KP identifies seven key areas for post-crisis economic response strategy

PESHAWAR: The KP Planning and Development Department has identified seven key areas that would be the focus of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa post-crisis economic response strategy.

The information was unveiled during a meeting presided by the Additional Chief Secretary Shakeel Qadir Khan. These areas include emergency healthcare, social protection, jobs creation, small and medium enterprises, public works, emergency response and economic growth. The KP government is working on short-term (one year) and medium-term (three years) strategies for the post-crisis economic recovery in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Attended by senior government officials and the representatives of international development partners including UNDP Merged Areas Governance Project, DFID Sub-National Governance Programme and DFID Sustainable Energy & Economic Development Programme, the meeting focused on converging experience and expertise for devising a practical strategy to drive the provincial economic crisis response. Lead Economic Advisor of UNDP Merged Areas Governance Project, Dr Musharraf Rasool Cyan, in his exchange highlighted the urgency of priority interventions to spur the provincial economy such as offering financial stimulus for the private sector, expediting ADP/AIP schemes with the potential of job creation, ensuring funds availability for technology-based transformation and building local systems for district administrations.

The KP government is devising a multi-layered crisis response strategy, which includes the administrative component to oversee lockdowns and the health component to counter the public health emergency.

In addition to the dual strategic measures, the Planning and Development Department is leading the post-crisis economic recovery component of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Crisis Response Strategy.

The additional chief secretary also emphasized the need for data analysis based on the ongoing province-wide survey being conducted by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bureau of Statistics to study the adverse impact on the economy and the quantum of job losses in various sectors.

The data would help the Planning and Development Department with situational analysis, priority setting and resource allocation as part of the post-crisis economic response. Section chiefs of the Planning and Development Department as well as the representatives of international development partners were assigned specific tasks on the post-crisis economic recovery strategy.