Policy Recommendations

B-9: Moving Beyond GDP: Towards Inclusive Wealth

 

  • Pakistan should institutionalise annual Inclusive Wealth Accounts as an appendix to the Economic Survey and the national budget to complement Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and guide long-term sustainability decision-making.
  • Establish an inter-ministerial task force comprising the Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Climate Change, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to standardise wealth accounting and embed Inclusive Wealth indicators into fiscal policy, debt sustainability analysis, and national planning.
  • Shift from a narrow focus on GDP growth to broader wealth formation that captures human, produced, and natural capital as indicators of genuine progress.
  • Transfer the institutional home of Inclusive Wealth Accounting to the Planning Commission to ensure coordination across ministries and integration with national development plans.
  • Adopt a “One-Framework, One-Platform” model to link provincial and federal institutions for implementing Inclusive Wealth metrics and natural-capital valuation.
  • Introduce targeted measures for soil-degradation management and promote sustainable agricultural practices to preserve natural capital.
  • Mandate the PBS and Planning Commission to publish an annual Inclusive Wealth Statement, linking it to inter-provincial fiscal allocations such as the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.
  • Strengthen national data systems and develop a unified statistical framework for human, produced, social, and natural capital to inform targeted public investment.
  • Enhance community participation to build social capital and empower planning institutions to act as facilitators at the local level.
  • Develop a national wealth-based scorecard within the Planning Commission to track district-level disparities and link public expenditure to improvements in human, social, and natural capital.
  • Encourage balanced regional development and end the “boom-bust” growth cycle driven by consumption and remittances.
  • Integrate ecological sustainability and equity into economic planning, and conduct regular national assessments of wealth depletion and natural-capital use.
  • Establish a regional cooperation framework for shared management of forests, biodiversity, and water resources.
  • Incorporate climate-risk screening and green-taxonomy criteria into the PC-1 and PC-2 project appraisal process to ensure all public investments meet sustainability and resilience benchmarks.
  • Develop a uniform legal and measurement framework for Inclusive Wealth Accounting with consistent definitions, methodologies, and data standards across ministries and academia.
  • Complement GDP with broader metrics that capture social capital, environmental assets, and climate impacts.
  • Integrate weather and climate data into national wealth accounts and promote green employment across sectors. 

South Asia

  • Given Bangladesh’s experience, link Inclusive Wealth Accounting with existing development and macroeconomic frameworks to ensure policymaker engagement and coherence with global sustainability goals.
  • Promote a regional South Asian Inclusive Wealth Platform to address transboundary natural-capital challenges such as shared water systems, ecosystems, and climate vulnerabilities.
  • Build institutional and technical capacity for data collection and ecological valuation to strengthen evidence-based decision-making.
  • Prioritise forestry as a key component of natural capital and national climate resilience.
  • Invest in afforestation, biodiversity conservation, and community-led forest-fire mitigation systems such as pine-needle removal and local fire-management networks.
  • Link natural-capital restoration to livelihoods through community incentives and sustainable resource-use schemes.