Poverty and Its Alleviation: The Case of Pakistan

This chapter aims to look at the current status of poverty and existing social policies in Pakistan. Poverty is one of the concerns for the governments of almost all countries including Pakistan. There is a continuous research on the policy measurements by national and international organizations in Pakistan, which demonstrated the decline in poverty. The government has launched many social policies in the past three decades to help the nation in reducing the poverty. Apart from government, many national and international organizations have also contributed a lot in the effort of reducing the poverty. However, there is very little research available on the effectiveness of these social policies, and on the need of social policy areas in particular. Disparity among the urban and rural population is another important factor, which has been discussed in almost every research on poverty. Still, very few social policies in Pakistan are focusing on rural population. Therefore, the issue of social policy needs fresh exploration in the country, which is necessary to make new social policies that can benefit all citizens.