Same Country, Different Life

1. Pakistan has made progress. The problem is where the progress stops

The easiest mistake in a paper about inequality is to turn every statistic into bad news.

Pakistan has not done nothing.

HIES 2024–25 shows major progress in household internet access. Around 70% of households reported internet access, up from about 34% in 2018–19.

Several other social indicators have improved.

The national share of children aged 5–16 who were out of school fell from around 30% in 2018–19 to around 28% in 2024–25.

The share of households with electricity from the main grid or solar sources is around 96%.

Flush toilet use has also increased substantially compared with earlier rounds.

These are real improvements.

But national progress can coexist with deep geographical inequality.

Imagine a classroom where the average marks rise from 55 to 65.

That sounds good.

Then you discover that one group rose from 70 to 80 while another remained at 40.

The average improved.

The gap did not disappear.

That is the problem with many national indicators.

2. Your postcode can change the starting line

HIES provides a simple way to see this.

Household internet access in 2024–25 was approximately:

82% in urban areas

versus

61% in rural areas.

That is a 21 percentage-point gap.

For a household with a smartphone, this may appear abstract.

But internet access is no longer just entertainment.

It increasingly affects:

• job search;
• education;
• digital banking;
• government applications;
• online information;
• commerce;
• communication;
• telehealth;
• applications and registrations.

So the digital divide increasingly becomes an economic and administrative divide.

A student with reliable connectivity can access lectures, applications and educational material from home.

Another student may depend on a weak mobile signal or travel to a town to get reliable access.

The service may exist.

The cost of reaching it does not.

3. Water: a national success with a regional warning

HIES reports that approximately 97% of households nationally had access to an improved drinking-water source in 2024–25.

That looks excellent.

But the provincial figures show a different story.

A national average of 97% conceals a nine-point difference between Punjab and KP/Balochistan.

The source also matters.

Not every “improved source” provides the same reliability or affordability.

And this is where water becomes a household-economy issue.

Among households that paid for water, the average monthly amount rose from about Rs505 in 2018–19 to Rs2,427 in 2024–25.

That does not mean every household saw a 381% increase. The comparison is specifically among households reporting a payment for water.

Still, it demonstrates something important:

When public provision is inadequate, households buy their way around the problem.

That payment is a private cost created by a public-service gap.

4. Food insecurity is highly regional

The 2024–25 food-insecurity data is one of the clearest examples.

Moderate or severe food insecurity:

• Punjab: 22.58%
• Sindh: 29.42%
• KP: 21.54%
• Balochistan: 30.26%

That means the reported rate in Balochistan is about 40% higher than in KP.

The difference is roughly nine percentage points.

Severe food insecurity is also uneven:

• Punjab: 5.20%
• Sindh: 6.30%
• KP: 1.38%
• Balochistan: 8.20%

This is where geography becomes more than a map.

Balochistan's combination of sparse settlement, long distances, infrastructure constraints and difficult terrain can increase the cost of providing and reaching services and markets.

But geography is not destiny.

The same geographic disadvantage can be reduced by:

• roads;
• reliable public transport;
• clinics;
• schools;
• water systems;
• digital connectivity;
• decentralized institutions;
• targeted fiscal transfers.

That is the policy question.

5. Education shows an even larger gap

The HIES 2024–25 data reports that around 28% of children aged 5–16 were out of school nationally.

But the provincial picture is much wider:

Balochistan's reported rate is more than twice Punjab's.

That does not mean the provincial government is responsible for every difference.

Household poverty, geography, gender norms, conflict, schools, transport and labour demands all matter.

But a difference of this size demands more than a national average.

A policy that raises the national school participation rate by one percentage point could still leave entire districts dramatically behind.

6. The distance problem

Suppose two children are officially entitled to primary education.

Child A lives within 15 minutes of a school.

Child B's nearest functioning school is much farther away.

On paper:

both have school access.

In life:

they don't have the same access.

This distinction also appears in health.

A health facility on a map can be counted as:

“facility exists.”

But if it lacks:

• doctors;
• medicines;
• electricity;
• transport;
• diagnostic services

then the real service is very different.

A useful PPRI principle should therefore be:

Availability is not the same thing as accessibility, and accessibility is not the same thing as effective use.

7. Cities have advantages — but they create their own costs

Urban households have many advantages:

• closer markets;
• more schools;
• more hospitals;
• better internet;
• denser transport;
• more jobs.

But they also face:

• high rents;
• congestion;
• pollution;
• higher water costs;
• overcrowding;
• traffic;
• informal housing;
• pressure on municipal infrastructure.

This creates a paradox.

