00:00Pakistan is living through a paradox, rising on the world stage but struggling at home.
00:05It's at the center of international diplomacy mediating between the US and Iran.
00:09It has strengthened its ties with China. It has fleshed out a defense pact with Saudi Arabia.
00:15In short, Pakistan has successfully leveraged its geostrategic location
00:19and combined it with some sharp diplomacy.
00:22I think there is a surging confidence among the leadership, definitely.
00:26And among the people, among the intelligentsia, certainly a certain confidence
00:32and I think a certain amount of pleasant surprise that Pakistan's isolation,
00:38which is something that everyone feared would be a long-term thing
00:43after the withdrawal of American forces in August 2021, that that has proven to be a short-lived thing.
00:50That's Khuram Hussain, a journalist and analyst who's been writing about Pakistan's economy
00:55and politics for years.
01:04But inside Pakistan, it's a very different picture.
01:07So let's examine some of the big challenges Pakistan faces and what it needs to do to overcome them.
01:16Pakistan is ruled by what's called a hybrid system.
01:19It's led by a civilian government, but it's widely believed the military calls the shots
01:24on national security, foreign policy and even the economy.
01:28And political dissent is not always welcome.
01:31What's happening is that power is now asserting itself more and more arbitrarily.
01:35And you see that in the amendments to the constitution.
01:38You see that in the restructuring of the superior judiciary.
01:43And you see it in the manner in which policymaking is now being carried out as well,
01:49where power is now increasingly becoming unanswerable, arbitrary and divorced from any sense of rules
01:58or deriving its legitimacy or even concerns with deriving its legitimacy from the people,
02:04from just consent of the government, so to speak.
02:07And this means limited space for independent voices in media.
02:10There are people being punished for speech, for posting the wrong kind of content on social media,
02:20for making the wrong kind of claims on social media.
02:24And those who operate newspapers and TV channels have to be extra mindful.
02:30TV channels are running with a longer lag, for example, so they can mute certain words
02:37before those actually go on the air.
02:40And things such as those, all of this does show that there is a crackdown indeed
02:45and also very, very strong guidance on what can and cannot be said.
02:50Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been in jail for over two years now.
02:55The government says he's in jail for corruption.
02:57His followers see it as political persecution.
03:01Well, certainly he is a victim.
03:04The government on its part argues that he called it that upon himself by adopting a violent path of
03:10politics after his ouster from power via a vote of no confidence.
03:16But yes, I mean, I think it's unarguable that there has been a crackdown and the party has been
03:23the subject of a very intense crackdown and a law enforcement action against it.
03:29So is there a path for Pakistan to put the real power back in the hands of civilian leaders?
03:34Until the political parties of Partai, the major political parties, and that includes the PPP,
03:40the PMLN and the PTI, the three major political parties of Pakistan today, agree to work together
03:49to seek a path back to democracy.
03:52Until that happens, there is not going to be any viable or credible return to democracy.
03:59I don't think agitation can bring that about, for example, something the PTI has tried, for instance.
04:05That's not a viable path and it's been shown by now, I think even they have realized that they can't
04:10do it through agitation.
04:12Number two on the list of Pakistan's biggest challenges, the economy.
04:17Pakistan has re-emerged to become a very important and a very central country on the global stage.
04:24Among the common citizenry, not so much because they are more interested in the direct benefits to them.
04:31You know, the immediate foreign policy successes matter less to them.
04:35People care about simple things, jobs and being able to afford the basics.
04:40But Pakistan's economy, kept afloat by repeated international bailouts,
04:45has struggled for years and is still recovering from a recent crisis.
04:49What's the problem?
04:50Low tax collection, weak exports are recurring debt crisis and energy issues.
04:55But above all, as Hunnam Hussain argues, too much of the economy exists outside the system.
05:01It's very hard for me to actually boil it down to one thing, but I would say rising levels of
05:07informality.
