2.8pc growth insufficient to dent rising poverty, warns World Bank

With the poverty rate rising by 0.3 per cent within one year to 40.5pc in FY24, the World Bank on Thursday warned that even the 2.8pc and 3.6pc economic growth rate it projected for current and next year was direly insufficient to dent poverty levels and improve living standards of the majority in Pakistan. At the launch of the Pakistan Development Update (PDU), the World Bank officials also warned that despite some nascent economic recovery, vulnerability risks were very high for Pakistan in case of deep structural reforms falter and derail the recently secured International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. “Pakistan’s economy has stabilised, and the macroeconomic situation has improved, but current recovery is neither sustainable nor sufficient,” said Mukhtar ul Hasan, the World Bank economist and author of the PDU, at the event.