An Agenda for Pakistan’s Future

Abstract

As an anxious nation looks to the future, all those who hold Pakistan’s well-being dear know exactly what its problems are and what needs to be done. Lack of action by successive governments since the 1990s in making critical investments in infrastructure and in the social sectors has made those problems much more difficult, but not impossible to resolve. Similarly, a culture of patronage and rent-seeking in the country has all but cancelled out the principle of merit on which decisions should be based. However, there are chinks of light which suggest that hope need not be completely lost. What the country has to focus on is how to plan its journey to greater prosperity and to make progress on the long road ahead without needless delays and detours. It has taken the best part of three decades for things to have come to this sorry pass; dramatic change is not going to happen overnight. Indeed, for the next few years it might be best to seek to build consensus on how the journey should be undertaken, based on the principle of no one left behind without which any future development will not be sustainable. The global community through the United Nations itself has defined such an approach, in succession to the MDGs, and called it the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).