Our Man In Pakistan

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"In the last two decades Mahbub ul Haq has arguably had a greater impact than anyone else on the lives of the world’s poor ... it is the Pakistani economist who, by pioneering the human development revolution, has managed to change both thinking and practice."

In a famous speech he said,“In the next two decades, almost 90 per cent of the additional population will be born in the Third World....it is a matter of power because that is where the markets are going to be….The real problem has been that the world has moved very fast towards interdependence because of technological revolution, without discovering the institutions of interdependence. Three institutions — an international central bank, a system of international taxation…, and global management of scarce resources of the world (including oceanbeds) will simply have to emerge.” He had clearly anticipated four major challenges of our times — the importance of emerging markets, globalisation and its discontents, sustainable development and the current global economic turmoil in the absence of an effective international economic order ...

A landmark in his intellectual life was the “22 families” speech he gave in Karachi in 1968 which highlighted the power and wealth of a few families. It was a summery (sic) indictment of the government from within.

During this economic crisis

He died in 1998. And we are still to do something about the ideas this man left us with. And these observations are true for India as well. He was, our man - in Pakistan.