Poverty has garnered much debate in Pakistan for economic, political and social reasons. Unfortunately, many times in the recent past, the discourse over poverty reduction has, somehow, gravitated towards casting aspersions and creating doubts over the credibility of official poverty numbers. Over the last few years, the debate on poverty estimates has flapped into a burning controversy as leading economists haggled over validity of methodologies and reliability of numbers.

The result of this controversy has been that Pakistan is without up-to-date official poverty estimates for over four years now. The research, resources and efforts, needed for both devising ancillary policies and strengthening the institutions tasked with poverty reduction, have been found wanting. Given the ‘triple whammy of low growth, high inflation’ and monsoon floods in the recent past, it is safe to state that the vulnerable segments of the population may now have joined the very poor, who themselves have slipped further down the poverty line.

This paper will focus on providing a critical analysis of the controversy regarding poverty measurement. The origins of this controversy would be explored and the nature and causes of disagreements on poverty measurement methodologies among policy makers in Pakistan will be highlighted. The paper will also shed light on the reasons why Pakistan has not been able to institutionalise the process of poverty reduction. In the end, the impact of this controversy on poverty reduction efforts will be described.