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Social Policy Orientation of Budget 2021-22 - Joint PIDE-& SPRC One-day Conference

Date : Thursday, June 24, 2021 at 02:00 PM- 05:00 PM
Moderator: Dr. Nadeem ul Haq (Vice Chancellor PIDE)
Speaker :

Dr. Akmal Hussain,
Dr. P. Hawkins,
Mr. Naseem Baig,
Dr. Hamza Malik,
Dr. Amna Khalifa,
Dr. Safdar Sohail,
Mr. Azhar Hameed,
Dr. Abid Sulehri
Dr. Junaid/Dr Jahangir

Presenter:

Dr. Razia Safdar, CTA SPRC

Discussant :

Dr. Aliya Hashmi Khan, Professor of Economics
Ms Shirin Gul Sadozai, Verso Consulting, Islamabad

Pakistan has a tradition of holding budget seminars from the economic policies perspective. Though the budgets are primarily annual income/expenditure plans, the national budgets are also used to introduce policy changes and better designed budgets can have better socioeconomic impacts. The budgets also reveal the policy and ideological orientation of the political party in power. Pakistan’s budgets are hardly studied in terms of their social policy orientation. Given the high incidence of poverty, inequality, social exclusion and unemployment in Pakistan, there is a dire need to critically study the Social Policy Orientation of the Budgets. It is highly likely that the government placates the genuine aspirations of the citizens’ with a simplistic rhetoric of presenting pro-poor budgets, while continuing with budgetary structures, which accentuate the existing social disparities. Due to historic high flow of remittances and significant debt relief given by the international lenders, the government should be able to bolster its Social Policy, by reducing the influence of those segments who benefit disproportionately from the resource distribution effected by the budget in the name of Growth.

Dr. Akmal Hussain, (ITU, Lahore-Professor Emeritus)
Dr. P. Hawkins, UNCTAD, Geneva
Mr. Naseem Baig, Indus Think Tank, Karachi
Dr. Hamza Malik, UNESCAP, Bangkok
Dr. Amna Khalifa, OECD, Paris
Dr. Safdar Sohail, Distinguished Fellow, SPRC; Dean National Institute of Public Policy, NSPP, Lahore
Mr. Azhar Hameed, Ex-chairman EOBI
Dr. Abid Sulehri, ED SDPI, Islamabad
Dr. Junaid/Dr Jahangir, PIDE, Islamabad