Poverty in Pakistan

Poverty has many dimensions in Pakistan.The poor in Pakistan have not only low incomes but they also lack access to basic needs such as education, health, clean drinking water and proper sanitation. The latter undermines their capabilities, limits their opportunities to secure employment, results in their social exclusion and exposes them to exogenous shocks. The vicious circle of poverty is accentuated when the governance structures exclude the most vulnerable from the decision making process.
Pakistan's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) has noted that while the extent and depth of poverty measured through various approaches varies depending upon the indices used and definitions adopted, there was considerable agreement over the trends in poverty over recent years. There was broad consensus that the momentum gained in the fight against the poverty during the 1980's was lost during1990's, when poverty continue to rise in the 1990's. The PRSP noted that Pakistan did not have an official and well-accepted poverty line at the time which contributed to the debate.
According to the new official poverty line, it is inferred that the incidence of poverty has declined between 1986-87 to 1990-91, falling from 29 percent to 26 percent. Between 1992-93 and 2000-01 poverty increased by about 5 percentage points to 32 percent with the biggest jump in poverty taking place in 1993-94. One of the key reasons for the rise in poverty in 2000-01 has been the crippling drought which severely damaged Pakistan's agriculture. Overall agricultural growing, in by 2.5 percent in 2005-06. Almost 65.9 % people of Pakistan live in rural area and overwhelming majority of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihood.