Running Out of Everything: How Scarcity Drives Crisis in Pakistan

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
Running Out of Everything: How Scarcity Drives Crisis in Pakistan

David Steven | 03 May 2011

While pessimism is not in short supply in Pakistan, other resources are increasingly scarce. This is driving the country toward a crisis characterized by interlocking economic, political and security dimensions, and has already brought the government close to fiscal collapse.

Yet the dangers are poorly understood. Few of the country's policy elite fully grasp how Pakistan's energy, food and fiscal challenges intersect, nor how quickly problems will spiral as the country's population grows. Meanwhile, the international community is equally fragmented and short-term in its outlook, still working through sector-based silos that leave it unable to see the big picture. With regard to Pakistan, the United States, along with other international actors, still lacks a coherent vision for what it can do to help build a more stable state. On the global stage, Washington has barely begun to address the impact that an era of higher and more volatile resource prices will have on countries such as Pakistan that are both fragile and strategically significant.


This article has been temporarily made available for free. Sign up for a free trial of WPR's subscription service to get access to more like it.


In 2011, popular uprisings throughout the Middle East finally made it respectable to admit that resource scarcity will be a major driver of global change in coming decades, as high food prices proved a major irritant for the region's young population already starved of other opportunities. There is more turbulence to come. Over the next 15 years, the world's population will increase from almost 7 to almost 8 billion people. The "next billion" will be Asian or African, and most will live in unplanned, and often chaotic, towns and cities. They will face fierce competition for resources from the rich world, long accustomed to dominating commodity markets, as well as from increasingly assertive middle classes in China, India, Brazil and the other rising powers.

At the same time -- and depending on levels of investment, rates of innovation and political foresight -- the world will bump up against limits to the sustainable consumption of highly strategic commodities such as energy, land, water, food and "atmospheric space" for greenhouse gases and other emissions. The fallout will play a crucial role in the "long crisis" of globalization (.pdf).

In an age of resource constraints, Pakistan is a canary in the coal mine. On any given day, newspaper stories about food prices, energy subsidies and water shortages jostle for space with those on suicide bombings, corruption and the government's failure to deliver basic services to its citizens. When asked what they think is the country's greatest problem (.pdf), 55 percent of Pakistanis single out inflation, which is overwhelmingly driven by food and energy prices. That compares to just 21 percent who pick terrorism -- in a country where a few thousand people are killed by terrorists each year -- and 16 percent who choose unemployment, at a time when only 70 percent of men and 21 percent of women have jobs (.pdf).

The average Pakistani eats less than the average African, while last year's devastating floods pushed rates of acute malnutrition (.pdf) among the country's children to nearly 25 percent in the worst-affected areas. This winter, trees throughout Pakistan's major cities were stripped bare for fuel by people desperate to heat their houses and businesses. And the government is running out of money as it struggles to pay energy subsidies that it lacks the political strength to reduce, while the security implications of resource scarcity are growing in what is already an extremely insecure country.

Going Hungry?

To understand scarcity in Pakistan, one needs to start with the country's demographics. While Pakistan's population growth rate peaked at 3.5 percent in the early 1980s, it is still well more than 2 percent today. There will be 60 million more Pakistanis by 2025, at which time the population will still be growing by 4 million every year. The country is very young, with almost half the population below the age of 20. The scale of its projected population alone presents Pakistan with daunting demographic challenges (.pdf). It must find ways to educate its youngest children (.pdf), who currently make up more than 10 percent of the global population of children not attending primary school. It also needs to build a city the size of Lahore every three years, as population growth begins to peak in rural areas but continues to soar in urban ones.

Most of all, Pakistan needs jobs. A "baby boom" generation is entering the workforce in growing numbers, its members bringing with them a toxic combination of high expectations and extremely meager skills. If improved economic prospects allow them to find work, the country could enjoy a demographic dividend. If they remain unemployed, a demographic disaster beckons.

Unfortunately, Pakistan has few natural resources, and land is also in short supply. The country now has only 0.32 acres of arable land per capita, and this will decline by almost a third by 2025 if new land is not brought into production. Water is similarly scarce. Per capita freshwater availability is less than a third of that of India and will fall to less than 35,000 cubic feet by 2025 (.pdf). Already, groundwater is becoming increasingly expensive to extract and surface water steadily more polluted. These are worrying trends, since competition for water and land, when combined with the demographic stress of a young population, have been shown to increase the risk of conflict (.pdf) within, and perhaps between, countries. That prospect, it should go without saying, is something Pakistan can do without.

A shortage of land and water has an inevitable impact on agriculture. Pakistan has long been a net importer of food, but its agricultural trade deficit (.pdf) has grown considerably over the past decade. Imports have declined somewhat in recent years, but this actually reflects worsening, rather than improving, food security. World food prices saw rapid increases after 2007, with prices spiking a year later, when the FAO Food Price Index reached 200. Prices subsequently eased, but they have recently shot up again and are now well above the previous 2008 peak. Pakistan is importing less food, not because it doesn't need it, but because it is being priced out of the world markets. Domestic agricultural production, meanwhile, remains soft, registering only 2 percent growth in 2010 in spite of booming prices (.pdf). That this can be ascribed in part to the floods is a sobering reflection of how vulnerable the sector is to regular droughts and irregular, but devastating, natural disasters. A good crop is expected this year, as is usually the case after a flood, but this cannot be taken as a sure sign that Pakistan's agricultural sector is on an upward path.

