health provision but when it comes to a major pandemic crisis like this this kind of a broken system um you know is is an opportunity for the government to look at how its entire public health system is being managed and governed in the meantime more and more pakistanis are falling into extreme poverty and the pandemic has made the situation even worse especially for the poor daily wage workers who survive an art jobs or irregular income to survive i i think this is um a question that all governments in the world are facing and in pakistan you know food needs to reach the table of over 200 million people every day the trade-off is not really about hunger or economic continuation so the issue was more how to make these supply chains resilient and covered covered resilient and coffee free it's an enormous task for a country you know with a population of 210 million i think the only way to do it is to build more collaboration to work with local governments local institutions that be they non-government or government bring in the private sector more and make this a joint effort because without reaching investing in the people i don't think pakistan can you know squarely get off on the path to recovery although the curve of infections has flattened in pakistan up late the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the country's struggling economy it's also weighed down by a heavy external debt burden in the meantime around 40 million of its people are undernourished or food insecure the pandemic has also inflicted a heavy toll on its already weakened public health infrastructure [Music] can pakistan break its vicious cycle of poverty and debt nobody knows [Music] you

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Keywords: CNA Insider, Channel NewsAsia, People stories, Asian perspectives, Insight, Asia news, Asia, Pakistan, Lahore, Punjab, COVID-19, pandemic, coronavirus, poverty, economy, Imran Khan, lockdown, government, financial aid, food security, food bank, hunger, policy, Rizq, unemployment, travel, tourism, NGO, debt, public health, healthcare, CNA, CNA documentary

Id: jR8xdnd2iVA

Length: 48min 36sec (2916 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020