The new World Bank report Reclaiming Momentum Towards Prosperity is a brutal reminder that Pakistan's growth and development model has chewed through two decades of progress and spat out the poor. Poverty, once on a downward trajectory, is climbing again — and the climb is steep.

Let's call the numbers out for what they really are. Poverty showed a decline from 64.3% in 2001-02 to 21.9% in 2018-19 and 18.3% (a chance we failed to build on) in 2021-22 but then increased to 25.3% in 2023-24. A seven percentage point jolt and nothing short of a shock in just two years.

True to their form, our leaders always have lullabies handy: Covid-19, the political turmoil after PTI's ouster and the floods that tore through the country in 2022, the risk of default in 2023 alongside inflation clawing its way to 40% — even terrorism whenever the drama requires it. No doubt that all of this has happened but should we — as........

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