SochBichar

We discuss with Shahid Yusuf, a leading international development thinker from Paksitan the role of industrialization in the development process. 

You will hear a wide ranging discussion drawing upon Shahid's extensive knowledge of development theory and history as well as his intimate knowledge of East Asia. The discussion covers many topics including

Why industrialization may still be important to growth?

Would manufacturing move from China and East Asia to countries like Pakistan as policymakers assume?

Is creeping technology making the development industrial policy and development of manufacturing more difficult? 

What can policy do to invigorate manufacturing? 

What sort of governance structures would be required to develop a coherent industrialization policy?

Should policy just think manufacturing or are complementary services required? 

Shahid is incisive and knowledgeable. Those interested in learning policy and research must carefully listen. There are lots of ideas for thinking, debate and research here.  

Listen carefully. Shahid also makes a surprising book recommendation that will certainly wake Pakistanis up! 

We talk to Nadia NaviWala the author of a Wilson Center report on "Pakistan's Education Story: the Real Crisis".

Contrary to popular myth, Pakistan spending on eduction does not appear to be low. Despite education expenditures and much effort at reform, learning outcomes remain low.  

The problem may be education policy and management. Reform is happening at a slow pace and is donor led. Much of the Pakistan education thinker seems to be marginalized from it. 

What should the education sector look like? 

How should it operate? 

What should we expect from it?

Is educations sector demand led or supply driven? 

Is fixing education merely getting teacher to school?

Should textbooks be government driven? 

These are some of the questions addressed in this podcast. 

The education sector continues to remain little understood as dogma prevails over research and thinking.  

Anjum and Nadeem take up the issue of service provision and user fees. 

Project development and public service provision are not a matter of political whims but the subject of deep thought involving investigation and public discussion.

What is required is 

1. Decentralization to bring projects and service delivery closer to the people. 

2. A process of investigating consumer preferences through possibly local universities and think tanks.

3. A decision making process which includes public consultation.  

4. Non politicization of this whole process

5. Democratic system to monitor and provide guidance. 

6. No MNA or bureaucratic direction of process. 

 

Anjum and Nadeem discuss Anjum's research on Urban labor markets. Several important hemes for understand labor markets emerge in these discussions.  

How can we look at labor markets in Paksitan cities? 

What do they tell us about cities?

How do we get better integrated markets of opportunity for the poor? 

We hope that this will develop an interest in labor markets and urban areas in Pakistan. Research in these areas is severely lacking.  

^{We talk to Ahemd Bialal Mehboob who is an research who is the founding Executive Director of Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT).} 

^{Pilot has run a highly successful project for the measurement of the quality of democracy in Paksitan. It has also contributed in a big way to developing and managing a democratic research agenda and generating a debate around it.}  

^{We take up several issues relating to the understanding of democracy and what its state is in Pakistan.}  

^{Questions addressed are:}

^{Is our democracy making progress? Is it fast enough to save it?}

^{What needs to be done to strengthen  it?}

^{Is our constitutional framework adequate for good democracy? How can it be improved?}  

Are the changes made in our system in recent past adequate?

What needs to be done further/

What is the state of the democratic debate in Paksitan?

What further research can be done?

This is an important debate on which we will bring in many more people nd talk to important contributors Like Bilal Mehboob again. 

We hope that you will join in this debate too. 

Dedicated to the first generation of teachers in Pakistan who laid a great foundation for school education that we have subsequently ruined. Sadly we don't honor them---to our cost. 

We talk to Mr.s Roohi Haque a longstanding and very respected teacher who contributed to the growth of the world-famous Beaconhouse school system.  

Roohi's extensive experience allows us to gain an insight into the school system in Pakistan.

Why is the public school system not working?

Why si the private school system expensive but yet not of international quality? 

Why do tuitions persist?

Credentials seem to be more important than education. 

Most important of all: although increasing budget is a requirement, but in the current system increasing budgets will be useless given the waste. 

The system needs a compete revamp. For that there must be a lot more discussion and debate. 

What we learn is that there is a lot that needs to be learnt about education. it is a complex system where we will do a lot more work.

Researchers an help by doing mush more work on education system, its organization, its structure, teachers, their incentives, training and quality, the curriculum and many other issues.

