Credit for Rural Poor in Pakistan

Farmers, large and small, and the non-farm population in rural areas all suffer from the liquidity constraint. Credit is needed to acquire command over the use of working capital, fixed capital, and consumption goods. The Green Revolution technologies have increased the credit requirement for modern inputs and farm investment. A new expanded role of rural credit institutions has emerged in the wake of the technology revolution in rural areas. Two distinct approaches have been used to provide the financial services to the rural poor. The most widely favoured approach in the past was the use of subsidised interest rates with a portion of credit reserved for the poor. The low interest policy was based on the premise that it would induce farmers, large and small, to use modern inputs on a larger scale. One of the adverse side-effect of this policy was the introduction of an element of financial unsustainability in the loan portfolios of the credit institutions. The recent view about the delivery of rural credit consists of using market interest rates and using a mixture of 'bottom-up initiatives' at the local level, using non-government groups and 'top-down initiatives' by the formal credit institutions in terms of the simplification of the procedures and decentralisation of the credit operation for credit supply to the rural poor. In this paper, an attempt is made to evaluate the efficacy of these two approaches in the case of Pakistan for delivering credit to the rural poor.

The Problem of Agricultural Taxation in West Pakistan and an Alternative Solution: A Comment (Notes & Comments)

In the Summer 1973 issue of the Pakistan Development Review, Mr. Mohammad Ghaffar Chaudhry [1] has dealt with two very important issues relating to the intersectoral tax equity and the intrasectoral tax equity within the agricultural sector in Pakistan. Using a simple criterion for vertical tax equity that implies that the tax rate rises with per capita income such that the ratio of revenue to income rises at the same percentage rate as per capita income, Mr. Chaudhry found that the agricultural sector is overtaxed in Pakistan. Mr. Chaudhry further found that the land tax is a regressive levy with respect to the farm size. Both findings, if valid, have important policy implications. In this note we argue that the validity of the findings on intersectoral tax equity depends on the treatment of water rate as tax rather than the price of a service provided by the Government and on the shifting assumptions regard¬ing the indirect taxes on imports and domestic production levied by the Central Government. The relevance of the findings on the intrasectoral tax burden would have been more obvious if the tax liability was related to income from land per capita

Hepatitis B genotypes and surface antigen mutants present in Pakistani blood donors.

The prevalence of chronic Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection is 2-4% in the Pakistani population, defining Pakistan as an intermediate prevalence country. In this study, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) reactive blood donations were screened using a combination of serological and molecular methods to identify immune escape HBV mutant strains and to determine the HBV genotypes and subtypes present in Pakistan.Blood donations were collected at the Armed Forces Institute of Transfusion (AFIT) located in northern Pakistan and the Hussaini Blood Bank (HBB) located in the south. From 2009 to 2013 a total of 706,575 donations were screened with 2.04% (14,409) HBsAg reactive. A total of 2055 HBsAg reactive specimens, were collected and screened using a monoclonal antibody based research assay to identify immune escape mutants followed by PCR amplification and DNA sequencing to identify the mutation present. DNA sequences obtained from 192 specimens, including mutant candidates and wild type strains, were analyzed for escape mutations, genotype, and HBsAg subtype.Mutations were identified in approximately 14% of HBsAg reactive donations. Mutations at HBsAg amino acid positions 143-145 are the most common (46%) with the mutation serine 143 to leucine the most frequently occurring change (28%). While regional differences were observed, the most prevalent HBV strains are subgenotypes of D with subgenotype D1/subtype ayw2 accounting for the majority of infections; 90.2% at AFIT and 52.5% at HBB.The high frequency of immune escape HBV mutants in HBV infected Pakistani blood donors highlights the need for more studies into the prevalence of escape mutants. Differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, the correlation of escape mutant frequency with genotype, and impact of escape mutations in different genotype backgrounds on the performance of commercially available HBsAg assays represent avenues for further investigation

Sea-Level Rise in Pakistan: Recommendations for Strengthening Evidence-Based Coastal Decision-Making

Pakistan is vulnerable to a range of climate hazards, including sea-level rise. The Indus Delta region, situated in the coastal Sindh province, is particularly at risk of sea-level rise due to low-lying land and fragile ecosystems. In this article, expertise is drawn together from the newly established Pakistan Sea-Level Working Group, consisting of policy experts, scientists, and practitioners, to provide recommendations for future research, investment, and coastal risk management. An assessment of the current scientific understanding of sea-level change and coastal climate risks in Pakistan highlights an urgent need to improve the availability and access to sea-level data and other coastal measurements. In addition, reflecting on the policy environment and the enablers needed to facilitate effective responses to future sea-level change, recommendations are made to integrate coastal climate services into the National Adaptation Plan and develop a National Framework for Climate Services. Such a framework, alongside collaboration, co-production, and capacity development, could help support required improvements in coastal observations and monitoring and continuously deliver useful, usable, and accessible sea-level information for use by practitioners and decision-makers

Prevalence of HBV genotype/subtype in donor population.

<p>(A) shows the percent of each genotype/subtype obtained from 192 HBV DNA sequences; 74.5% (143 of 192) were genotype D1/subtype ayw2. (B) shows the number of each genotype/subtype identified in the AFIT donor population; 101 of 112 (90.2%) were genotype D1/subtype ayw2 and 7 other genotype/subtype strains were present at low levels. (C) shows the number of each genotype/subtype identified in the HBB donor population; 42 of 80 (52.5%) were genotype D1/subtype ayw2, 14 (17.5%) were D2/ayw3, 9 (11.3%) were A1/adw2 and 10 other genotype/subtype strains were present at low levels. In all charts, the order of data labels in the legend corresponds to the clockwise order of the pie slices starting from the top.</p

Summary of HBsAg escape mutations.

<p>Summary of HBsAg escape mutations.</p

Representative results for the HBsAg mutant assay.

<p>S/N values for each specimen are plotted using MAb H53 and H166 values on the y-axis and MAb H57 values on the x-axis. MAb H53 values are shown by filled circles and MAb H166 are filled triangles; red indicates outlier data points identifying mutant candidate specimens, and gray and black indicate wild type data points.</p

Histogram of mutation frequency.

<p>Shown is the frequency of mutations at each amino acid position within the HBsAg “a” determinant defined as sites of escape mutations by Geno2pheno v2.</p