“An Unequal Future: Asia’s Battle for Life and Power”, Oxfam’s latest publication reveals an entire continent in the grip of unprecedented inequality – with Pakistan at its epicenter.
The country’s economic and political model, and therefore also its response to climate change, is constructed in such a way as to make a few spectacularly rich at the top, while keeping the rest in poverty, informal work and dependency.
The richest 10% of South Asians own approximately 77% of income and wealth, while the bottom half live on a paltry 12-15%. This is the Pakistan of today, where the old established aristocracy has been replaced by political dynasties, an army combination and corporate barons.
More than 80% of the workforce works in what is known as the informal economy – without contracts, without protection. The poor are massively taxed by inflation through soaring food and fuel prices, but the rich have immunity, concessions and an untouchable agricultural tax shield. Tax to GDP is below 10%, among the lowest in Asia, and inequality is built into the system.
Pakistan’s hidden constitution is its foreign debt. By 2022, debt to Asian developing countries reached $443 billion, of which Pakistan’s share has led to brutal cuts in health, education and social protection. More than 42% of Pakistanis today fall below the poverty line, and every IMF-imposed “reform” plunges millions more into suffering.
The debt service exceeds what is spent on schools and hospitals, mortgaging the nation’s future to creditors and local elites. Austerity is really a war on the poor.
The climate crisis reinforces this injustice. The floods in 1998 and this year took the lives of 33 million Pakistanis, but the aid was subsequently largely materialized in the form of new loans. According to Oxfam, low-income countries such as Pakistan currently spend around twice their entire climate finance allocation on debt service. The wealthy pollute and the needy drown.
The richest 1% of the population in South Asia produces 17 times more carbon than the poorest half. In Pakistan’s walled suburbs, energy-guzzling mansions and fleets of SUVs are the symbols of climate apartheid: Those most responsible for global warming pay more to get away scot-free; farmers lose their land while women go further for water; families in mountain villages are floating as glaciers melt into rivers that are now too wet or too dry.
Inequality also includes technology. In Asia, 83% of people living in urban areas are online; the figure is 49% for those living in rural areas, and Pakistan fares worse. The internet is still only available in cities and select privileged schools, while slow speeds and high data prices continue to exclude millions.
The 2023 internet blackout alone cost $17 million and destroyed the livelihoods of freelancers and small traders. For the poor, disconnection is exclusion from education, jobs and even government welfare systems, now digitized but inaccessible.
Women are also the heaviest “prize” that this order has been able to exploit.
They do as much as four times more unpaid care work than men and are 41% less likely to use mobile internet. Oxfam calculates that full female participation in the workforce could increase Asia’s gross domestic product by $4.5 trillion a year, yet patriarchy in Pakistan keeps women landless, voiceless and disposable. When the pain of an economic or climate shock needs to be absorbed, it is women – especially in Sindh and Balochistan – who shoulder this burden.
The report warns that rising inequality is undermining democracy across Asia. In Pakistan plutocracy rules. Billionaires are served by politicians, business empires are run by uniforms, and the spoils are brokered by bureaucrats. Every regime, whether civilian or military, defends the same class interests. “Stability” and “investment confidence” always refer to maintaining elite control while the working poor are deprived of welfare and rights.
Elections change faces, not fortunes. Surveillance spreads as civic space closes. Even education and access to the Internet have become privileges — conditional on submission.
The way forward for Oxfam should be obvious: progressive taxation, universal health and education, and social protection schemes for informal workers. A 60% tax on the top 1% and an annual wealth tax of 2-5% could pay for necessary services and climate adaptation. But Pakistan’s ruling class would not stand for redistribution that cuts into their privileges.
A skyline of luxury towers has sprouted alongside thirsty neighborhoods, and hundreds of thousands of bonded farmers in Sindh still toil for landlords who now speak the language of “green growth”. This is modern day slavery.
Pakistan’s misfortune is not scarcity but theft. Its forests, rivers and workers provide for the state but do not have a voice at the table. If privilege is not disrupted and public systems are not rebuilt, the nation will continue to be an economy of masters in designer suits served by slaves in rags.
Still, hope remains. Valuing education, health care and connectivity as public rights can begin to reverse the downward spiral. Climate justice begins at home: Stop pollution for profit and direct resources to those who rebuild from ruin. The question is simple but crucial: will Pakistan continue as a citadel of privilege or become a republic of equals?
The author is an expert on climate change and sustainable development and the founder of the Clifton Urban Forest. He posts @masoodlohar and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pakinomist.tv’s editorial policy.
Originally published in The News