05:09And this covers a lot of things.
05:12It helps explain or understand why Pakistan's export bases and manufacturing bases are so rigid.
05:20It helps understand why Pakistan's fiscal bases are so narrow and lack buoyancy.
05:26It helps explain why growth and the benefits of growth don't trickle down to the people in quantities sufficient to
05:38really bring about a broad-based amelioration of poverty.
05:43You know, it explains a lot of things, the state's inability, where the fact that a growing set of economic
05:53activity is taking place outside of the reach of the state, outside of the line of sight of the state.
06:00And Khuram highlights another issue, whether Pakistan's leadership truly understands the complexity of its economy and what it would actually
06:08take to fix its deep structural problems.
06:11They need to realize that this search for a silver bullet is the wrong place to be looking for Pakistan's
06:18economic future.
06:20That the real job of securing your economic future comes from doing the hard work that comes with actual measurement,
06:28economic measurement and working with data.
06:30And it's not sexy in its appearance. It's not something that, you know, here's one thing you do and suddenly
06:36everything will be, you know, a solution will just sort of cascade through the economy.
06:41Khuram also suggests a quick move into digital payments.
06:46A whole new frontier is now opening up and a new opportunity is emerging one more time, which is coming
06:53through digital payments, which have the potential through technology to once again start lighting up these dark corners of the
07:02economy.
07:03The dark corners where a growing set of economic activity has been unfolding over the decades and lighting which up
07:11has been a very important task.
07:13Okay, on to Pakistan's third big challenge. It's a rapidly growing young population. Roughly 60% of Pakistanis are under
07:2130. That should be a strength, right?
07:24Well, it can definitely be a strength for Pakistan, provided that Pakistan has what it takes to cater to the
07:33needs of a growing young population.
07:36Providing not just jobs, you know, which is how the policy imagination tends to see it. Let's create the jobs.
07:43You have to create the opportunities and let them create the jobs. You know, this is no longer the old
07:48world where you gave jobs to the youth.
07:50Now the youth look for opportunities and business opportunities and ways to connect, you know, their energies with online marketplaces
07:59that they find all over the place and many other things.
08:02Pakistan faces some of the toughest challenges in the world when it comes to the wellbeing of its people. It
08:07needs to invest more in basic things, healthcare and education. Right now, there are big gaps.
08:13For example, around 25 million children in Pakistan are out of school.
08:18You've got to put them to school. And when they graduate from school, you've got to put them in college
08:22and you've got to have a good sound pedagogy that prepares them for the challenges of a 21st century marketplace.
08:28And once they graduate from college, you've got to create or at least nurture the opportunities that will be required
08:35to unlock the entrepreneurial potential, which is what many of these youth want to do.
08:40They don't want to work nine to five jobs behind a desk or on a factory floor. They want to
08:45try their hand at entrepreneurship. Let them, you know, but all of this takes nurture by the stick and a
08:52certain policy environment. And that right now is missing.
08:55Education is handled by provincial governments in Pakistan, and they're not spending enough on it.
09:01Khuram suggests the federal government also has to take responsibility.
09:05I would urge them to work with the provincial governments in crafting a sound education and healthcare policies for the
09:15country and perhaps demographic control as well.
09:18Work with the provincial governments with an eye to strengthening Pakistan's investments in human capital.
09:27And that can be done. There are models for how to do that properly, but you've got to overcome and
09:33you've got to think beyond.
09:34They have to think beyond short term fiscal requirements only to be able to have a more long term view
09:41of things.
09:41So, Pakistan is having a moment back on the global stage and more relevant than it's been in years.
09:48But at home, the challenges remain. Weak democracy, a struggling economy and a young population still waiting for opportunities.
09:56And beyond that, security threats, climate risks and pressure on cities.
10:01Still, this moment matters. If Pakistan uses it well, it could turn global success into real change at home.
10:08I'm Bina Shavit. See you next time.
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