KARACHI: Pakistan needs to prioritise digital transformation as it can offer a faster track to addressing Pakistan’s chronic economic challenges, a think tank report stated on Friday.
To remain globally and regionally competitive, the country must enhance its participation in the expanding global digital economy, according to the report 'Digital Now: A guide to Pakistan’s digital transformation' from Tabadlab’s Centre for Digital Transformation.
The report highlighted the potential of digital technology to improve quality of life for Pakistanis across the board, from urban professionals to rural villagers. It provided a roadmap for Pakistan’s digital transformation, offering a framework for thinking about digital opportunities in a holistic and interconnected manner.
The research provided a foundational analysis necessary to institutionalise development and adoption of a vision that could help in the process of digitalisation. It recommended a strategic and long-term approach, with the commitment of all stakeholders, including political leaders, technical experts, bureaucracy, civil society, and the people of Pakistan.
The report argued that the country needed to fully embrace the potential of digital to take advantage of having a young population, and delay in adopting a "digital first" approach could increase the gap between Pakistan and its regional and global peers, potentially affecting its position and participation in the global economy.
According to Tabadlab’s head of advisory Umar Nadeem, Pakistan lags far behind in establishing a digital environment that can effectively address chronic governance challenges, service delivery issues, economic opportunities, and gender participation.
The report explained that digitalisation could promise livelihoods, wellbeing, and resilience, helping the country towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals. “By 2030, estimated economic value of $60 billion gained; $100 billion potential income from adoption of Web 3 over the next 20 years,” it said.
The think tank in the report recommended user-center efforts to design and build digital experiences to engage all segments of the population. It also stressed ownership and accountability to align short-term decisions to longer-term objectives, growth priorities, and gains.
The report called for an ecosystem-wide engagement to facilitate and include all stakeholders and actors to drive collective action for reaping greater rewards.
The future is about artificial intelligence, blockchain, metaverse, and cloud computing, according to the report that emphasised growth priorities which included digital government, start-up environment, sector digitisation, and global integration.
“Over the last two decades, Pakistan’s ranking across some prominent digital indices has not shown any significant improvement.” The report identified policies and governance structures, digital infrastructure, digital skills, and safety protocols as key elements of the core enablers for digitalisation process.
According to the think tank, technology-led government and businesses can contribute to the digital economy through growth and local digital businesses, new offerings, and public private partnerships. It added that they could also help in enabling an environment for the private sector to grow.
Digitisation opportunities presented by high growth areas, including government digitisation, start-up ecosystem, sectoral digitisation, and global integration, could be effectively capitalised upon by a combination of strategic government effort, a conducive enabling environment, and a focus on advanced technologies, the report said.
