Protecting the
Vulnerable
By Shahid Javed Burki
In his October
18 address to the nation — the second in a
few days — President Pervez Musharraf explained
why it had taken so long for the agencies of the
government to reach the entire population affected
by the earthquake of October 8. The areas inhabited
by some of the people were so inhospitable that
even helicopters could not reach them. He had ordered
three army divisions to fan out in the area to locate
the affected people and bring them the supplies
they needed. The dead and the injured will have
to be brought on the backs of mules or soldiers
that were attempting to reach the affected people.
There were two aspects of his address that are worth
noting. One is the graphic account of the physical
environment that surrounds tens of thousands of
people who were killed, injured, or left homeless
by the earthquake. These people have been forced
into these areas on account of the enormous increase
in their number. In 1947, when Pakistan became independent
and Kashmir became a problem, there were only one
million people who lived on this side of what is
now called the Line of Control. They now number
4.8 million with a density of 331 persons per sq
km. Population continues to increase at a relentless
pace; it could reach 10 million in the next quarter
of a century.
What has made these people extraordinarily vulnerable
is the fact that the pressure of population has
forced them to live in the areas where they can
barely subsist. These areas are also hard to reach
when natural disasters hit them.
The other important point about the president’s
address was the promise to bring not only relief
to the people hurt by the disaster but to rescue
them from their current situation, provide them
relief, re-house them, if need be relocate them,
and economically rehabilitate them. These five “R’s”
— relief, rescue, rehousing, relocation and
rehabilitation — will then be the focus of
the government’s attention for years to come.
In the article, I will examine these two aspects
of the crisis: what makes some segments of the population
more vulnerable to a sudden change in their environment
and how should the state deal with vulnerability.
In other words how to build the five R’s and
the two V’s — the vulnerable and their
vulnerability — into a strategy?
Notwithstanding all the analytical work done over
the last many decades, there is still debate on
how to handle the problem created by the presence
of hundreds of millions of vulnerable people and
vulnerable groups that live in many areas of the
world. They live not only in the developing world
but also in many parts of the developed world. The
United States’ recent experience with Hurricane
Katrina is a vivid reminder of the fact that there
are many vulnerable communities even in the world’s
richest country, if “rich” is defined
in terms of the size of the economy or average income
of the population.
Perhaps the most intense work on vulnerability was
done by the British in India when they set up a
series of royal commissions to study the periodic
famines that took a heavy human toll in their Indian
domain. The colonial government came to the conclusion
that the best way of protecting the poor from nature’s
ravages that visited frequently in the form of floods
and droughts and affected food supply was to develop
the areas which were less affected by weather. This
led to the development of canal colonies in the
virgin lands of Punjab which became the granary
of British India.
The British also constructed an extensive network
of roads and railways and developed the port of
Karachi in order to ensure that supplies of Punjab’s
grain reached in time the chronically food deficit
areas in the eastern part of India. The British,
in other words, focused on the supply side of the
equation for dealing with natural disasters.
While this approach of increasing food supply to
combat famine has little relevance for dealing with
the havoc and distress caused by an earthquake,
it did provoke a debate among academics that is
of great significance for dealing with the crisis
in Pakistan today. The Indian economist Amartya
Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for his findings
that the repeated famines in Bengal were seldom
caused by a sharp drop in food supply. They were
usually the result of a significant decline in household
incomes.
In the famines studied by Sen there was abundance
of food supply; what were lacking were incomes to
purchase the needed food. What make people really
vulnerable are persistent poverty and a sharp fall
in incomes during crises. In working for a strategy
that would deal not only with providing immediate
relief to those who have suffered, the government
must also seek to improve their situation so that
they are not hurt the next time an earthquake hits
the area.
Since the focus of this article is on the “vulnerable”
and “vulnerability”, I will start with
a definition of these two terms. The two terms can
be fully understood only when they are juxtaposed.
Vulnerable are those who cannot sustain themselves
without outside assistance. Vulnerability is a condition
that is produced by a change in the environment
surrounding the people or in their circumstances.
Change can come suddenly as in the case of natural
disasters such as the tsunami in Southeast Asia
in December 2005, or the Katrina hurricane in August
2005, or the earthquake in Pakistan in October 2005.
