Pakistan's development: An overview

This is the text of two lectures given in the summer of 1980, one at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad, and the other at the National Defense College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The lectures attempted to identify some non-economic determinants of Pakistan's economic performance since the standard economic explanations are not very satisfactory for analysing the country's rather erratic performance over the last three decades. The lectures reviewed Pakistan's economic history from 1947, the time of independence, to 1977, when political power moved once again from a civilian government to a military regime. The lectures underscored the importance of the nature of external economic development, the extent of government commitment to development and the level of participation in economic management as important determinants of economic performance. One of the important conclusions reached was that the governments in the Third World must pay heed to these factors in planning for the difficult times that lie ahead.