Japan Special Fund has provided one million-dollar for supporting the private participation in infrastructure (PPI) programme. The government has started to address remaining policy constraints to private participation in infrastructure programme in key sectors of the economy with Asian Development Bank (ADB) support.
The government has established a task force to ensure co-ordination of program implementation, which comprises high-level officials from the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Planning Commission, Ministry of Justice, and other state bodies relevant for PPI policy reforms.
The task force has mandate to establish working groups to advance specific areas of the PPI program policy reforms. The Task Force will be supported by a permanent secretariat that directly reports to the head of the task force.
Technical assistance (TA) will support capacity building initiatives for MoF and the task force to support effective implementation of the PPI program and develop capacity through training activities. In particular, the TA will strengthen the capacity of the government's PPI policy task force and support PPI reforms in key sub-sectors of the economy.
In the area of supporting the work of the task force, the key activities of the TA will use to review the government's concession policies for PPI and assess whether there is a need for legislation on concession; draft explanatory guidelines for judges and practitioners on implementing alternative dispute resolution; assess the implementation and impact of the government's PPI policy; to develop detailed proposals for strengthening the policy, legal and regulatory framework for PPI and broadening its scope to cover other priority sectors.
Linkage to country/sector strategy recognising that the government is aiming for substantial increases in medium-term growth rates supported by infrastructure development, ADB's Country Strategy and Programme Update 2006-2008 for Pakistan placed a renewed emphasis on infrastructure development encompassing a series of interventions in the sub-sectors of energy, transport, and communication, irrigation and water resource development, and urban development and renewal.