Speakers pledge to ensure sustainable development without any political interference

Nadeem-ul-Haque, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission has said that there is no easy way forward as status quo will not persist for long and tax culture to be evolved doing away with subsidies. Speaking at the concluding session of a two-day conference along with Fauzia Wahab, Chairperson NA Standing Committee on Finance and Palwasha Khan, he said the framework recognises development as a diver of growth.
The two-day conference on "Framework for Economic Growth" organised by the Planning Commission and UNDP concluded here on Thursday pledging to ensure sustainable development in Pakistan without any political interference. Fauzia Wahab said that the growth strategy is purely technical issue and has nothing to do with politics. We will implement it as nobody can object to this strategy which is solely for the welfare of the country, she added. Palwasha Khan, MNA, also appreciated the work done by the Planning Commission in a short span of time for which the government will give it full support.
Today five sessions were held in which paper on "creative cities and urban development, human capital, productivity and innovation, connecting to compete and growth strategy-the way forward" were presented.
The paper presented on "creative cities and urban development Reforms" by Emiel A Weglin, vice-chair of Global Urban Development Netherlands spells out that planning compact development, vertical construction instead of horizontal to accommodate increasing population is necessary. Pakistan's cities contribute 72 percent of GDP while institutions, infrastructure and investment in local economy make cities successful.
Kuchi Abadis are dynamic growth areas of the cities; policies should support their consolidation and not curtailment, he added. He further said that fiscal decentralisation is essential for uniform growth of all the parts of the country, adding that institutional reforms at local level is essential as good connectivity induces urban productivity.
Presenting his paper on "Human capital productivity and innovations", John Speakman, Private Sector Specialist World Bank said that human capital and resultant productivity are vital determinants of economic growth. Besides other factors, health has been regarded as crucial in fostering growth, he maintained. However, fragmented health system and relatively poor health status in Pakistan require a process of reforms so as to have an optimum impact on growth, he added.
The government must ensure knowledge-driven innovation policy without which, he added, sustained development is not possible. It needs to form a flexible, innovation-centric, autonomous body to orchestrate, implement and gauge the innovation strategy, he said.
Amer Z. Durrani sector Co-ordinator for Trade, Logistics, Transport and Customs, World Bank said that connectivity is traditionally seen in physical terms that is roads, railroads network, trucking, number of airlines, computers, cell phones and fibre optics but the new strategy considers it in a broader prospective. In terms of physical connectivity Pakistan scores 1.53 out of 10 in the use of information and communication technology, he added.
Chief Executive Business Recorder Arshad Zuberi while giving his comments on 'connecting to compete', said that conservative nature of society left us behind in development was discussed at tea and coffee in big cities at the time of creation of the country. On a question, he said that we have sold ourselves cheap as we have not added a single rail or road after independence. Zuberi stressed the need to tap energy potentials for economic welfare and to curtail worsening power shortage in the country. "We need to improve inter-provincial connectivity as fibre optics has reached all the tehsil headquarters", Arshad added. He concluded with a proverb, saying this is not the time to play ducks and drakes.