We discuss with well known author and anchor Raza Rumi the role of the Civil Service in governance. 

Topics discussed are:

The history of the civil service. 

Efforts at civil service reform. 

The importance of bureaucracy in an economy

How the system operates today: Recruitments: power relationships; rules of business; and transfers.

Directions for reform 

What is holding change back?

Dedicated to the economic researcher (not consultant) who tries to address some real questions

The Government of Punjab has capped school fees in an effort to prevent rising cost of education. The ordinance presents a very interesting subject for economic analysis.

Well know economist, Professor Ali Cheema (who spoke to us on decentralization) discusses the implications of this measure with us to show us that the consequences of this measure may not be beneficial to education. 

We also discuss alternatives that could have been followed by the government to put in place a system for improving quality of education while keeping a check on costs. 

A fascinating economic policy discussion that follows shows us once again that a wiser government would seek to inform its policy choices by better economic thinking. 

One consistent theme that emerges in Soch Bichar is the need for more serious economic analysis for policy. 

We need more research and debate folks.    

This episode is dedicated to the architects of Planning commission and the early growth model in Paksitan: Zahid Husain and Said Hasan 

We return to the subject of growth with Atif Mian, one of Paksitan's brightest economists. He now holds that Theodore Wells Professorship at Princeton. 

Like we argued in our earlier episode (number 4) growth underlies everything and is an important subject that we must understand better. We will keep returning to this subject with Paksitan's key economists to share with you as many informed opinions as we can. 

Today it is a pleasure to welcome one of Pakistan's brightest young economists Atif Mian who has achieved a chaired professorship in Princeton and written an excellent book entitled "House of Debt."

Everyone must listen to Atif on this important subject. We certainly hope that even policymakers will listen and learn. 

Questions addressed are:

How has Paksitan grown in comparison to its peers?

What has kept Pakistan back?

Is the policy of "hardware development" (aid backed megaprojects) going to deliver the required growth acceleration?

How important is the "software" (institutions, rights etc) of growth?

We hope you will listen and discuss these issues and influence our policymakers with some new thinking from our best young minds

Anjum and Nadeem discuss economic research in Paksitan. Questions examined are:

What is driving research? 

How relevant has it been to the larger problems facing Paksitan?

Is research affecting policy?

Where is the demand for research? 

Where is research funding? 

Does the funding drive research issues and agenda?

Should the government define a role for itself in research? 

Should the government fund more research?   

We discuss with Farooq Suleria a Scholar teaching at SOAS his research on corruption. The discussion focusses on how to define and study corruption. 

Should we really be worried about mere bribe-taking or should the use of money to win government favors and shape government policy also be included? 

Is the business of ranking and measuring corruption biased to making poor countries appear more corrupt than they are?

Is it mere lack of institutions and poor governance that is being measured as corruption? 

Legalized corruption is seldom discussed. Is that why the west appears less corrupt since rentsseking has been legislated? 

Various types of corruption are discussed. 

This is a topic that affects Pakistan deeply. We urge researchers to listen to this discussion and develop further research in this area. 

THIS EPISODE IS DEDICATED TO DR. MAHBUBUL HAQ

Everyone is talking of the Pakistan the young country where the majority is now comprised of young people under the age of 30. 

Are we reaping the demographic dividend through harnessing the productivity and vitality of he youth. 

How do the youth see their situation?

What are their aspirations and how will they impact the country as they take an increasing share of the decision making? 

Is the education system shaping and preparing the youth for the future?

Will the economy generate the required jobs?

We talk to Adil Najam, Former Vice Chancellor of LUMS and currently Dean of  the Pardee School of International Affairs. A leading academic, Adil has done and innovative report on youth in Pakistan. Lots to learn and understand here.  

Adil's report is going to be the Paksitan Human Development report  (HDR) published by the UN. HDR was a brainchild of Dr. Mahbubul Haq, Pakistan's iconic economist. 

We discuss with Khalid Mirza the founding first Chairman of the SECP the nature of financial markets, and why and how should they be regulated. 

SECP under Mirza and developed into a reputable regulatory body. We discuss how this was done. We also review regulation of SECP today and the reform necessary. 

