It should be a matter of concern to all of us, especially those at the helm of affairs, that Pakistan continues to be placed at the bottom of most of the “ranking” lists and indexes issued by various international organizations and research institutes. This has been so for many years now, with there being no signs of an improvement in the situation in the near future.
The situation is brought into sharp focus by the World Bank’s World Development Report 2016 titled Digital Dividends. According to this survey, there are 3.2 billion internet users globally against a total population of 7.4 billion, which leaves 57% of the world unconnected. But Pakistan is far below the global average as 165 million people or 83% of the population are found to be offline in the country. India tops the list of the world’s offline populations, followed by China and Indonesia, while Pakistan ranks fourth, one place above Bangladesh. With its cellular teledensity standing at 65%, more than half of Pakistan’s population has access to mobile phones, but the country’s internet penetration still remains in the 12% range.
This puts Pakistan in the same category as other South Asian and Sub-Saharan African nations that have the lowest internet adoption rate, between 0 and 19%.The number of internet users has tripled since 2005, the report found but only 31% of people in developing countries had access to the internet in 2014 compared to 80% in high-income countries. Only 15% of people in the world can afford access to broadband Internet and there are significant adoption gaps for those living in rural areas.
Again Pakistan finds itself in an unenviable position in the Global Prosperity Index 2015, which shows that Pakistan has dropped three places from 2014. Pakistan has been ranked 130th of the 142 countries on the 2015 Global Prosperity Index. The Legatum Institute, a London-based think tank, publishes the index every year, benchmarking countries across eight categories: economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom and social capital. According to the prosperity index, about 57 percent Pakistanis reported satisfaction with their living standards as opposed to the global average of 59.7 percent. Again, around 34 percent Pakistanis believe it was a good time to find a job in contrast with the worldwide average of 36.9 percent. The country’s lowest rank mostly comes from the safety and security sub-index, where it has been ranked 138th among 142 states.
However, the news is not all bad in respect to the prosperity index. Pakistan’s performance has improved in four out of the eight sub-indices. Apart from a notable improvement in the economy sub-index, Pakistan fared comparatively well in governance and personal freedom in 2015. The best performance came in the economy sub-index, where Pakistan has been ranked 101st in 2015. The country ranked 107th, 107th and 115th in this category in 2014, 2013 and 2012, respectively. Declining oil prices in the international market lowered the country’s import bill, thus giving the government more fiscal space.
As opposed to Pakistan, India went up three ranks to 99th on the overall index. Pakistan fared worse than India in all eight sub-indices. Bangladesh (103), Sri Lanka (61), Iran (106) have all ranked higher than Pakistan in 2015. Afghanistan is the second worst-performing country (141st) in the latest edition. Norway, Switzerland and Denmark are at the top of the prosperity index, while Syria (down 23 places), Tunisia (down 28 places) and Venezuela (down 16 places) are among the worst places to live.
Another index, the Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016, tells the same story. The report is an annual assessment of the factors driving productivity and prosperity in 140 countries. This year’s edition found a correlation between highly competitive countries and those that have either withstood the global economic crisis or made a swift recovery from it. Pakistan has shown resilience in improving macro-economic indicators in the basic requirement pillars, while the pillars for efficiency enhancers, innovation and sophistication have shown weaknesses over the last one year.
On the twelve pillars of the Global Competitiveness Index Pakistan scored as following; Institutions 119, Infrastructure 117, Macroeconomic environment 128, Health and primary education 127, Higher education and training 124, Goods market efficiency 116, Labor market efficiency 132, Financial market efficiency 99, Technological readiness 113, Market size 28, Business sophistication 86 and Innovation 89. While the indicators for quality of education system (75) has improved, availability of Internet access in schools has deteriorated to 103 this year from 89 in 2014. This underlines the widening gap between multiple education systems prevailing in the country.
The Judicial independence has lost its ranking of 67 last year to 82 in 2015. The governments have shown greater favoritism in decisions of government officials ranking at 101 this year, where Pakistan lost 26 ranks. Under the goods market efficiency Pakistan lost solid 16 ranks, where the extent of market dominance, which measures the characteristic of corporate activities has gone from 71 in 2014 to 110 in 2015. Similarly, the Competition Commission of Pakistan’s effectiveness of anti-monopoly policy has gone from bad to worse: 85 in 2014 to 106 in 2015. The performance of the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) has also been on the decline, with major indicators showing poor performance over the last year; burden of customs procedures has been ranked at 111 this year as compared to 87 in 2014.
The first place in the GCI rankings, for the seventh consecutive year, goes to Switzerland. Singapore remains in 2nd place and the United States 3rd. Germany has improved by one place to 4th and the Netherlands has returned to the 5th place it held three years ago. Japan (6th) and Hong Kong (7th) follow, both stable. Finland falls to 8th place – its lowest position ever – followed by Sweden (9th). The United Kingdom rounds up the top 10 of the most competitive economies in the world.
Among the members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) India leads the way at 55th, followed by Sri Lanka (68th, up five), Nepal (100th, up two), Bhutan (105th, down two), Bangladesh (107th, up two), and Pakistan (126th, up three). Although last year all SAARC countries except Bhutan posted small gains, since 2007 only Nepal has managed to progress significantly (14 places gained); Pakistan lost 34 places during that period and India, despite leapfrogging 16 places this year, still ranks seven notches lower than it did in 2007.
Another index, the Global Innovation Index 2015, ranks Pakistan 131 out of 141 countries. The GII survey is an annual ranking of the world economies’ innovation capabilities. It is co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In this index, too, Pakistan has slipped several places as compared to last year.
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