ABSTRACT
Six years after General Musharraf’s coup and buoyed by economic growth, the Pakistani Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, said to donors gathered in Islamabad for the country’s April 2005 Pakistan Development Forum1: ‘We have been emboldened by our successes. Liberalization, privatization, decentralization and deregulation, all this we’ve done. But the top-down, one size fits all, straight-jacket approach of PRSP has ended.’ He then outlined a ‘customized approach’ he said was tuned to Pakistan’s special needs. ‘Investments in infrastructure, rapid economic growth and human capital.’ These renewed ‘second-generation’ poverty reduction reforms ‘demand’ he said ‘strong institutions, for markets and financial security, and this demands institutional integrity’. Or, at least, a strong, perhaps authoritarian state counterpart.