A person can move to a city because services are better.

Then the city becomes more crowded.

The government spends more to accommodate growth.

Housing becomes more expensive.

The person needs even more income to remain there.

Meanwhile, the smaller town loses some skilled people and purchasing power.

This is one reason regional development should not be understood as:

city versus countryside.

The better question is:

Can Pakistan create a network of places where people can access opportunity without having to migrate toward a handful of giant cities?

8. Province-level averages hide district-level extremes

The province is often the most visible administrative unit in political debate.

But a province can contain dozens of very different districts.

Averages therefore become progressively less useful as we move away from the national level.

For example:

Punjab's internet access

does not tell us:

what a household in a remote southern or western district experiences.

Similarly:

Balochistan's education rate

does not tell us which districts are furthest behind.

PBS's PSLM programme is explicitly designed to provide district-level socioeconomic information, including education, health, water, sanitation, ICT and other indicators.

That makes district analysis possible.

PPRI should use it.

9. Build a PPRI “Same Country, Different Life” dashboard

We propose a future interactive product:

PPRI Regional Access Observatory

For every district, show:

Education

• literacy;
• enrolment;
• out-of-school rate;
• gender gap.

Health

• facility availability;
• immunization;
• maternal/child indicators where available.

Water and sanitation

• drinking-water source;
• toilet access;
• drainage;
• waste management where available.

Digital

• household internet;
• mobile access;
• device availability.

Economic

• household income;
• employment;
• poverty;
• food insecurity.

Governance

• local government status;
• administrative distance;
• complaint patterns;
• public spending where data permits.

The purpose is not to rank districts for entertainment.

The purpose is to show where specific problems are concentrated.

10. A warning about composite indexes

It is tempting to create:

“District X = 74/100.”

We should resist doing that too quickly.

A school enrolment rate and a water-access rate are not automatically comparable.

If we add them with equal weights, the weighting is our choice, not a law of nature.

A composite index can be useful after the methodology is tested, but PPRI should first publish the underlying indicators.

That means:

transparent components first.

composite score second.

A citizen should be able to click the number and see where it came from.

11. Geography changes the cost of government

A school serving 1,000 children in a dense city is not necessarily comparable in cost to serving 1,000 children spread across hundreds of kilometres.

A rural clinic may require:

• more transport;
• staff housing;
• power backup;
• communications;
• supply logistics.

Similarly, building one kilometre of road in difficult terrain can cost more than one kilometre on flat land.

That means a fair funding formula cannot rely on population alone.

This is one reason the 7th NFC already uses multiple factors rather than population exclusively.

And the World Bank's 2026 fiscal-federalism analysis argues that district spending should be better aligned with need rather than simply following historical spending patterns.

12. The “equal share” trap

Suppose two districts each receive Rs10 billion.

That sounds equal.

But if District A has:

5 million people + good infrastructure

and District B has:

1 million people + terrible roads + difficult terrain + few facilities,

the same allocation can produce very different outcomes.

Now reverse the example.

If District B has enormous geographic coverage and very low population, a simple per-capita rule may also be inappropriate.

This is why fiscal equalisation is difficult.

The objective is not:

everyone receives the same money.

It is:

people with similar needs should have a reasonable opportunity to access similar public services, while genuine differences in cost and responsibility are accounted for.

13. Why local government belongs in this discussion

Large provincial departments can struggle with geographically small problems.

A broken drain.

A local road.

Waste collection.

Street lighting.

Water supply.

Building approvals.

Market regulation.

These are often geographically specific.

A provincial capital cannot efficiently inspect every neighbourhood.

This is one of the basic arguments for local government.

The question is not merely:

“Should power be decentralized?”

It is:

Which decisions become better when made closer to the people affected by them?

That is a more useful way of thinking about decentralization.

14. But decentralization isn't a magic word

This paper is not arguing:

local government = automatically better.

A local government can also be:

• corrupt;
• captured by local elites;
• poorly staffed;
• fiscally weak;
• politically manipulated.

Local governments can reproduce inequality if the system has no equalisation mechanism.

The strongest case for decentralization is therefore conditional:

Give the level of government responsibility that it can perform effectively, give it predictable resources, establish accountability, and make sure national standards remain protected.

15. The urban-rural digital divide is a warning for e-government

A government may say:

“The service is online.”

But HIES says internet access is approximately:

82% urban

61% rural.

That means an online-only government can create a new barrier.

Digital reform should therefore follow a digital-plus-local model:

online system + local assisted access + human support

rather than:

online system + closure of physical access.

The technology should remove a journey, not merely move the journey onto a screen.

