Towards Balanced Development in Pakistan (Distinguishedl Lecture)

The United Nations Development Programme has recently launchedan annual series of Human Development Reports (HDRs) see UNDP(1990-annual). This event marks a major initiative to broaden the debateover development strategies and, in particular, to secure a greateremphasis within that debate on people and their circumstances. From theoutset the Human Development Reports have documented the fact that thecorrelations between economic growth and improvements in health,education and other social indicators are not necessarily close,although there are obvious causal links which can be traced in bothdirections. In particular, there are countries for which the economicgrowth performance has been more impressive than the gains which aresuggested by various social indicators. Pakistan is a case in point andthis paper reports on an effort to first understand why this might be,and then to develop a framework within which to structure the issuesarising as an initial step towards the redesign of policies.