Beyond PRSPs: National and Provincial Growth Strategies

PRSPs are overarching policy documents which cut across a range of mandates including but not limited to purely economic priorities. Key pillars of PRSP in Pakistan focused on macroeconomic stability, private sector development, human resource development, financial sector and SME related reforms, infrastructure development, devolution, and social safety nets. The PRSP is still being used in the Finance Division for monitoring of poverty-related expenditures. In an evaluation of PRSP-II following shortcomings have been identified: [1]

•  Parliament was never fully engaged by the government for consultation and input on PRSPs. There is no reference to the effect of the approval of the PRSP in the parliamentary debates.
• PRSP-I and II do not define any distribution mechanisms for growth. In fact the term land reforms (which is at the core of asset redistribution) finds no mention in these documents.
• Education and health related expenditures under PRSP had met a resource constraint (and cuts) starting 2009. PRSP had also ignored the important problem of health financing for poor.
• Local governments had no role in the delivery and management of health and education sector programs.
• No specific actions were envisaged towards legal and judicial reforms in the country.
• The post-18^th Amendment milieu will require a different socio-economic planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation regime – which is currently not envisaged under PRSP.

The proposed growth strategy being formulated in Planning Commission takes stock of the shortcomings of Medium Term Development Framework 2005 – 10, PRSP-I & II, and prioritizes governance and institutional reform as a key pre-requisite before any other sectoral action plan is put forward by the government. The draft strategy recognizes that under the prevalent resource constraint, the aid – led public investment model of growth cannot continue any further. The starting point has to be capitalization of idle capacity in the public and private sector. In the former priority may be attached to be: 

a) restructuring loss generating public sector enterprises, 

b) elimination of untargeted subsidies, and 

c) rationalization of public investments. 

The second pillar of proposed growth strategy then focuses on governance for markets i.e. fostering competition across goods and factor markets, lowering barriers to entry and exit (particularly for small entrepreneurs), and exit of government from agricultural markets. The third pillar is about governance for inclusive cities i.e. revisiting zoning and building regulations, land market reforms, and property rights. The fourth pillar proposes governance for improved connectivity i.e. partial privatization of railways in order to revive the freight sector, revisit market dominance of public sector in road and aviation sector, and incentivizing use of ICT services across the board. Finally the last pillar – youth and community engagement ensures that this growth strategy evolves and remains inclusive overtime.

In order to account for 18^th Amendment, Planning Commission sees a new role for itself where it will continuously work with line ministries and provinces in order to have action-oriented tasks sequenced and prioritized. It is envisaged that in order to building strong consensus before moving towards concrete actions following will be the sequence of development planning documentation:

a.    Growth strategy document [Conceptual framework of a new strategy – May 2011]

b.   10^th Five Year Plan [Sectoral plans in collaboration with line ministries – June 2011]

c.    Provincial growth strategies [In collaboration with all provinces]

d.   Urban development strategies [For all cities having population 1 million and above]

  

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[1] SDPD (2009) Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in Pakistan: An Evaluation. Strenghtening Democracy through Parliamentary Development. http://sdpd.org.pk/