A series of x-posts are presented to give an idea of how it has evolved:
A_Gupta wrote:What set of quantitative measures and trends in those measures would you use to characterize Pakistan's failure? E.g., what measure and trend line, which if it steepens you would say, failure is intensifying, and which if they flatten, you would say, failure is on hiatus?
shiv wrote:The only figures that I tend to rely on are human development parameters. Birth rate, infant and maternal mortality, population growth rate, fertility rate, literacy, poverty etc.A_Gupta wrote:What set of quantitative measures and trends in those measures would you use to characterize Pakistan's failure? E.g., what measure and trend line, which if it steepens you would say, failure is intensifying, and which if they flatten, you would say, failure is on hiatus?
These are dry statistics but they are all measures of human misery. Polls and the media tend to exclude what is happening to women and children (say below 10). Women and children below 10 make up a whopping 70% or more of Pakistan - about 100 million or so.
Once you have a population like this governance becomes a problem because large numbers of people don't really care about anything as long as they can get a square meal and some shelter. Furthermore - social structures (families) tend to get broken because men have to go away to find work (or become criminal) leaving women and children defenceless. This sort of society is open to takeover by religion and Islam is perfect. But what happens is that the "islam" that takes over has a local leader for local issues and he is a competitor to the state because the state is providing nothing, and this guy is at least providing succour. If the latter leader also has arms, then the state has a bigger problem getting him under control. So you actually have a virtual or real splitting up of a state.
This is Pakistan. Only nobody believes it yet.
A_Gupta wrote:If we can close in on what is in the "etc.", thenBirth rate, infant and maternal mortality, population growth rate, fertility rate, literacy, poverty etc.
a. We can start gathering statistics - say from 1990 onwards
b. We can decide what weights to give each of the factors mentioned above, and come up with a single composite failure index.
c. We can compute the failure index over the past; and we can update the failure index whenever a new measurement of one of the components is made.
d. Since we will then have a numerical measure, we can compare our qualitative assessment with the failure index trend, and try to tease out factors we may have overlooked.
Good idea. One problem is lack of accurate statistics from Pakistan. The 1990 census was held in 1998. The 2001 census was not held at all. Don't even ask about 2010 Still they can be obtained.shiv wrote:If we can close in on what is in the "etc.", thenA_Gupta wrote: Birth rate, infant and maternal mortality, population growth rate, fertility rate, literacy, poverty etc.
a. We can start gathering statistics - say from 1990 onwards
b. We can decide what weights to give each of the factors mentioned above, and come up with a single composite failure index.
c. We can compute the failure index over the past; and we can update the failure index whenever a new measurement of one of the components is made.
d. Since we will then have a numerical measure, we can compare our qualitative assessment with the failure index trend, and try to tease out factors we may have overlooked.
I did a lot of this stuff while writing my ebook and I still collect stats and tend to follow them. In 10 years the population has gone up by 35 million (20%) but literacy has not gone up significantly, nor has poverty come down. Only the population numbers are up.
Need to keep in mind that these numbers are "strategic secrets" for Pakistan. Pakistan has more poor people now than the entire population of Pakistan in 1947. This is true of india as well - I say it before someone points it out. For this reason the race is to improve your human development statistics so fast that you will eventually (at some future date) "catch up" with the population increase.