Change can also be sudden when countries are hit
by economic and financial crisis as was the case
in the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Or change
can take place slowly when families and their members
grow increasingly vulnerable because of their growing
size, prolonged sickness, or the progressive deterioration
of the economic situation around them.
Vulnerable people, vulnerable families, vulnerable
communities, even vulnerable countries come in many
forms. Confining for the moment our attention only
to people, empirical evidence suggests that populations
in poor countries can be divided into four income
groups. The top 10 per cent of the population has
the means to protect itself against most causes
of vulnerability. Below this group, about 50 per
cent of the population — the middle and the
lower middle classes — also have the means
to deal with adversity by dipping into their savings.
That notwithstanding, they may still need some support
of the state.
Going down lower, about 20 per cent of the population
is vulnerable given the state of the economy. This
group may climb above the poverty line or drop below
it given the state of the economy. As was seen in
Asia, the boom years of 1972 to 1997 resulted in
this group migrating above the poverty line only
to quickly drop below it after the economic havoc
caused by the financial crisis of 1997.
The last group is made up of the indigent poor,
people destined to remain poor unless an enormous
amount of state investment is made to improve their
human capital, provide them opportunities to earn
a good living, provide them with assets and protect
them against unexpected changes in their situations
brought about by natural disasters, epidemics, or
changes in the economic and physical environment.
This division of the population into the rich, the
middle classes, the poor subject to drastic changes
in their incomes given their environment, and the
very poor, of course, differs from country to country
and from area to area within countries. Although
there are no income distribution data available
for Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas, it is my
guess that both the very poor, and the poor whose
fortunes change dramatically with their circumstances
probably account for three-fourths of the population.
The very low levels of incomes in these areas have
made the people extremely vulnerable to any severe
change in their environment. This is especially
the case with earthquakes. For them an earthquake
brings long-term deprivation since it destroys the
few assets they have. While rescue and relief —
two of the five Rs — are equally important
for all income classes, relocation, rehousing and
rehabilitation acquire great significance for the
poor. A strategy for saving these people from future
disasters must focus on improving their capacity
to earn higher levels of incomes.
It is the three Rs that the government’s program
must work on. I have no idea how the government
has arrived at a figure of $5 billion for reconstruction
work which, according to Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz, could take 10 years to complete. This implies
an expenditure of $500 million a year or $75 per
capita of the population in Azad Kashmir, the Northern
Areas, and NWFP directly affected by the earthquake.
From my way reckoning the estimate of total amount
to be spent is low and the period over which it
will be deployed much too long. For a meaningful
response to the tragedy, the amount will need to
be at least 50 per cent higher and the period over
which it should be spent no more than five years.
This would increase expenditure per capita to $225,
three times the envisaged amount.
Can Pakistan raise this amount of money? Can such
a large amount — some $7.5 billion to be spent
over a period of five years — be absorbed
by the areas and the people under so much stress
at this time? Answers to both questions are “yes”
provided the raising of resources and their expenditure
is done with intelligence and foresight. On the
financial mobilization aspect of the strategy, the
government should seriously consider floating bonds
directed at overseas Pakistanis who are very willing
to help at this time.
But bonds won’t cover the entire amount needed.
President Musharraf announced in his speech that
some $600 million in foreign exchange and a multiple
of that amount in local currency have already reached
his special fund. The International Monetary Fund
has said that it is prepared to offer $325 million
on concessional terms and without conditions for
its use. The World Bank has indicated its willingness
to provide an additional $100 million, also as concessionary
credit. Other aid agencies and bilateral donors
will also come in with significant amounts.
However, experiences with pledges made to other
countries in the past suggest that these amounts
don’t always become available unless the prospective
recipient develops a well thought out program for
their use that would also improve the prospect for
their absorption in the affected areas and by the
affected people. This part of the response has to
have a high priority. A program aimed at the earthquake
affected people must focus on the income generating
side of the equation for the affected population.
This is the time to plan to fundamentally change
their fortunes by working simultaneously on education,
skill development, constructing infrastructure,
and introducing significant structural changes in
the economy. (Courtesy Dawn)
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