Beyond risk management: Vulnerability, social protection and citizenship in Pakistan

✍ Scribed by Naila Kabeer; Khawar Mumtaz; Asad Sayeed

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 136 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0954-1748
• DOI: 10.1002/jid.1538

✦ Synopsis

This paper is motivated by the authors' experience of carrying out a study on poverty, vulnerability and social protection in Pakistan (Kabeer et al., 2005). The study was commissioned by two local donor offices in response to the significance given to these issues in the country's PRSP. The study drew on the available literature, both academic and policy-related. In addition, it entailed 4 weeks of intensive qualitative field work in rural and urban locations in south Punjab and Sindh. The two provinces account for around 80 per cent of the country's population and, in comparison with the other provinces of NWFP and Baluchistan, share relatively similar social and economic structures. While their poverty levels are not significantly different from the national average, there are marked inequalities within them. 1998-99 estimates suggest that the incidence of poverty was 26.5 and 34.7 per cent for urban and rural Punjab respectively and 19 and 37.1 per cent for Sindh. This compared to national estimates of 24.2 and 35.9 for urban and rural areas respectively (World Bank, 2002, p. 21). Within Punjab, the rain fed southern districts had among the highest levels of poverty in the country (39 per cent in 2001) compared to 25 per cent in irrigated agriculture in north Punjab.

Our field-based interactions gave us some first-hand insights into what vulnerability meant in these locations, how poor people dealt with it and their access to public forums of