THE ISLAMIC CONCEPT OF POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND DESIRE OF PAKISTAN’S FOLLOW UP:

We need to understand the epistemological significance of poverty as defined and understood in Islam. Faqir (poorest of the poor) and Miskeen (whose legitimate needs exceed his means) are the two basic classifications of poor in Islam. Contrary to the interest based cosmetic approach, the Islamic way of poverty alleviation focuses on developing human resource and providing relevant job opportunity. The institutions identified for financial assistance to the poor are assistance by: the nearest kith and kin; the neighbors under neighborhood rights; others in the form of mandatory charity like Zakat; and through temporary and permanent endowments. Moreover, an Islamic State is bound to provide sustenance to its citizens irrespective of their religion. The State meets this responsibility by collection of Zakat, other emergent charities and raising taxes.

The enormity of such relief to the poor under Islam cannot be disputed. Instead of taking religion out of our public life, if we focus on integrating Islamic principles in our daily life, the social response to poverty, irrespective of the involvement of the State, would be far more supportive than all the donated funds together. Zakat and Bait-ul-Mal are the two institutions, which, if used properly, can address the problem of poverty to a great extent. The institution of Bait-ul-Mal has tremendous potential for reaching the poor and helping them to escape the poverty trap without engaging in the curse of micro-credit. An assessment of both Zakat and Bait-ul-Mal in terms of their mis-utilization and rehabilitative contribution is urgently required.

The importance of Islamic arrangements for poverty alleviation lies in the fact that the poor cannot afford loans at 20-25% interest rate, which either make them defaulters or the staff of concerned organizations get involved in corruption by showing funds reserved for other purposes as recovery of the micro-credit. More than 70 per cent rural population depend mainly on agriculture. The land tenure system is a colonial legacy. India addressed this problem in the initial few years, but the impact of land reforms in Pakistan, introduced on three occasions, has been less than structural. Instead of addicting more and more poor to micro-credit with no significant change in their poverty status, it is better for an authoritative regime, like Musharraf's, to introduce revolutionary land reforms and address the poverty problem on long-term basis.

Instead of purely relying on interest-based loans, programs like Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund and Khushhali Bank need to look into the Islamic ways, like Mudariba, Musharika, Khumus, etc for supporting the needy. The work opportunities through mega projects as described by the General in every speech are not going to address the suffering of millions living in remote regions, where cottage or rural industries need to be promoted on priority basis.

Pakistan introduced Zakat and Ushr ordinance in 1980. The collection of Ushr, a percentage of land produce, has not been very satisfactory because it is being done through the Land Revenue Administration which, as a legacy of the colonial days, is not tuned to such a revolutionary concept of an Islamic welfare State. However, if the legislation is enforced in letter and spirit, poverty will find no spawning grounds and the poor and the needy will be integrated with the rest of the society. There is also a need to introduce a representative system for the collection and utilization of Zakat. The new decentralized local government system can play a vital role in local collection and disbursement to the local poor. This would build social cohesion as well.

The ongoing poverty alleviation measures show that despite the fact that markets do not eliminate poverty, because they tend to move new wealth away from poor communities, most NGOs and the government follow the capitalist market doctrines. They secure dividends by concentrating investments in relatively favorable environments. The poorest people in the poorest places have thus disappeared in practice - if not in ideology and publicity - from NGO net-works and government programs, almost as surely as they vanished from private marketing surveys and business plans. Without coming back to Islam for finding solutions to our problems, we may never achieve the lofty goals that we set for ourselves - whether they are in the field of poverty alleviation or any other aspect of our collective and individual lives. The problem is that we are not ready to even give it a thought because the pockets in which we have put our hands for survival are leading us in exactly the opposite direction.

Development Priorities and Outlook POVERTY ALLEVIATION:

1. Pakistan's Objectives and Priorities

The Government's vision and development goals are articulated in the Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan 2001/11 (the Perspective Plan), and its poverty reduction strategy. The key objectives of the Ten-Year Perspective Plan are to

(i) accelerate GDP growth, reduce unemployment, and eliminate poverty;
(ii) contain public borrowing and encourage private sector and private savings;
(iii) improve economic competitiveness; (iv) build the human capital base; and
(iv) institutionalize social capital conducive to sustainable development. In pursuit of these key development objectives and priorities, the Government has set itself the following targets of the International Development Goals.

Poverty Reduction Targets.
The Government's poverty reduction target is to reduce absolute poverty from 30 percent in 2001 to 15 percent in 2011. The perspective plan envisages a four-pronged attack on poverty centering on empowering the poor and providing them with increased economic opportunities, greater access to physical and social assets, and improved access to welfare and support developing appropriate social safety nets. These in turn require revival of economic growth, and getting the Pakistan economy back on a sustainable, high growth path.

Reviving Growth and Creating Employment.

The strategy is to revive economic activity in the medium term, and accelerate it over the long term. The growth rate is projected to increase to 5.2 percent by 2004 to 6.3 percent by 2011. In the medium term, the four sectors identified to lead the revival of growth include agriculture, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), information technology, and energy (gas and coal). The Government's target is to create 11.3 million jobs during the Perspective Plan period by promoting growth in labor intensive sectors and activities such as agriculture and SMEs, as well as supporting rapid expansion of microcredit through a range of institutions and initiatives.

Human Development.

Government recognizes the need to improve the country's social indicators. However, the need to achieve macroeconomic stabilization by reducing the fiscal deficit, preclude the possibility of significantly increasing public expenditures on education, health and other social sectors in the medium term. Therefore, the strategy under the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (IPRSP) is to more effectively utilize available resources through governance reforms, improved institutional mechanisms; and increased focus on the disadvantaged, weaker sections of society and rural areas.

Governance Reforms

An extensive structural and governance reform agenda is an integral part of the governemnts Plan. The key problems that the reform agenda proposes to address include

(i) poor fiscal performance, including management of external and domestic debt;

(ii) problems associated with the persistent social exclusion of the poor, women, and minorities from access to basic services;

(iii) the chronic failure of past efforts to address accountability, corruption, and poor public sector performance;


(iv) ineffective and inefficient intergovernment relations between federal and provincial levels, and marginalization of local governments; and


(v) loss of trust by the common citizenry in public institutions, especially in the administration of justice and the police.


The Government's governance reform agenda covers three key areas:

(i) improving the public financial management system, public accounting and auditing functions, civil service, and tax administration;
(ii) enhancing effectiveness of delivery of basic public services through a comprehensive devolution plan; providing access to justice, and reducing vulnerability of poor through legal, judicial, and police reforms;


(iii) tackling corruption by reducing incentives for it through privatization, deregulation, tariff reduction, and tax system reforms; and establishing an effective anticorruption agency as a deterrent.

Sustainable Environmental Management.

The national conservation strategy was completed in 1992 and identifies 14 core management areas for action. The strategy was followed by the more comprehensive National Environmental Action Plan approved in February 2001, which narrowed the Government's policy focus on the environment to four core programs: clean air, clean water, waste management, and ecosystem management. Programs and projects relevant to all four core areas are currently being prepared for implementation. In 1997, the Environmental Protection Act was promulgated, providing a comprehensive framework for preservation of the environment and giving extensive powers of enforcement of environmental regulations to the environmental protection agencies