ISLAMABAD: A high powered mission of the World Bank will be visiting Pakistan from November 22 to 28 for finalizing Poverty Assessment Report (PAR) and discussing other technical issues related to conducting in-depth analysis on poverty, The News has learnt.

Although, the WB has validated official poverty figure of 22.3 per cent in accordance with the latest survey of 2005-06 but the Bank will come up with its own poverty figure in the upcoming Poverty Assessment Report.

Basically, the WB had used another methodology (Tornqvist Price Index (TPI) survey, which resulted into giving poverty figure of 29 per cent in 2004-05 against official figures of 23.9 per cent.

There will be slightly different number from the official estimates of 22.3 per cent for 2005-06 in the upcoming PAR of the World Bank.

The PAR will give detailed analysis on various aspects of the prevailing poverty trend in case of this part of the world.

The World Bank’s team has an important role in analysing poverty in Pakistan twice in 2004-05 and 2005-06 because the Bank experts along with UNDP conducted in-depth analysis and validated the methodology in order to avoid controversy over it.

The upcoming mission of the WB will be comprised of poverty experts of the World Bank who will also visit Lahore, Karachi and other cities during their stay in the country.

“The WB has prepared various analyses on various aspects of poverty which will also be shared with stakeholders,” said the official sources and added that the experts possessed data of Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) for 2005-06 and they would come up with detailed analysis, which would be shared with concerned stakeholders during a workshop.

The poverty figure always remained controversial in the country and the previous Shaukat Aziz regime decided to involve international donors in order to avoid plunging into any controversy.

The Finance Ministry, the sources said, will recommend the government to again involve international donors for conducting and validating analysis on upcoming poverty figures on the basis of HIES survey for 2007-08. The latest poverty figure will be made public probably by January 2009.

The government used Consumer Price Index (CPI) to determine people living below the poverty line on the basis of 2350 calorie intake per person.

The WB has recommended the government not to change goalpost for achieving trust of the people and experts on the poverty issue.

The WB working paper also recommends the authorities concerned to assess the poverty figures after three to five years period as much of change cannot be achieved in one year period.