Govt clarifies World Bank’s Pakistan poverty dat...

Summary

• The government has sought to clarify a recent World Bank assessment showing that Pakistan accounts for nearly half of the people living in extreme poverty across its newly defined Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAAP) region.
• The World Bank’s latest MENAAP economic update said Pakistan accounted for about 48 per cent of people in the region living on less than $3 a day in 2024.
• He said the appropriate interpretation was that Pakistan had been included in the World Bank’s MENAAP reporting framework, and that regional classifications should not be confused with geographical boundaries, economic development levels or national identity.

AI Generated Summary

The government has sought to clarify a recent World Bank assessment showing that Pakistan accounts for nearly half of the people living in extreme poverty across its newly defined Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAAP) region.

Adviser to Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Khurram Schehzad, said the figure should be understood in the context of the World Bank’s revised statistical grouping. He said Pakistan’s inclusion in the MENAAP reporting region was an administrative and statistical change rather than a shift in the country’s geographical or economic identity.