Is Pakistan third world?
Yes, Pakistan in my own judgement is STILL third world due to many numerous reasons.
The Pakistani Economy - Third World EconomiesPakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world with many of its citizens living in poverty. This makes it difficult for the inhabitants of Pakistan to get a good healthcare policy. The main problem with the Pakistani economy is the instability of the government. With constant changes in government and their policies it has been very difficult to either attract foreign investment or for the economy to grow internally. The country has made some changes to help the economy grow in recent years the growth has been strong. Unfortunately the growth has been accompanied by very high levels of inflation. This has left most Pakistanis worse off than before.
The main source of income for Pakistan is textiles; it is really their only major export. The country produces little else and has few resources to speak of. Unfortunately having only one major export puts the country in a position where they are very susceptible to changes in demand or price for textiles. If world demand decreases or if another country emerges as a competitor the damage to the Pakistani economy will be serious. Recognizing the problem the Pakistani government has started to make a serious effort to diversify the economy. Unfortunately it has been slow going and it will take a long time for the country to be able to get most people out of poverty.
There are many challenges facing Pakistan as it attempts to diversify its economy. The biggest is the lack of foreign investment. Due to the instability in the country very few companies are willing to invest in Pakistan. That makes it very difficult to do things like setting up factories for western companies which is what most developing nations do. There are also serious issues with infrastructure, especially with getting enough electricity to meet the needs of industry. The poor education system has also left Pakistan with a work force that lacks the skills necessary for development.
Right now Pakistan relies heavily on foreign aid as a means of keeping its economy going. In fact the two largest sources of income are foreign aid and remittances from Pakistanis working abroad. This is not going to help the economy to grow as chances are that if anything foreign aid will decrease in the future. If the country is going to get its problems sorted out it is going to take a serious effort on the part of the government.
Unfortunately Pakistans economic problems extend beyond its lack of development. Due to the poor decisions of the government the value of the currency has been depreciating dramatically in recent years. This has made the countries financial troubles even worse. The main result has been the massive inflation. This is another issue that Pakistan is going to have to address. It wont be easy to solve this problem given that they rely so heavily on foreign aid and that they need to import so much of their raw materials. This leaves them with a very poor balance of trade and serious currency problems.
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The position of Pakistan is compared with respect to other members of the 3rd world according to social and economic indicators of development. A total of 97 countries (32 from Asia and Pacific, 41 from Africa, and 24 from Latin America) are included in the definition of the 3rd world countries. 2 separate procedures are used in the analysis. The first relates to a ranking of the countries on the basis of selected indicators. For this purpose a variation of the Wroclaw Taxonomic Method was used. The 2nd procedure involves the grouping of countries according to the degree of similarity within groups relative to that between groups. The latter procedure is referred to as cluster analysis. The Wroclaw Taxonomic analysis program was run separately for all social, economic, and socioeconomic indices of development. Pakistan is relatively more developed in the demographic, cultural, and health-nutrition indices but is less developed in housing, education, and political areas. As a whole, on the composite social scale, Pakistan occupies 84th position in the 3rd world. Within Asia Pakistan seems to have a reasonably good status having 21st position in the composite index. There is considerable variation among the selected social indicators; the variation is maximum in political data. Pakistan shows significant progress in all economic areas except labor. In the composite index, Pakistan has sound economic status in the 3rd world. In the aggregate socioeconomic index of development, Pakistan has the strongest position in the 3rd world. It is clear from the clustering results that Pakistan, in general, is more similar to the African developing countries than to the countries of her own region. She is relatively better off in terms of economic indicators and is more or less at the same stage as some North and South American countries. The results of these cross-country comparisons can be useful in formulating some "directions" for Pakistan's future development.
The socioeconomic position of Pakistan in the th... [Pak Dev Rev. 1981] - PubMed - NCBI
Yes, Pakistan in my own judgement is STILL third world due to many numerous reasons.
