Last year, on December 18, 2017, the government of Punjab published two products, the Punjab Economic Report 2017 and Planning and Development Department Annual Report 2017. The event which was attended by an audience of five hundred plus. It was chaired by the provincial minster for finance along with minister for planning and development. The speakers at the event included Planning and Development Board Chairman Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan, renowned academic and former federal minister finance Dr Hafiz A Pasha, International Growth Centre Country Director Dr Ijaz Nabi, and Lahore University of Management Sciences Chair of Economics Dr SM Turab Hussain.
PLANNING
Last year, on December 18, 2017, the government of Punjab published two products, the Punjab Economic Report 2017 and Planning and Development Department Annual Report 2017. The event which was attended by an audience of five hundred plus. It was chaired by the provincial minster for finance along with minister for planning and development. The speakers at the event included Planning and Development Board Chairman Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan, renowned academic and former federal minister finance Dr Hafiz A Pasha, International Growth Centre Country Director Dr Ijaz Nabi, and Lahore University of Management Sciences Chair of Economics Dr SM Turab Hussain.
The event was heavily marketed and due to the strong topic, it has invited views from media, academics, and practitioners from across the country.
The efforts of the Punjab government have received mix views from the onlookers. While some have praised the work done in Punjab, others have focused their critique based on the deficiencies of the performance of the province, and only a handful took a balanced view. In context of the diverse feedback received, it becomes pertinent to highlight the two reports in form of a reform itself. Punjab has been accredited for being proactive and taking innovative measures for fulfilling its development agendas and delivering according to the needs of its people.
The Punjab Economic Report and the Annual Report of P&D Department is one such innovative means of reform which is aimed at informing the process of policy making in light of evidence and strong backing by data.
It is important to realise that the provincial government has launched the Punjab Economic Report (PER) after 10 years and has launched the P&D Annual Report for the first time since the inception of development functions in the province.
The PER 2017 is an important exercise carried out for an evidence-based analysis of the opportunities and challenges for the province in achieving its growth objectives. The report provides a broad overview of the main sectors of the economy with a particular focus on post 18th Amendment and 7th NFC scenario.
The current report covers growth sectors - agriculture, industry, services; social sectors - health, education, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene); investment priorities -infrastructure, urban development, energy), and emerging opportunities and challenges - CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor), financial management and governance.
During the last decade, many strategy documents have been formulated by Punjab of which the Punjab Growth Strategy launched in 2015 is an integral one which not only binds the objectives of the current government but is also a key player in informing futuristic plans. The Punjab Economic Report has been written in the context of the current growth strategy wherein, each chapter of the report clearly spells out the relevant objectives of the strategy and lists the programmes and budgetary allocations which have been made under the medium term development framework. The report also identifies remaining gaps, issues and problems across sectors which need to be addressed in the future. On the basis of this analysis each chapter puts forward a set of policy recommendations for the provincial government.
Similarly, P&D’s Annual Performance Report is an instrumental document which has been initiated under the vision of the chairman, P&D Board. This report, for the first time ever, documents the key activities, achievements, reforms and areas requiring improvement and reflect on past years performance of the P&D Department.
Doing this, with elections just around the corner, is surely a brave and valiant effort on part of the government. Whether the province has achieved all its stated goals of growth, development, health, education and water, gets completely overshadowed simply by the openness and transparency of the government to throw all possible information in the public. This character of the government represents a ‘change from the norm’. This increased comfort with transparency and sharing information with citizens shows the gradual reform that has happened over the last few years.
Moreover, if one reads between the lines of the two reports mentioned above, one realises that increased transparency is just one of the reforms in Punjab.
The province, under the current management of P&D has brought about a series of reforms over the last two years by introducing a counter-intuitive and evidence-based practice of policy making opposed to the previous practice of opinion-based decision making.
In lieu of this, the Punjab Economic Forum (PEF) was held in March 2017. The PEF brought together several notable academics, professionals and experts who extensively debated about developing futuristic policies for Punjab.
P&D Department under its role of ‘thought leadership’ has started a series of dialogues between key public sector administrators and policy makers on issues impacting performance of the government. The proceedings from such forums results in better direction and informs the future development activities.
Earlier this year, a high-level dialogue was held on ‘New Planning Framework’ for Punjab. The dialogue raised several pertinent questions on how resources can be more effectively utilised.
One key output of the dialogue was the identification that current development planning cycle did not allow sufficient time to use evidence in building interventions. Consequently, P&D developed a new framework that now has mandatory requirement to use evidence and stakeholder feedback in improving development interventions.
Another factor that historically dampened the performance of the government was the lack of sector policies and targets. Punjab government has now developed guidelines for line departments to start building their sector policies.
As a result of this, in the last six months, initial policy drafts for industrial development, WASH, livestock, agriculture, irrigation, mines and minerals, population welfare, IT, tourism, and environment have emerged.
Reading further, the Annual Report informs about the openness of the government and how it is strongly supporting the growth of private enterprises by making the environment more conducive for them and at the same time making it easier for them to partner with the government, especially in areas of energy and construction.
The government has also become inclusive and has started special programmes that focus on the 10 most deprived districts of Punjab and within them focuses more on the most excluded. Gender and socially handicapped are now a stringer part of initiatives. Moreover, for improving access and experiences of service delivery, the provincial government is now open to innovative and novel ideas that work in the local context and prefer a home-grown approach.
Historically, there has always been a debate and negative sentiment about how donor agendas strongly influence government working. Not so much now in Punjab, as the government has started a series of policy dialogues with its development partners like World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development (DFID) and UN Agencies to discuss and agree on a common intervention framework. This sort of rigorous dialogue has never happened at the provincial level before. It is expected that such combined efforts will significantly improve aid effectiveness.
One can go on talking about these individual reforms, but what is more important is to grasp the message coming out of it. Whereas, it is true that lot of investments have gone into visible, high value projects, at the same time Punjab has been reforming one step at a time. The reform approach is problem driven and focused on local context novel ideas. There is a lot that the other provinces can learn from this reform experience of Punjab.
The Annual Report and the PER if read in appropriate depth, suggest that Punjab is not only about brick and mortar but much more is happening behind the scenes, where the province is really committed to change and deliver fully to its new branding slogan of ‘improving lives’!
The writers work at the Punjab Planning and Development Department
