The World Bank approved Friday a package of assistance worth $50 million to support the implementation of Punjab Public Management Reform (PPMR) Programme, a subject of the government's Governance Reform programme that focuses on addressing critical constraints to service delivery. The programme will help improve transparency and resource management of targeted departments of Punjab.
"Despite being the country's biggest and wealthiest province, Punjab faces significant governance, poverty reduction and inequality challenges," said Rachid Benmessaoud Country Director for the World Bank Pakistan. "The programme will help the Government of Punjab in delivering quick results in public services while sustaining the reform momentum."
The most critical constraint to improving service delivery in Punjab is the weak performance management of the departments responsible for providing public services. Moreover, citizens face significant challenges in accessing government services due to the strongly entrenched position of field officials and other structural handicaps such as distance, language, cultural practices, and lack of information about services.
"The absence of reliable information about performance and service delivery, limits accountability of those along the service delivery chain", said Zubair Khurshid Bhatti, the task team leader of the programme. "This operation will support the Government of Punjab in collecting information about service delivery and performance, making it available to citizens and decision-makers, and strengthening feedback loops for improved accountability."
The instrument that will be used for this operation is a Programme for Results (PforR) credit. The PforR design provides financial and non-financial incentives to deliver programme results, and supports counterparts along the reform process through the agreed results targets linked to disbursements. Disbursement-linked indicators (DLIs) have been carefully selected to provide incentives on critical roadblocks to improving the programme's effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.
The PPMR Programme is the first Bank operation that will utilise the PforR lending instrument in the public management sector in Pakistan. It aims to leverage Punjab's track record in results management, its experience with Bank's results-based operations, and the overall engagement on governance and service delivery with the Bank. Besides financial incentives, the PforR instrument and the underpinning institutional arrangements also have the potential to influence government management of day-to-day service delivery beyond the targeted departments. By disbursing against the national budget on the basis of key milestones achieved, it aims to foster a discussion between Finance and line departments on results and value for money. By focusing on key cross-cutting results, it aims to facilitate dialogue within public agencies and across layers of government. Some of the systems supported by the Programme, such as the citizen feedback mechanisms, have already been incorporated into the Bank-funded Land Records Management Information Systems Project, and could also benefit the rest of the portfolio in the province. The credit is financed from the International Development Association (IDA), and will be on standard IDA blend terms, with a maturity of 25 years, including a grace period of five years.
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