World Bank likely to approve $78m worth ‘Pakistan: Digital Economy Enhancement Project’ on Friday

ISLAMABAD: The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors is likely to approve, “Pakistan: Digital Economy Enhancement Project (DEEP)”, worth $78 million on Friday, aimed at enhancing the government’s capacity for digitally-enabled public services delivery for citizens and businesses, it is learnt.

The project documents revealed that it will support activities that will increase access to and promote the use of digital services across Pakistan, with a focus on broadband access and reducing the significant digital divide currently existing in many parts of the country. The project will also support cross-cutting improvements in the enabling environment—supporting reforms to expand broadband connectivity and to strengthen the policy and legal framework for the digital economy.

The DEEP will also enable institutional, policy, and regulatory global best practices through technical assistance to the implementation agencies—including the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT), the NADRA, Board of Investment (BoI), and other provincial institutions.

Under the project, NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority) under the Ministry of Interior will build a data exchange layer for government agencies to exchange information securely, as well as provide citizens with a digital ‘wallet’ to secure credentials. This is potentially transformative for increasing citizens’ access to public and private services (everything from birth certificates to banking).

The project is aligned with the 2018 Digital Pakistan Policy, and in particular objective, which calls for the establishment of a holistic (government-wide) enterprise architecture and the integration of government databases and systems through e-government service portals.

The project is comprised three components: Component 1: Improving digital economy, governance and service capabilities. This component will provide technical assistance to MoITT for policy and regulatory reforms to address regulatory and market failures in the country’s connectivity infrastructure.

It will include: i. Right-of-Way (RoW) reforms, development, and adoption of a RoW-single-window, onboarding and change management of major civic agencies in the RoW-single-window, and development of RoW dispute resolution procedures. ii.

Broadband demand analysis and stimulation options to improve the affordability of smartphones and update of digital services. iii. Broadband infrastructure mapping, assessment of market failures. iv. Review and recommendations on the institutional and structural alignment of MoITT to meet emerging challenges and opportunities for digital transformation. v. Nationwide stakeholder engagement, training, and workshops.

Component 2: Pakistan Business Portal. This component will support BoI to modernize regulatory regimes in Pakistan at three levels of government: federal, provincial, and municipal. The first stage entails reviewing, mapping, and developing a catalogue of registrations, certificates, licenses, and others (RLCOs) across the three levels of the government, potentially including up to 800 government agencies relevant to dealing with investing and operating businesses in Pakistan.

Activities for establishment of PBP will include stock taking and reform recommendation for simplifying, streamlining, and improving existing regulatory requirements for investing and operating business across Pakistan; digitalization of compliance with regulatory approvals; institutionalizing the reform process as well as the management and upgradation of PBP; and Communicating reforms and transitions to PBP. Component 3: Project management. This component will cover the establishment of Project Management Units (PMU).

The project will be implemented by the MoITT, which has the required institutional mandates. The Member for Information Technology “Member, IT” will provide general implementation and coordination oversight.

Despite the policy instruments available at the federal and provincial levels, the responsible institutions lack implementation support causing missed opportunities across various sub-sectors. Despite the presence of relatively strong national ID and payment systems the lack of interoperability frameworks and mechanisms has limited the capacity of the government (as well as non-government actors) to exchange data securely and seamlessly.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024