Unsurprisingly, Pakistani consumers have seen rapid increases in the prices they pay for food. The Asian Development Bank Food Price Index for Pakistan, which is set at 100 for 2001, reached 216 in 2009, with prices up by 45 percent on the previous two years (.pdf). More recently, food inflation has been more than 20 percent for the past six months. Prices have also been increasingly volatile, with commodities hit by a series of mini-shocks: including the sugar crisis of 2009, the flour crisis of 2010 and the onion war of 2011, among others. Food inflation in Pakistan is greater than in any of the Middle Eastern countries that experienced civil unrest this year (although Iran has seen its prices rise even faster). At the same time, Pakistan also has lower per capita income and higher rates of poverty than any of these countries.
Scarcity causes frustration.

A near empty stomach leads to fatalism and a return for solace in religion.

A dangerous chemistry.

And with a non functional government it is explosive!

The situation in Pakistan is serious and it can lead to further international chaos (and they have nukes too)!

The Pakistan's democratic Govt is no Govt. It is subservient to the Army and the ISI.

The Army to remain relevant requires conflicts to justify their existence.

Terrorist organisation, as per international media reports, are propped up by the ISI as 'strategic assets'.

These 'strategic assets' are used liberally and encouraged.

The terrorist organisations havoc the neighbourhood, while Pakistan claims ignorance and innocence.

Therefore, what is the answer?

Will a better fed Pakistan be an end to the turmoil?
 

A.V.

New Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
6,503
Likes
1,157
Will a better fed Pakistan be an end to the turmoil?
Yes sure a better fed pakistan is needed for a stable south asia and a safe world but that feeding is not just of eatables to sustain the life , the ability to feed them the realization that things can only improve if you get out of the denial mode and face the stark realities of life must be encouraged. Even there are people there who accept the fact and are not in denial mode but mere accepting is also of no help because action has to be taken , it always starts with an individual so the idea that there will be somebody else to rise for their rights also needs to be corrected.

The situation is tough but its not beyond repair , the common man has to do it for once forget abt india , forget abt the us or the taliban just think about pakistan because if they dont pakistan has become a severe headache for the world and slowly the world is losing its patience

there is scarcity of thought process and also scarcity of action that needs to be addressed
 

sky

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
Messages
340
Likes
25
Weren't they looking to lease thousands of acres of land to arab countries last year .This in-spite of there ever increasing population.

Pakistan never had land reform like India did,and so there poor don't have a stake in the country.

It would be easy to write about there miss fortune ,but who cares. I for one don't.....
 

hit&run

United States of Hindu Empire
Mod
Joined
May 29, 2009
Messages
14,104
Likes
63,370
Many military failures haven't yet stopped warmongering in Pakistan. They are one fed up misadventures people. I can not see that they will bite the honesty cookie after being humiliated and exposed by USA; yet again.
 

A chauhan

"अहिंसा परमो धर्मः धर्म हिंसा तथैव च: l"
Senior Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
9,507
Likes
22,493
Country flag
They have a deeply rooted false pride of being Muslims, until they get used to live with other religions peacefully and consider them human beings, i don't see any solution for Pakistan's problems.

The problem lies in their centuries old Islamic education system with strict and extremist beliefs. In order to get a stable state they need to revive and restructure their entire education and governmental system. With modern education they will be able to compare their educational and governmental systems with rest of the world.

Until they get better education (which takes time) they wont be able to digest simple truths of their own miseries.And in the near future,i am afraid she will be declared a terrorist country and among extremists the voice of good peoples will be suppressed.
 

Falcon

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2011
Messages
121
Likes
57
Well fed Pakistan is more dangerous. Then they will have just guns to think about. Or else they will think of Hunger and Guns both....
 

maomao

Veteran Hunter of Maleecha
Senior Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2010
Messages
5,033
Likes
8,354
Country flag
Hungry and bankrupt pakistan is better for us....as and when madarsa educated demented puuki population gets their tummies filed, they will get back to Islam, jihad , Kuffar, killing , terrorism, war mongering and again go-hungry and become a failed state.....It's a vicious cycle with Islam and its followers their.......Its better to solve the problem once and for all, however our lungy and Pyjama wearing Numskull wuss GOI does not have guts and more worried about their swiss bank accounts (I long for the day when these corrupt politicians will be hung from the trees beaten to death and our poor people's money will be brought back, and no foreign blood will ever think of becoming our PM/ruler)......hence the best way would be to allow failed state people being hungry and cut each others throats which they are good at, that ways we just have sit back and enjoy the show of beggars and failed state people killing each other!
 

A chauhan

"अहिंसा परमो धर्मः धर्म हिंसा तथैव च: l"
Senior Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
9,507
Likes
22,493
Country flag
Hungry and bankrupt pakistan is better for us....as and when madarsa educated demented puuki population gets their tummies filed, they will get back to Islam, jihad , Kuffar, killing , terrorism, war mongering and again go-hungry and become a failed state.....It's a vicious cycle with Islam and its followers their.......Its better to solve the problem once and for all, however our lungy and Pyjama wearing Numskull wuss GOI does not have guts and more worried about their swiss bank accounts (I long for the day when these corrupt politicians will be hung from the trees beaten to death and our poor people's money will be brought back, and no foreign blood will ever think of becoming our PM/ruler)......hence the best way would be to allow failed state people being hungry and cut each others throats which they are good at, that ways we just have sit back and enjoy the show of beggars and failed state people killing each other!
Don't worry they always will remain hungry and poor as they have closed their eyes with false pride of their religion and said Victories in war against India. They wont see the truth :D
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
Well now with the way the US raid has humiliated the machismo of the Pakistani people, they are at sixes and sevens.

Poor chaps.
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top