HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES FOR BALOCHISTAN Page 1 of 3

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

CHALLENGES FOR BALOCHISTAN

SYED FAZL-E-HAIDER, QUETTA

Oct 08 - 21, 2007

With a population of 7.5 million people, Balochistan

is the least populous province of the country. Though
it is area-wise largest, yet it is the least developed
province. Its human resources remained unutilized
or underutilized. It has no skilled and trained labor to
utilize its vast natural resources. Resultantly, its
resource potential remained untapped.

Government has laid the economic foundation of the

province by launching mega development projects.
What is highly needed is to prepare a roadmap for
the social development of Balochistan whose social
sector indicators are the most challenging in South
Asia. It is inevitable to create technical hands, skilled
labor, sharp brains and stable minds in Balochistan
to survive the future technological boom in wake of
the execution of mega projects like Gwadar port in
the province.

Human development provides wider range of

choices and opportunities to the people for
employment. Human capital can provide an impetus
for growth and economic development of the
province. The poverty reduction objectives are also
linked with significant investment in human resource
development in the province. Balochistan has not
benefited much from the buoyant economic growth
and a substantial increase in poverty-related public
expenditure witnessed in the past few years in
Pakistan. Ironically, the unemployment in
Balochistan increased at a time when Pakistan's
economy and employment were improving.
According to the Labor Force Survey (LFS)
20032004, urban unemployment is 9.7% in
Pakistan, and 12.5% in Balochistan. Between 2001
and 2003, unemployment decreased from 8.3% to
7.7% in Pakistan but increased from 7.8% to 8.2% in
Balochistan.

The social sector in Balochistan has suffered from

years of neglect and under-funding. In the next five-
year plan, special attention should be focused on
social sector in the province. The factors which have
actually limited the scope for financing the social
sector development and thus achieving the real
development goals in Balochistan are the high debt-
service burden, constrained fiscal space, the
challenging social sector indicators, constraints in
social service provision, and low current investments
in the social sector. These factors justify need for
higher investments and more efficiency in the social
sector.

Human development indicators in Balochistan are

the weakest among the four provinces and
improvements will need concerted efforts over the

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long term. The poor are recovering from the

devastating drought that plagued the province for the
last 5 years. The groundwater is rapidly being
depleted. Only 6% of the land is cultivable and
productivity is low because of the arid conditions.
The predominantly patriarchal social structures are a
traditional challenge to human development and
gender equity. The rugged and inaccessible terrain,
limited water resources for irrigation, large illiterate
population, ethnic diversity, and traditional women's
status are added challenges to economic growth and
human development in Balochistan

Moreover, what have made human development

needs more costly and difficult in Balochistan are the
factors such as spatial distribution of household
poverty, the basic infrastructure, ethnic diversity,
gender imbalances, generation-to-generation
distribution of poverty, fiscal framework and fiscal
traps, physical geography including transport
conditions and population densities, agronomic
conditions, diseases, ecology, governance patterns
and failure, cultural barriers, and geopolitics. These
factors, which are absent in traditional economic
analysis, must be carefully considered in
development planning for the province.

Balochistan has limited room to increase its social

sector expenditures partly because of its high debt-
service burden. The social sector expenditures
mostly go to salaries, while non-salary expenditures
are well below the global norms for the efficient and
effective functioning of the social sectors. Of the
budgeted revenue receipts for FY2005, close to 95%
had to come from federal government transfers. The
provincial tax base is narrow and limited. The
government of Balochistan has a large stock of high-
interest debt, and in FY2004, Rs2.6 billion, or 10.7%
of its total current expenditure, went to debt
servicing.

Under Balochistan Local Government Ordinance

2001, the district governments are primarily
responsible for education, health, and water supply
and sanitation. However, only salary-related budgets
have been devolved to the local governments; the
province has retained most of the non-salary and
development expenditures for the devolved social
services. Understandably, the development
effectiveness of the local governments has therefore
been reduced.

The government of Balochistan recently conducted

the multiple cluster indicator survey (MCIS), which is
the biggest survey in terms of its volume and
diversity, ever conducted in the history of the
province. A total of 10,680 households have been
covered. The survey assumes each district of
Balochistan as a separate an independent survey
unit while Quetta district has been taken as two
independent towns. Hence the MICS is a set of 27
independent survey units. A two stage stratified
random sampling technique has been used. While
730 Primary Sample Units (PSUs) were selected

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from the province (71% rural / 29% urban), the 12

households from each urban and 16 from each rural
PSU were selected as a secondary-sampling units
for the survey.

The main strength of MCIS is to provide effective

results that simultaneously gauge a wide range of
following indicators for social development; I)
Economic status 2) Health and Nutrition Profile 3)
Education level 4) Water availability and
Hygiene/sanitation practices.

The MCIS is an effective tool developed and tested

by different governments of the world in social
development sectors with good degree of statistical
precision with a representative sample. It is a district-
based, cross-sectoral household survey,
successfully used in several countries. Efforts must
be directed to achieve the following objectives
through the MCIS in Balochistan;

* The government must develop a strong advocacy

tool and poverty-ranking indicators for reducing the
prevalent inter-district disparities and enhancing the
delivery of social services in different sectors of
society.

* A credible baseline must be established for

monitoring the socioeconomic status of the districts
to ensure effective devolution.

* The district officials and community leaders should

be empowered and motivate through reliable
knowledge of critical socioeconomic conditions that
define their lives.

* The multi-indicator information must be

disseminated for child-focused targets to help
monitor progress to the MDGs

* The capacity of the relevant government

infrastructure and institutions should be built and
enhanced for their active involvement in social
service delivery.

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