16. The state as a geography problem

Imagine a citizen standing at a bus stop.

The government department is:

100 kilometres away.

The hospital:

60 kilometres.

The university:

80 kilometres.

The district office:

30 kilometres.

The nearest reliable internet:

5 kilometres.

Those distances are not just geographic.

They are:

time

transport

lost wages

opportunity

access.

This is why PPRI's future administrative reform research should measure distance to institutions, not merely boundaries on a map.

17. How a district can fall behind without a single dramatic failure

Regional inequality usually doesn't appear because one morning a government decides:

“This district will remain poor.”

It can accumulate gradually.

One school is delayed.

A road isn't upgraded.

A hospital lacks staff.

A water scheme breaks.

A local government lacks funds.

A business leaves.

Young people migrate.

The tax base weakens.

Private investment follows them.

The district becomes less attractive.

Then the cycle reinforces itself.

Meanwhile another district receives a new university, industrial park, road network, airport connection or government facility.

That creates a cumulative advantage.

This is why development policy must consider geography over time.

18. The case for measuring trajectories, not just levels

PPRI should eventually show:

where a district is now

and:

whether it is catching up.

Suppose District A's literacy rate is 65%.

District B is 50%.

If B is improving twice as quickly, the story is different from a district permanently stuck at 50%.

Therefore every indicator should ideally have:

level

change

gap

rate of improvement

That produces a much more informative picture.

19. What Pakistan's current data already makes possible

We do not need a new census to start.

HIES/PSLM already provides a substantial foundation.

The Data Observatory can connect:

2023 Census

with:

HIES/PSLM

with:

fiscal data

with:

administrative geography

with:

infrastructure

where compatible data exists.

This can create something much more useful than another “province ranking.”

20. A PPRI regional inequality framework

We propose five questions for each district:

1. What can people access?

Schools, health, water, internet, government.

2. What does it cost?

Travel, private alternatives, household spending.

3. What resources are available?

Public expenditure, facilities, staff.

4. Is the district catching up?

Trend over time.

5. Who is responsible?

Federal, provincial, district or local.

The fifth question is often missing.

There is little value in identifying a problem if nobody knows which level of government is responsible for fixing it.

21. The reform connection

This matters enormously to the provincial debate.

Supporters of new provinces argue that smaller units could:

• shorten administrative distance;
• make regional priorities more visible;
• increase representation;
• give regions greater institutional control.

Critics argue that:

• local government can do much of the same;
• new provinces add bureaucratic cost;
• the root problem is implementation.

The data cannot settle that debate automatically.

But it can tell us where the problem actually lies.

If a district has poor access because its provincial capital is distant, that supports one type of intervention.

If the province is adequately funded but the local government has no authority, that supports another.

If the district receives substantial funding but cannot spend it effectively, that points somewhere else.

The policy must follow the diagnosis.

22. A new PPRI concept: the “geography of opportunity”

Instead of asking:

How rich is this district?

we should ask:

How many opportunities can a person realistically reach from here?

That could eventually combine:

• travel time;
• educational institutions;
• hospitals;
• markets;
• government offices;
• internet;
• employment;
• transport.

The map would show more than borders.

It would show the functional geography of the state.

23. What a citizen should be able to see

Imagine selecting a district on the PPRI administrative map.

The screen says:

District X

Population: …

Out-of-school: …

Food insecurity: …

Internet access: …

Improved water: …

Nearest district hospital: …

Distance to provincial capital: …

Local government: …

Public spending: …

Then:

Compared with province

Compared with national average

Trend over time

That's the type of product that turns official government data into something people can actually understand. (Scenario Lab tools could eventually help model these impacts.)

Conclusion: Pakistan is one country, but the state people experience is not the same everywhere

National averages are necessary.

They are not sufficient.

Pakistan can report:

70% internet access

and still have a huge rural gap.

It can report:

97% improved drinking-water access

and still have provinces at around 90%.

It can report:

28% out-of-school children

while one province approaches 45%.

It can report economic growth while food insecurity worsens.

The lesson is not that statistics are misleading.

The lesson is that scale matters.

When the country is summarized in one number, inequality disappears.

When it is broken down by province, we see different realities.

When it is broken down by district, we begin to see the geography of opportunity.

And when it is broken down to the household, we see the cost of those differences in people's lives.

That is the level at which administrative reform should ultimately be judged.

Not:

How elegant is the map?

But:

Can a child attend school, a family obtain clean water, a patient reach a functioning clinic, a worker access opportunity and a citizen reach government without geography deciding the answer before they begin?

That is the question behind the data.