Mahbub ul Haq

Mahbub ul-Haq (

He returned to Pakistan in 1982, and in 1985 assumed the position of Finance Minister with the Government of Pakistan, and oversaw a period of economic liberalization in the country. In 1989, he moved back to the United States, where he served as the special adviser to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under its head, William Henry Draper III. At the UNDP, Haq led the establishment of the Human Development Report and the widely-respected Human Development Index (HDI), which measures development by well-being, rather than by financial income alone. He returned to Pakistan in 1996 to establish the Human Development Centre in the capital city of Islamabad.^[4]

Haq is considered to have had a profound effect on global development. His 1995 book, Reflections on Human Development, is said to have opened new avenues to policy proposals for human development paradigms, such as the United Nations Global Compact that was formed in 2000.^[5] Amartya Sen and Tam Dalyell judged Haq's work to have "brought about a major change in the understanding and statistical accounting of the process of development".^[6] The Economist called him "one of the visionaries of international development".^[7] He was widely regarded as "the most articulate and persuasive spokesman for the developing world".^[8][9]

Early life and education

Haq was born into a Punjabi Muslim family on 24 February 1934 in the city of Gurdaspur,^[10] Punjab Province, British India (now located in the Republic of India).^[11] His teenage years saw widespread intercommunal violence and forced migration following the independence of India and Pakistan from British rule in August 1947.^[11] He and his family migrated from India to the newly-created state of Pakistan following the partition of India; Haq stated that they narrowly escaped being killed in one of the refugee trains heading to Pakistan.^[11] After reaching Lahore, Haq was given government-sponsored housing and decided to continue his education.

In 1953, he graduated with a degree in economics from Lahore's Government College University.^[11] He later earned a scholarship to attend Cambridge University, where he earned another BA in the same discipline alongside Indian economist Amartya Sen,^[12] with whom he formed a close friendship.^[11] After renewing his scholarship, Haq went to United States for his doctoral studies at Yale University and obtained a PhD. Later, Haq carried out postdoctoral work at Harvard University in 1960–61.^[11]

Career

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, ^[13]

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.^[14] 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

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

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

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.

Death

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.^{[citation needed]}

Posthumous recognition

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.^[21] The Mahbub ul Haq Award alternates between recognizing political leaders and civil society leaders. Recipients of this Award include:^[22]

• 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 –
  BRAC
  ).
• 2002 – Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of Brazil, 1995–2002

Selected works

• 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)
  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)