An Assessment of Pakistan’s Urban Policies, 1947–1997

What public policies and programmes have been followed in dealing with mounting urban crisis in Pakistan over the past 50 years? This question has been addressed in the present article. Pakistan’s urban policies fall in three distinct phases, corresponding to evolving political and economic regimes. Yet, they show a fundamental continuity in that they have been driven by ‘plots and public works’ strategy. Pakistan has not been lacking in ‘up-to-date’ policies and programmes. Its urban policies have resulted in notable achievements and pervasive failures. The paper assesses both the achievements and shortfalls and identifies private interests that have benefited at the cost of public welfare.

‘Urbanisation of Everybody’, Institutional Imperatives, and Social Transformation in Pakistan

Cultural change and social transformation are essential elements of the process of development. They complement and sustain economic growth. Economic historians acknowledge that the rise of the West from poverty to wealth was as much the result of improvements in trade, savings, investment and productivity as of emerging norms of thrift, trust, specialisation, rationality and contractual relations [Rosenberg and Birdzell (1986)]. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that economic development is essentially a phenomenon of cultural change. The recognition of the role of cultural and social factors in economic growth has led to a subtle revision of the terminology from ‘economic development’ to the adjectiveless term ‘development’ or the fully spelled out title of economic and social development. Yet this acknowledgement has remained largely on the conceptual plane. It has not been translated into policies and programmes to deliberately set the direction of cultural change and define the alignment of social organisation. Development strategies have, by and large, treated social and cultural factors as exogenous variables. This is true of development planning in general and in particular of its practice in Pakistan. In fifty years of economic planning in Pakistan, little attention has been paid to the social and cultural aspects of development. This paper argues that the neglect of social and cultural factors has created an institutional lag between spatial, economic and technological sectors on the one hand and the cultural, social and political institutions, on the other. Pakistan is predominantly an urbanised society spatially and demographically, but its social institutions and cultural ethos remain rooted in traditions of rural origins.

Knowledge and perceptions of national and provincial tuberculosis control programme managers in Pakistan about the WHO Stop TB strategy.

Objective To understand how national and provincial tuberculosis programme managers in Pakistan perceive and engage with the Stop TB strategy, its strengths, weaknesses and their experience in its implementation. National and provincial tuberculosis programme managers play an important role in effective implementation of the Stop TB strategy. Design A qualitative interview study was conducted with 10 national and provincial tuberculosis programme managers to understand how they perceive and engage with the Stop TB strategy, its strengths, weaknesses and their experience in its implementation. Managers were selected purposively; 10 managers were interviewed (six national staff and four from provincial level). Participants National and provincial tuberculosis programme managers in Pakistan. Managers were selected purposively; 10 managers were interviewed (six national staff and four from provincial level). Setting National and provincial tuberculosis programmes in Pakistan Main outcome measures 1. Knowledge and perceptions of national and provincial tuberculosis programme managers about the Stop TB strategy 2. Progress in implementing the strategy in Pakistan 3. Significant success factors 4. Significant implementation challenges 5. Lessons learnt to scale up successful implementation. Results The managers reported that most progress had been made in extending DOTS, health systems strengthening, public -private mixed interventions, MDR-TB care and TB/HIV care. The four factors that contributed significantly to progress were the availability of DOTS services, the public-private partnership approach, comprehensive guidance for TB control and government and donor commitment to TB control. Conclusion This study identified three main challenges as perceived by national and provincial tuberculosis programme managers in terms of implementing the Stop TB strategy: 1. Inadequate political commitment, 2. Issue pertaining to prioritisation of certain components in the TB strategy over others due to external influences and 3. Limitations in the overall health system. To improve the tuberculosis control programme in the country political commitment needs to be enhanced and public -private partnerships increased. This can be done through government prioritisation of TB control at both national and provincial levels; donor-funded components should not receive undue attention; and partnerships with the private health sector, health institutions not yet covered by DOTS services, non-governmental organisations and patient coalitions should be increased

Testing the Financial Cointegration of Equity Markets:Analysis of Developed and Developing Economies

This study explored the financial co-integration of equity markets of developed and developing countries for the period of January 2001 to October 2011. Ten equity markets were included in this study i.e. Pakistan, Australia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, United State of America, Canada, India and Hong Kong. Multivariate Co-integration with weekly based data was used for analysis. Results found from the study that the KSE offers over all highest return of 46% weekly at appropriate risk tolerance level. The equity markets of Australia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, United State of America, Canada, India and Hong Kong show less return on high risk or above average risk level as compare to equity market of Pakistan which shows the good economic conditions of the country if other things remaining the same. Equity market of Pakistan is not co integrated with all other stock markets except the equity market of TSX. The Non-cointegration of markets shows that there exist the chances of portfolio diversification. Investors from these countries can be benefited from the diversification of their own structured portfolios on the basis of their own ranked risk profile and risk appetite of investment horizon. Behavioral biases and framing their investing decisions under different risk and return trade off pattern in different environment should be considered for taking the maximum edge from portfolio diversification. According to both multivariate co integration analysis Max-Eigen value statistics and multivariate co-integration analysis trace statistics there are 5 co integrating equations at the 0.05 level that shows there exist five common patterns in our selected series of equity markets and shows there exist long run relationship. Impulse response analysis and variance decomposition analysis shows that KSE and BOMBAY stock market are seems to some extent out of organism as most of these markets shocks are explained by these own innovations. Keywords: co-integration, equity markets, multivariate co-integration analysi