The Pakistani Spectator

I am a FUTURIST and I believe that ——-“We cannot do anything to change the past—but we have enormous powers to guide and change the future”. We can only do this if we can anticipate the future; we can design “tomorrow” only if we know how tomorrow is likely to be. These are futuristic studies that nations do to develop their long term vision. Studies of the future also provide trend lines in the sector or areas that we study and through these studies and trend line we can develop logical and time based economic plans.

A study of population for the next few decades gives us so many indicators to allocate resources in areas that need more attention. It gives us a urban rural balance and the shift, it gives us the demographics, changes in the age groups, the effecting of aging, the active workforce and in fact anything that you need to know about the changes in the pattern of population.

This is like firing a rocket in space and to keep it in the same direction to reach its destination you keep firing small rockets to bring it back on the same track. Similarly when you have a defined direction and goal for your people, you allocate resources in different segments of society in terms of improving that segment and bring it back where it technically should be.

This can be done with a vision, a sense of anticipation, a desire to build a nation, a love for the people of your country, a systematic agenda, the right dedicated people, the faith and determination to deliver. Do we have anyone who knows what will happen by 2050 when the Pakistan Population will be around 350 Million from the present 180 million? What our problems are likely to be? While we can’t plan for the present we certainly do not have a plan for the future. Every passing moment we are reducing our grip of the future, losing hope for our nation to live a life better than of the past. Leaders of developed and developing nation have plans to guide their countries into comforts and glories better than what their earlier generations had seen.

The growing population is eroding our goods and services every passing year we are taking our nation into more darkness. No one has done any calculations about the ways and means to tackle issues, the congestions on roads, urbanization, constant agricultural shortages, educational requirement, need of different commodities, energy needs, the question of what will be required and how it will be provided, this is something that we are not anticipating in an serious visible manner. Our focus is into individual self productive needs, ultra motives, bad intentions, negative national sprit.

While Pakistan has a problem of a growing population there are several countries where the population growth is negative and do not have enough people in active age groups. They are reluctant to relax their immigration policies as they feel migrants will not fit into their society and create more civic problems. A study conducted shows there are 29 such countries which can absorb millions of migrants in different professions.

I am an optimist and still believe that on one side we have a gloomy picture and on the other we are blessed with wealth beyond imagination that will surpass all evils and bail us out. Our economic team must focus more on mobilizing our own wealth rather than depend on outside sources. The entire world is passing through a difficult period of economic recession expected to continue for another 2 years.

Pakistan needs to tackle its surplus population. Since we do not have enough opportunities for them we need to “export” and migrate them to countries that need them. We can do this in the following manner:

1. Pakistan should actively talk with countries that need people in different professions and convince these countries to open training centers in Pakistan in different provinces to teach language, cultural, technological, and other skills required in their country here in Pakistan before they are sent to that country. People sent like this will fit into that society from day one and be active and productive members of that society.

2. Invite foreign universities to open their campuses in Pakistan and encourage public private partnership for such ventures. Cambridge University is already opening its campus in Karachi in the next few years. HEC was planning to do that and was negotiating with some universities before the present government withdrew its support and funds. This will improve the quality of people and other countries will automatically want such people.

3. A large number of our population is uneducated and have passed the schooling age. We need to provide vocational training by opening centers nationwide to produce skilled workers. The vocational training should be based on modern methods used in developed countries. Several countries have offered help in this area.

4. We should plan migration all our surplus population every year to maintain and economic balance of population within Pakistan.

5. Women are adding in large numbers into an active workforce both in the urban and rural areas, every result from Matric to master’s women are topers in all exams getting much more marks than boys. They have to be given a place in society with policies that will encourage them to contribute fully. People now are showing willingness to send their females to schools, colleges and Universities to get education. We will have to increase allocations for them in educational institutes in the future.

The added advantage of migration from Pakistan is the increase in our home remittance which will add to our revenues and reduce our deficit. Automatically increase our GDP by an increase in economic activity by people spending more money.

Some of the immediate Steps we need to take:

1. Emphasis on education: This has two aspects, the quantum and quality of education has to be improved for the upcoming population and provide incentives to private sector to invest more in education. We have to introduce a teachers training mechanism, a law by which teachers must go through specialized quality training, unless this is done the entire purpose of education is lost. Several new techniques and methods are used and applied to successfully teach school children. The Enciclomedia is an interesting method developed in Mexico and is slowly being adopted in many other countries using digital video methods to teach many subjects very effectively.

2. Capacity and Human Resource development: The change in new methods and techniques makes each one of us a bit obsolete. We need to keep upgrading ourselves by regular training. The role of TEVTA and other such organizations must be restructured in line with global technological advancement. A bill should be enacted making it mandatory for public listed companies and financial institutes to spend a portion of their payroll bills for training of employees as is being done in several countries, a model of Malaysia can be studied.

3. Aggressive efforts are made to “market” our manpower abroad: Pakistani’s are a very hardworking nation; they have proved it where ever they have gone. A proper direction and aggressive marketing by the government will see hundreds of migrations done through proper channels. Many countries need people from the age of 20-40 years which we have in abundance. This will also give rise to increases in our remittances and improve our reserves.

4. Development of smaller cities close to major cities: The increase in Population and the switch from the urban to the rural will enhance pressure on existing cities; their current infrastructures cannot take the load. It is expected that in the next 2 decades our urban population will surpass the rural population. Self contained cities should be planned at a viable distance from major cities connected by fast moving road network so that airports, rail stations, bus stations of the bigger cities can be utilized by the smaller cities. The Chinese model should be studies and slowly followed.

5. Economic incentives in housing sector: The growing population will need shelter which the government will not be able to provide. Private sector should be involved; financial institutions should come up with a financial scheme with special rates to provide housing to employed people. This will have a dual effect, on the one hand, socially provide shelter to people and generate immense economic activity to create employment for all such industries that will run to provide housing related materials.

6. Creation of new fields in jobs: The advancement in technology, in new concepts, in systems of operations all put pressure on our youth to educate them in these areas. The needs of 2020 and 2030 will be so much different. The developed world is looking at nano technologists, plant psychologists, Alternate currency banker, Global system architects, Amnesia Surgeons, Clone ranchers, Brain signal decoders etc. We have yet to look at the future and gradually create curriculums in our universities to cope with future times. Universities interact with private enterprises and institutions to determine long term manpower needs as a base of continual economic development. Medical science is developing beyond our capacity to cope with its growth we have limited means to transfer these benefits to our people unless we make directed efforts.

The 350 million populations by 2050 have to survive, live and eat, if there is no plan we will fail as a nation. Every nation today is looking well ahead, they have economic plans going to 2050 by phased periods of 5-10 years and are very consistently following them. All our 5 year plans change by a change in government and we again start from scratch, a national agenda does not exist in our system at all.

A nation is known by its national character, this develops when people believe their leaders are making efforts for their wellbeing, that there is justice, rule of law, merit and equal opportunity for all. This has to travel from the top by setting examples and proving a code of good governance. When we start thinking of our people we will find several ways and means to ensure the benefit is always transferred to them. Why can’t we make our TOMORROW to enlighten our hopes and be proud of our own country? Why can’t we offer our generations to be proud of being a Pakistani and be able to stand united for all our common goals. We have the economic resources in our land let’s use them and build this nation.