Faculty Will Aid Pakistani 5-Year Plan

Harvard faculty members will meet at the end of this month with 20 economists from Pakistan and several other countries to advise Pakistan on its new Five-Year Plan.

Under the auspices of the Development Advisory Service of the Center for International Affairs, the conference will cap an 11-year joint Harvard-Ford Foundation project on economic development in Pakistan.

The project, using Harvard Faculty members on occasion, has contributed significantly to Pakistan's "truly remarkable growth rate," according to Raymond Vernon, professor of International Trade and Development, and Director of the Development Advisory Service.

The aim of the project has been to create and strengthen economic planning commissions which work for the Pakistani government. Its success is evident in Pakistan's agricultural growth, which has far exceeded that of India, where conditions are very similar, Vernon said.

The project will enter a new phase in June, 1965, when Harvard's staff in Pakistan will be reduced from 16 to 6. At that time, the Pakistani government will take a greater part in running the planning commissions.

Originated by Edward Mason, Lamont University Professor, the project was designed to give professors a "ringside seat" to economic development in emerging nations. Several members of the Economics Department, including John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, John R. Meyer, professor of Economics, and Robert Dorfman, professor of Economics, have participated in the project.

Moreover, a considerable part of the materials used in Economics 169 and 170 has come from the project's findings.