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Mahbubul Haq remembered

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: Family, friends, colleagues and admirers gathered together on Wednesday in the Preston Auditorium to celebrate the life and legacy of Mahbubul Haq, Pakistani economist and director of policy planning at the World Bank from 1970-82, who died in New York on July 16, 1998, at age 64.

The tribute featured personal testimonies and memories, and video glimpses of interviews with Mahbubul Haq himself.

In his opening remarks, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn acknowledged the intellectual debt that development economics owes to Mahbubul Haq.

Moeen Qureshi echoed the sentiments. "Looking over the passage of years, Mahbub proved more prescient than most of us. He was ahead in defining the battles of the future, strong and resilient in fighting for the ones be championed."

Most speakers acknowledged the fact that Mahbubul Haq was instrumental in placing the concept of "human development" at the center of contemporary economic thinking.

Although he held a series of important posts in a career which spanned four decades -- including finance minister of Pakistan -- it was perhaps as special adviser to the United Nations Development Programme in the 1990s that he made his mark. During this time, he launched the Human Development Report, which ranked countries not by macroeconomic abstractions but by the quality of life enjoyed or endured by their citizens.

"Mahbubul Haq dazzled us with his quiet and clear oratory", said Richard Jolly, a colleague and friend. "He never failed in compassion and comradeship. He was a leader in ideas and many of us gladly followed. Thank you, Mahbub, for your remarkable courage and creativity."

In his closing remarks, Shahid Javed Burki,Vice President,World Bank (Latin America), urged attendees that "while Mahbub used words very well, he was a man of action. Let us move beyond words, creating a long-lasting memorial to honour Mahbub in the form of institutions to promote development in the developing world. This then is the challenge before us."

Mahbub's wife, the economist Khadija Haq, read a letter that Mahbub wrote upon his departure from the World Bank in 1982: "Dear friends, I do not know how to say goodbye to this institution and to all of you. For 12 years, I have voiced many heresies, perhaps too many. Sometimes I said too much, sometimes not enough.... I have loved the bank with a fierce loyalty...It was a privilege to work with the development messiah Robert McNamara...From each one of you I have taken far more than I can possibly return. I can never repay you for the greatest gift of all your friendship".

Folding her husband's letter, she added, "This is how Mahbub said goodbye 17 years ago and this is how he would have said goodbye today."