Rural poverty a stark reality
Some oft-repeated statements - the country has come a long way; growth rates are increasing; Internet growth is one of the highest in Pakistan; the new airport at Islamabad is…
Rural poverty challenge
Agriculture being the mainstay of Pakistan's economy, accounting for nearly 25 percent of country's GDP, 60 percent of export earnings and 48 percent of employment it makes it all the…
Solution to rural poverty
In her article titled ‘Land Rights and Democracy’, (Dawn, Feb 4,) Zeenia Shaukat has referred to my earlier letter in Dawn and has posed two pertinent questions which deserve to…
Challenge of rural poverty
Successive governments in Pakistan have taken numerous policy initiatives to alleviate poverty, yet the latter has continued to increase. The International Fund for Agricultural Development’s Rural Poverty Report 2011 says…
China won the battle against poverty and is pushing forward rural revitalization
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has been centering its efforts on the…
We have a massive learning poverty crisis
Learning poverty, as delineated by the World Bank, pertains to the proportion of children who are unable to read and comprehend a basic text by the age of ten. This…
Bridging the rural-urban divide
Pakistan’s socio-economic landscape is marred by a glaring rural-urban disparity, perpetuated by extractive policies that favor a privileged few. As highlighted in a recent op-ed and corroborated by the UNDP…
Education: rural futures
“HOW can we eliminate the differences that exist between us?” Master Aftab (not his real name) asked us as we thanked him and stood up to leave. He had guided…
The enemy is poverty
While world leaders are busy fighting wars, no one is paying attention to an important cause: alleviating poverty to advance the cause of human development. We need governments to come…
Poverty on the rise
Poverty levels have risen from 34.2 percent in 2022 to 39.4 percent in 2023, pushing 12.5 million people below the poverty line as per data shared by World Bank officials…
