Ahmed Mukhtar Naqshbandi
ISLAMABAD: Executive Board of the World Bank is likely to consider the approval of “Pakistan: Digital Economy Enhancement Project” worth 78 million dollars next month. The project aims at increasing the government’s capacity for digitally-enabled public services delivery for businesses and citizens.
The documents of the project revealed that a holistic approach to digital government services should have been more noticed. Despite the policy instruments available at the federal and provincial levels, the responsible institutions need more implementation support, causing missed opportunities across various subsectors.
Despite relatively strong national ID and payment systems, the slow interoperability frameworks and mechanisms have reduced the public as well as the non-government sector’s capability to exchange data securely.
The proposed outcome indicators for the project are transactions on the National Data Exchange Layer (Number), unique users on the National Citizen Services Portal (of which are female initiated) (Number and percentage), Registration, Licenses, Certificates, and Other (RLCOs) transaction processed on the Pakistan Business Portal (of which processed for female-led small and medium enterprises) (Number and percentage) and users satisfied with services offered by the National Citizen Services Portal (percentage).
Country faces many areas of digital divide
Despite a good working regulator and an open licensing regime, the country is facing many areas of digital divide—in terms of access to connectivity, economic choices, and digital skills.
The country has 194 million cellular mobile subscribers and 124 million internet users. However, the vast majority relies on 3G/4G connections for using the internet, and fixed broadband penetration is only at about two percent of households areas, limiting data-intensive business and service delivery opportunities.
Investments in fixed-line broadband are expected to continue at a slow pace only in affluent localities, further exacerbating geographic inequalities.
Infrastructure sharing is limited, which results in higher capital and operating costs, further limiting network expansion.
Foreign direct investment in the sector—which for nearly two decades was one of the bright spots in the economy—has also declined in the previous four years.
Overlapping jurisdictions and disparate planning requirements at various levels of government related to right-of-way (RoW) permissions have also constrained and increased the cost of deployment of fixed broadband networks.
Reforms for improving the policy and regulatory environment, as well as improving the capacity of key institutions in implementing policies, particularly for processing permissions for the RoW, are much needed.
