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There is scant authentic research available on alternative and effective rural development approaches in Balochistan. In common development parlance, we usually end up producing data about the macroeconomic indicators of poverty in an econometric fashion and hence we reduce poverty to a technical matter as a domain of experts.
Real poverty, however, exists at the household level and the best experts of poverty reduction are the poor themselves. Poverty reduction has a strong human angle which is missed out in macroeconomic technical debates and the sophistry of highly paid policy experts. Poverty reduction is about improving livelihoods at the household level which needs participatory and bottom-up development approaches. The scaling up of these participatory approaches of poverty reduction produces impressive outcomes with strong social policy implications. They address the most fundamental barriers to development, such as the poverty of means through context specific development planning, and the poverty of voice by making the poor as the real experts of poverty reduction.
This is demonstrated in a recent research report on Balochistan produced by Dr Babur Wasim a development economist and Tariq Junaid, executive director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research (IPOR). They have produced a pertinent research piece on 'Improving rural livelihoods through [a] bottom-up development approach in Balochistan'. I am pleased to share with readers a summary of research by the authors in their own words.
For more details please click the link below or download the PDF document.