In addition we will discuss financial crises including the global crisis of 2008 and what we learn from them.  

 

Policy and economists seem to be mainly concerned with GDP, Its growth and distribution. Yet there is a large and growing literature on measuring and targeting, Happiness, well-being or he quality of life. Several countries have started developing new forms of measurement and accounting to deal with this Issue. 

here we discuss with Asma Hyder of Institute of Business Administration the concept of well-being, its history and measurement and possible policies for bettering the quality of life in a country.   

In memory of Shahid Husain who after en eminent career in the World Bank pushed very hard for Tax Reform in Paksitan

Pakistanis are paying a lot of tax contrary to the propaganda of donors. 

The mess that is tax policy has been created by decades of poor policymaking and administration that has been supported by bad technical assistance of donors.

Dr. Ikramul Haq and Huzaima Bukhari leading Tax lawyers and tax policy experts talk to us about how badly this area needs implication and clarity. Rather than follow complications of donor consultants, they put forward home-grown reforms for the simplification fo tax policy and administration. They show hue gains in revenue are possible by following simplification and a clear policy and cleaning out tax administration. This is in sharp contrast to the tax advocacy of donors where the system is further complicated and all Pakistanis are painted as tax cheats. 

it is time we started listening to some good local experts rather than donor consultants who have created this mess. 

Anjum and Nadeem discuss what cites are and why they are important to growth.Discussion is wide ranging and touches upon many aspects of cities and their contributions to growth, development and civilization. 

They also argue that Pakistan while urbanized does not have any cities that measure up to international standards. This may be an important reason for Paksitan's lagging growth rate. 

What policies are required for better cities? 

Why decentralization is important? 

Dedicated to A R Kemal who did a study on the protection of cars on the 90s arguing against protection. 

Sadly the issues remain the same.

Pakistan has been protecting the car industry through most of its history. The consumer is bearing the burden of this policy and fresh investment has been dried out for decade. Policy has strengthened car oligopoly at a huge cost to consumer. 

What s the best policy for the car industry?

Should this industry be protected forever?

Is the new policy is a departure from the past? 

What are the institutions that make the auto policy? what are their incentives?

Dr. Manzoor Ahmed, trade policy adviser to Pakistan as well as many other countries, talks about Pakistan's continued import substitution policy in cars.  

Pakistan has been on a university-building binge for the last 15 years. large campuses with beautiful buildings have been made. 

Are universities with big buildings and campuses providing quality education?

Are students learning or merely becoming degree-holders? 

Where are the professors? 

Are universités well managed? Or is are bureaucracies interfering and overzealous? 

Prof Iqrar Ahmed VC UAF has done a remarkable job in his university. As a leading VC he is the best situated to talk about universities and university management. He talks candidly and very constructively about universities, what their product should be, how they should be managed and how policy need to change from 

a. making more buildings to hiring more professors.

b a focus on degrees to learning

c. teaching to research questioning and pedagogy.   

Political Statements are often made to claim government doing much to provide health and eduction. 

Yet what do our health indicators show? How well are we doing compared to our peers?

How is policy made? is it well thought out? Who thinks about it? where? 

How are health institutions managed? Should that system be changed?

Donors provide a lot of assistance--cash as well as consultants--where does this money go? Do donors do a good job? 

How can the system be improved? 

Dr. Samia Altaf, an international public health official evaluates Pakistan's health policy and system providing many international comparisons. 

Reform and management issues are taken up. 

Dedicated to Meekal Ahmed who worked hard for budgetary sanity in Pakistan

Economists don't pay attention to process of economic policymaking and implementation. However, policy is only as good as the process that backs it up. 

Budget is in the air and there will be a lot of talk of it. But when you listen to this podcast, you will find out how serious the budget is and how seriously it will be taken by those who make it. 

Commentators will pick the budget to the bone looking for policy. Is there any policy in the budget? Was it prepared with policy mind? 

What is the relationship between the Planning Commission, Department and the ministry of finance?

Is there teamwork in government or is MOF creeped up to be "first among equals"? 

Wajid Rana ex-Finance Secretary MOF talks candidly but very constructively about our budget process. His extensive experience in this area is something we should  all profit by and learn about the budget process.