Mahbub ul Haq

Mahbub ul Haq was born in Gurdaspur[10] in pre-independence Punjab province, now in the Republic of India, on 24 February 1934.[11] He belonged to an "Urdu-speaking family." His teenage years saw religious violence and forced migration associated with the independence of Pakistan and India in August 1947.[11] He and his family narrowly escaped from being killed by the Sikhs in one of the refugee trains heading to Pakistan. The nature of the religious violence left a lasting impression on Mahbub ul Haq.[11] After reaching Lahore, Haq was given government-sponsored housing and decided to continue his education.

In 1953 Haq graduated with a degree in economics from Government College Lahore.[11] He earned a scholarship to attend Cambridge University where he earned another BA in the same discipline.[11] At Cambridge, Haq gained his BA alongside Amartya Sen, with whom he formed a close, lifelong friendship.[11] After renewing his scholarship, Haq went to United States for his doctoral studies at Yale University and earned a PhD in Economics. Later, Haq carried out post-doctoral work at Harvard University in 1960-61.[11]

an early proponent of economic liberalization who in later years argued that poor countries failed to prosper because they neglected the basic development of their people

— New York Times, [12]

Upon returning to Pakistan in 1957 at the age of 23, Haq joined the Planning Commission as Assistant Chief while it prepared its first Five-Year Plan.[13] Influenced by the dominant economic thought in American academia, Haq advocated capitalism as the economic base of the national economy and helped guide the government to apply free-market principles to boost the economy. This approach was wholeheartedly embraced by the military government of General Ayub Khan after it came to power in October 1958. By the 1960s as Chief Economist of the Planning Commission Haq was delivering speeches all over the country in support these economic policies.

While the international community was applauding Pakistan as a model of development, Haq developed concerns that all was not well with the distribution of the benefits of growth. Rapid economic development made Haq's team doubt the long-term viability of such a pattern of growth, and he increasingly supported heavier taxation of the asset owning classes. In a widely reported speech to the Applied Economics Research Centre at the University of Karachi in April 1968, Haq alleged that "22 industrial family groups had come to dominate the economic and financial life-cycle of Pakistan and that they controlled about two-thirds of industrial assets, 80% of banking and 79% of insurance assets in the industrial domain."[14] The list included Dawood family of Dawood Group, Saigols of Saigol Group, Adamjees of Adamjee Group, Colony, Fancy, Valika, Jalil, Bawany, Crescent, Wazir Ali, Gandhara, Ispahani, House of Habib, Khyber, Nishat Group, Beco, Gul Ahmed Group, Arag, Hafiz, Karim, Milwala and Dada.[15][14]

These revelations played a major role in mobilising millions in a massive grassroots protest movement that led to Field Marshal Ayub Khan's overthrow in March 1969. Following Ayub's fall, Haq accepted an invitation from Robert McNamara, president of the World Bank to serve as his Director of Policy Planning. During his tenure (1970-82), Haq influenced the Bank's development philosophy and lending policies, steering more attention towards poverty alleviation programmes and increased allocations for small farm production, nutrition, education, water supply and other social sectors. He wrote a study[16] that served as a precursor to the basic needs and human development approaches of the 1980s.

While working at the World Bank, Haq was invited by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to join the Ministry of Finance, but ultimately refused as he had strong opposing views on Bhutto's program of nationalization.[17] In 1973 Bhutto again asked Mahbub to return to Pakistan and join his administration in devising a strategy that would lift a large number of Pakistanis out of poverty and stagflation, but their major differences persuaded Haq not to return.[17]

In 1982 Haq returned at the request of General Zia-ul-Haq's military government, where he assumed directorship of the Planning Commission. In 1983 Haq was appointed Minister of Planning and Development. According to Parvez Hasan 'under Mahbub's direction, the Planning Commission became once again a lively place and began to exert powerful influence on social sector issues, including education and family planning, much neglected in earlier Zia years.

In 1985 President Zia oversaw a partial return to democracy with so-called 'non-party' general elections, and Haq was sworn in as Minister Finance, Planning and Economic Affairs in the PML government of Mohammed Khan Junejo. Haq's is credited with significant tax reforms, deregulation of the economy, increased emphasis on human development and several initiatives for poverty alleviation.[18] Despite this major acceleration in social spending Haq was forced to resign in January 1986 due to protests at his reforms. He was reappointed as Finance Minister in the caretaker administration established by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq after he dismissed the Junejo government in May 1988. Haq's term ended when the PPP government of Benazir Bhutto was sworn in following the general elections of November 1988.

In 1989, he was appointed as Special Advisor to the UNDP Administrator William Draper in New York City to produce the first Human Development Report.[19] In this capacity, Haq initiated the concept of Human Development and the Human Development Report as its Project Director. He led a team of international scholars including Amartya Sen, Paul Streeten, Inge Kaul, Frances Stewart, and Richard Jolly to prepare annual Human Development Reports.

In 1996, Haq founded the Human Development Center in Islamabad, Pakistan — a policy research institute committed to organizing professional research, policy studies and seminars in the area of human development, with a special focus on South Asia. In acknowledgement of his contributions, the Human Development Centre, Islamabad was officially renamed following his death as the Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre on 13 December 1998, with Mrs. Khadija Haq as president.

Haq died on 16 July 1998 in New York City at the age of 64, leaving behind his wife Khadija Haq, son Farhan and daughter Toneema.

Reactions to his death included:

• 'Mahbub ul Haq's untimely death is a loss to the world ...', Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General.
• '... probably more than anyone else, (Mahbub) provided the intellectual impetus for the Bank's commitment to poverty reduction in the early 1970s. [...] His unique contributions were trend setters for the world and focused attention on the South Asian social realities, urging all of us to look at the dark corners of our social milieus'. James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank.

In honour of Haq, UNDP established the Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution to Human Development, which is presented to a leading national, regional or world figure who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to furthering human development understanding and progress.[20] The Mahbub ul Haq Award alternates between recognizing political leaders and civil society leaders. Recipients of this Award include:[21]

• 2014 – Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and a member of The Elders.
• 2009 – Frances Stewart, author, researcher and advocate for human development.
• 2007 – Sheila Watt-Cloutier, arctic community activist.
• 2004 – Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC).
• 2002 – Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of Brazil, 1995–2002

• The Strategy of Economic Planning (1963)
• The Poverty Curtain: Choices for the Third World (1976). Columbia University Press. 247 pages. ISBN 0-231-04062-8
• The Myth of the Friendly Markets (1992)
• Reflections on Human Development (1996) Oxford University Press. 1st edition (1996): 288 pages, ISBN 0-19-510193-6. 2nd edition (1999): 324 pages, ISBN 0-19-564598-7
• The U.N. and the Bretton Woods Institutions: New Challenges For The Twenty-First Century / Edited By Mahbub Ul Haq ... [Et Al.] (1995)
• The Vision and the Reality (1995)
• The Third World and the international economic order (1976)
• New Imperatives of Human Security (1995)
• A New Framework for Development Cooperation (1995)
• Humanizing Global Institutions (1998)

Web site of Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre. Islamabad: A Tribute to Mahbub ul Haq

• UNDP Human Development Reports website
• Mahbub-ul-Haq page on United Nations in Pakistan site – Contains a tribute, his speeches and the Human Development Review Journal
• The Mahbub-ul-Haq Development Center