Framework for Economic Growth, Pakistan - Planning Commission

International conference on “Framework for Economic Growth, Pakistan”programs? There are following three ways tomake public sector more effective andresponsive to the service delivery:1) Process of agreeing and settingoutcomes across federal and provincialbureaucracy i.e. forcing decision makersand stakeholders to really think that howtheir interventions may lead to giveoutcomes. Using outcome and results insetting process forces decision makers tolook at actual outcomes rather than justlooking at inputs.2) How to use monitoring andevaluation once budgets and programshave been set to build capability forresponsiveness. In Pakistan directfeedback mechanism don’t exist formany areas of service delivery,especially for the citizens at federal,provincial and district levels. If acombination of product and servicedelivery monitoring and evaluationmechanism may be developed in PrimeMinister’s Office, involving focusgroups to take feedback, it can help inimproving public responsiveness. Soflexible management framework alongwith public participation would beimportant in improving public sectorresponsiveness and results.3) Improving planning including evenmedium term budget planning for thedevelopment programs in public sector.We need a very flexible and responsivemanagement framework to get desiredresults in the public sector. For Pakistan weneed to also include stakeholders and to takepublic opinion for getting better results,improving overall planning process, publicservice delivery capability andresponsiveness and making budget planningmore adaptive.***Discussant: Vinaya SwaroopSector Manager of Economic Policy in South Asia, World BankI need the attention of Deputy ChairmanPlanning Commission and would like to talkabout the things which should not be done.Back in 1990’s I first time heard aboutResult Based Management System (RBM),also known as Performance BasedManagement. We must collect informationon performance indicators for improvingperformance in public sector. We heardabout the experience of New Zealand andAustralia where it turned on the economies.In New Zealand performance and pay of thehead of a financial institution working undera contractual agreement was linked toinflation. The head was asked to manage andbring down the inflation and hisperformance was linked to controllinginflation. When I told this example to one ofmy counterparts in the country he juststarted laughing and said that you want myperformance to be judged based on inflationin my country? You must be kidding as I ama Civil Servant. It was 1995 and we knewthat this thing couldn’t go forward.Pakistan needs to collect information todevelop performance indicators. We haveworked on medium term expenditureframework in over hundred countries and wemust admit that this was not a successfulexperience as we have found thatinfrastructure spending in developingcountries is not associated with highereconomic growth. We have worked onexplaining this fact and also developedworking papers on the issue. To explainhere, I share Uganda’s experience wheretheir bank started Public Expenditure41