Key facts: Pakistan

Last updated: March 2009

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DFID: Working to reduce poverty in Pakistan

Making aid effective | Health | Education | Governance | Growth | Humanitarian aid | Gender | Millennium Development Goals

In November 2006, the UK and Pakistan signed a ten-year Development Partnership Arrangement and the UK announced a doubling of aid for the period 2008–11 to £480 million.

In July 2008, DFID published its new country plan for Pakistan. This will:

• give people access to better health and education
• make government more effective
• make growth work for everyone
• ensure that the international community works better together.

As well as providing support at the federal level, the programme helps three of Pakistan’s poorest provinces: North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Punjab and Balochistan. We will also be extending our support to those parts of the country bordering Afghanistan. Our capacity to deliver will depend on security.

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Making aid effective

DFID has been at the forefront of efforts to harmonise donors’ programmes and policies in Pakistan to help address poverty. We are working to ensure that the international community works together better through, among other things, better coordination between donors and a reformed UN system aligned behind clear government plans. We also co-founded the Donor Poverty Reduction Working Group, to share information, promote joined-up engagement with government and develop common positions.

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Health

Pakistan lags behind the rest of South Asia on health, with public-sector health expenditure amounting to less than 0.6% of the GDP (gross domestic product). It has high levels of maternal and childhood deaths, over 38% of children are malnourished and there are 250,000 new cases of tuberculosis (TB) every year.

DFID is the single largest donor in the health sector - approximately £35 million this year and rising. We have given at least £100 million (2003-10) to the National Health and Population Welfare Facility, and provided £20.2 million to the World Health Organisation polio eradication programme since 2004. We plan to invest up to £230 million in the health sector over next five years, including £90 million to the National Maternal, Newborn and Child Health programme.

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Education

Education in Pakistan compares extremely poorly with that in countries of similar per capita income. Half of Pakistan’s population is illiterate, including two-thirds of the women. The net enrolment rate in primary schools is now 56%, with a very high drop-out rate and low transition to secondary education. It is estimated that at least 6 million school-age children do not attend primary school at all.

DFID is increasing its support to the education sector by £250 million until 2013. This will help the government to expand access, improve quality and strengthen the governance of basic education, as well as provide vocational training and skills development.

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Governance

Pakistan has made major changes to several areas of governance since 1999, including a decentralisation of functions, power and funds to local governments. It is also working to improve revenue collection and administration. However, the country continues to face serious challenges to its ability to provide citizens with fair, equitable and effective access to their rights.

DFID supports the government - at all levels: federal, provincial and district - to become more effective, with better standards for managing resources across national government and in the provinces to ensure that services are delivered well. Some 30 million people will be reached through our work with civil society to strengthen awareness of rights, hold government to account and improve services for the poor.

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Growth

Since 2003, Pakistan has been able to sustain an annual GDP growth of about 7%, although this fell to 5.8% in 2007-08. The present government is operating in a difficult global economic environment with year on year inflation exceeding 20% (2007-08), driven partly by rising global food and fuel prices. It has also inherited a number of problems, including an expensive subsidy regime and major energy shortages, both of which pose challenges to Pakistan’s economic growth.

DFID is supporting programmes to improve livelihoods and employment opportunities for the poor, to ensure that the benefits of recent high economic growth reach all groups in the country. In particular, we support the Kashf microfinance programme to increase women’s incomes (you can watch a video about this), and have now launched a £50 million Financial Inclusion Programme, which will aim to increase the number of borrowers from 1 million to 5 million.
 

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Humanitarian aid

In October 2005, an estimated 73,000 people died in the devastating earthquake and 3.5 million were affected in nine districts in the NWFP and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. DFID provided £53.3 million in immediate emergency relief in the aftermath and then committed a further £70 million for reconstruction and rehabilitation (of which £49 million has now been spent).

Overall, DFID has committed £123 million to earthquake relief and reconstruction, and £2.2 million to help those affected by the flooding following the June 2007 cyclone in Balochistan and Sindh, which affected 250,000 people. We also provided £500,000 to the UN's humanitarian response following the earthquake in Balochistan in 2007.

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Gender

Despite some successes, gender-based exclusion remains pervasive in Pakistan, leading to significant differences in development outcomes between men and women. Overall, women have lower literacy rates and girls have lower net enrolment rates than their male counterparts. Pakistani women earn on average one-third less than men and many do not participate in the formal cash economy.

In addition to mainstreaming gender concerns across DFID programmes, DFID is the single largest donor (£6 million) to the UNDP-led Gender Support Programme, the largest network of gender-related projects in Pakistan. We are also providing £1.8 million to set up the Gender, Justice and Protection Fund, with the aim of supporting government efforts to tackle violence against women.

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Progress towards Millennium Development Goals

Steady progress has been made towards most of the MDGs in Pakistan since 2000, but a low starting point and slow progress during the 1990s mean that many of the targets will be difficult to reach. On the positive side, Pakistan is on track to halve the number of people without access to improved water and sanitation by 2015.

MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Income poverty has decreased rapidly - from 34.5% in 2001 to 22% in 2004-05. If this trend can be sustained, Pakistan will reach the MDG target of halving the number of people whose income is below the national poverty line by 2015.

MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education
Primary school enrolment rates have improved – there are now 3 million more children in primary school than there were in 2001. In 2006/07, 56% of 5 to 9 year olds were in primary school, up from 42% in 2001.

MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Gender inequality remains high, despite the increase in the ratio of female-to-male primary enrolment rates from 0.68 in 1991 to 0.82 in 2005-06. While nearly two thirds of men are literate, only just over a third of women are.

MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
Under-five child mortality rates have reduced from 130 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 94 per 1,000 in 2007. However, this rate is still the fifth highest in the world.

MDG 5: Improve maternal health
Pakistan has the sixth highest rate of maternal deaths in the world: every year, at least 15,000 women die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. The percentage of births attended by skilled professionals has doubled from 20% in 2000 to nearly 36% in 2006/07.

MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Polio cases have fallen from more than 5,000 in 1993 to 118 in 2007. Some 2.4 million cases of TB have been prevented, as well as 450,000 malaria cases.

MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
In 2006-07, 66% of the population had access to a tap or hand water-pump and 58% had access to a flush toilet.

MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Pakistan’s relationships with its international partners have varied over the past decade. During the last few years, however, development assistance has increased and development agencies are strengthening their presence there.

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