From Measuring Poverty to Reducing It: Pakistan’s Missing Policy Link

By Dr Tanveer Ahmed Naveed

Pakistan has no shortage of poverty figures. What it lacks is a system that turns evidence into action. A report can tell us where children miss school, where households cannot afford adequate food and which districts suffer overlapping disadvantages. It cannot, by itself, put a teacher in a classroom, connect a village to safe water or protect a worker’s earnings. That requires decisions about money, institutions and accountability.

The latest official numbers make that distinction urgent. Pakistan’s Economic Survey 1025-26 reports that poverty, measured through the national cost-of-basic-needs approach, rose from 21.9 per cent in 2018–19 to 28.9 per cent in 2024–25. Rural poverty reached 36.2 per cent, compared with 17.4 per cent in urban areas. The reversal shows how quickly inflation, climate shocks and weak job creation can undo progress.

Provincial figures show why a single national response will not suffice. Between 2018–19 and 2024–25, Sindh recorded the largest increase in poverty, at 8.1 percentage points. Balochistan, meanwhile, still had the highest poverty rate, at 47 per cent. Even Punjab, with the lowest incidence among the four provinces, saw poverty rise from 16.5 to 23.3 per cent. Policies must respond both to where poverty is deepest and where it is worsening fastest.

Figure 1. Provincial poverty reversal, 2018–19 to 2024–25. pp = percentage points.

The renewed discussion about multidimensional poverty, including the Planning Commission’s engagement with researchers and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, is therefore welcome. Income and consumption measures reveal whether people can afford basic needs. The multidimensional poverty index (MPI) identifies deprivations in schooling, health and living standards that money alone may conceal. Neither should displace the other. But a better diagnosis will matter only if it changes what governments do next.

Here is the uncomfortable question: if we already know many of the areas where deprivation is concentrated, why does each new measurement exercise not trigger a publicly funded response? The Planning Commission itself has identified 20 of the poorest districts using MPI evidence and outlined interventions in connectivity, livelihoods, social development and social protection. That is a beginning, not proof of progress. The next step is to publish what was funded, delivered and achieved.

Pakistan should adopt a simple rule: every major poverty estimate must be accompanied by a poverty-reduction action plan. For each priority district, federal and provincial governments should agree on a small number of measurable targets, assign responsible departments and disclose actual spending. A district with high school deprivation needs more than a national enrolment slogan; it needs functioning classrooms, teachers who attend and support that keeps poor children in school. A district facing nutritional deprivation needs functioning primary healthcare and maternal and child nutrition services, not another general promise.

Targets without credible financing are publicity, not policy. When budgets are tight, federal and provincial authorities should publish the opportunity costs of subsidies and development projects against investments in deprived districts. Protect core health and education spending from stop-start releases; use existing administrative systems instead of creating parallel agencies. Clear intergovernmental agreements must settle who pays, who delivers and who answers for failure.

The first test should be the existing 20-district scheme. Publish a baseline, a three-year budget and an accessible district dashboard updated at least annually. Show whether girls remain in school, children receive essential care, safe water reahes households and local employment becomes more secure. Publicly compare commitments with completed work. Independent universities and research centres can assess whether improvements reflect the interventions rather than changes that would have occurred anyway. Evidence should guide what is expanded or discontinued.

Such monitoring must also recognise that children experience poverty differently from adults. A child under five may face irreversible harm from poor nutrition and missed early stimulation, while an older child may be deprived through school exclusion or unsafe work. A single household score can conceal these age-specific risks. Alongside the national MPI, Pakistan should publish age-sensitive child deprivation profiles, particularly for ages 0–4 and 5–17, so budgets respond to the actual risks faced at different stages of childhood.

Better targeting matters, too. The Benazir Income Support Programme and National Socio-Economic Registry provide a substantial delivery platform; they should be strengthened, not dismissed. Yet a World bank report found that around 2.2 million households in the bottom 40 per cent of the population were missing from the registry. Dynamic registration, local outreach and transparent appeals should be assessed by how many eligible households they successfully include, especially after floods or displacement. Cash assistance protects consumption; lasting poverty reduction also requires productive work, reliable services and resilience to shocks.

Finally, measurement should make room for the voices of those being measured. Carefully designed local consultations can identify necessities that people themselves consider indispensable, while surveys can distinguish genuine enforced deprivation from personal preference. Such consensual evidence would complement, not replace, monetary poverty estimates or the MPI. It can test whether official indicators capture lived hardship.

A poverty-free Pakistan will not emerge from choosing between one poverty index and another. It will emerge when every index becomes a test of public policy: which families were reached, which services improved, which livelihoods strengthened and which children gained a fairer start? The most meaningful figure in the next poverty report will not be the number of new indicators. It will be the number of people who no longer have to live with the deprivation those indicators describe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Tanveer Ahmed Naveed is Director of the Poverty Research Centre at the University of Gujrat, Pakistan. His research focuses on poverty measurement, child deprivation and public policy.