ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point news – 21st Nov, 2023) “Pakistan needs serious internal reset and order under improved governance to achieve economic and geostrategic balance in the region.”
This was on Tuesday at the plenary session of the 26th Conference on Sustainable Development organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute on the theme “Balancing Geostrategic and Economic Diplomacy”. The main theme of this year’s conference is “Light at the Conclusion of the Tunnel: Hope in a Time of Despair”.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch in her speech said that the Special Investment Promotion Council (SIFC) was a commendable platform where international, federal, provincial and local institutions worked together to promote investment in the country.
According to him, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs trains diplomats in economic diplomacy. Bureaucratic adjustments were important because ambassadors and diplomats needed to understand economic diplomacy, he added.
Former National Security Adviser Dr Moed Yousuf said that there were no appropriate experts sent to Pakistani missions abroad to promote economic diplomacy such as IT or medical diplomacy.
Regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict, he said it was important for Pakistan to take policy measures to protect its interests in the Middle East.
Haroon Sharif, former chairman of the Board of Investment, said that geo-economics is not a new topic but now it has aggressively changed shape, while Pakistan is stuck in a situation where there is liquidity in the region but its dynamics or nature has changed. .
“We need to respond to this extraordinary change in an unconventional way because the country needs a different economic equation for everyone,” he added.
SDPI Board of Governors Chairman Shafkat Kakakhel said in welcoming words that climate diplomacy has emerged as a new form of diplomacy where it not only aims to protect the country’s national security interests but also ensures its commercial and economic cooperation. the international community.
Later, experts at a session on “Green Transition in South Asia” urged policymakers to incorporate a gender empowerment perspective into disaster management and resilience policies in Pakistan.
Sandra Baldwin, deputy director of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), said that during the recent devastating floods in Pakistan, more girls were left out of school and, months later, when schools reopened, very few returned to affected schools. territories.
She emphasized that gender-responsive disaster management was essential to address disparities, as women and girls were more vulnerable.
Hamid Yaqoob Sheikh, Revenue Mobilization, Investment and Trade (REMIT) Team Leader, said: “The program works to increase the number of taxpayers to enhance tax revenue mobilization, in addition to reducing investment climate challenges and barriers faced by local and international businesses. trade and increase competitiveness thereby increasing exports to reduce Pakistan’s trade deficit.
BOI Additional Secretary Ambreen Iftikhar said women could play an important role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by contributing to pre-disaster and post-disaster risk management as they had more knowledge and information in this regard.
National Institute of Banking and Finance (NIBAF) Managing Director Riaz Nazar Ali Chunara said that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has been working diligently to digitize the economy and banking sector.
In another session on ‘Tobacco Taxation – Light at the Conclusion of the health and Poverty Tunnel’, experts called for strict regulation and punitive measures to reduce tobacco use and eliminate its socio-economic dangers.
They warned that tobacco use causes 80 million deaths each year in low- and middle-income countries, and more than 160,000 people die each year in Pakistan from tobacco-related diseases.
Dr. Wasim Iftikhar Janjua of SDPI said that the tobacco industry was creating a deceptive narrative of using tobacco products to boost their sales by misleading the youth and the general public.
Blanca Llorente, Fundacion Anaas, Colombia, who participated in the discussion via video link, said that between 2010-23, Colombia followed three different paths – government intervention, local research and continuous civil society advocacy for large increases in tobacco taxes.
Asif Iqbal, CEO of the SPDC, said: “Every 50 out of 1,000 people use tobacco products and more than 30 million people are tobacco users worldwide, causing approximately 160,000 deaths each year.”
Dr. Syed Kalem Imam, former secretary of the Ministry of Narcotics Control, said that cigarettes are expensive in the United States, while the tobacco sector here was involved in tax evasion.
Khurram Hashmi of Vital Strategies emphasized the need to strengthen the knowledge base, including literature in the anti-tobacco curriculum, and to involve all stakeholders in strengthening complaints against the illicit tobacco trade.
Speaking at another session titled: ‘Prosperity for Pakistan: Policy Agenda for the Future Government’, Senator Dr. Musadiq Malik said the country needs to focus more on water productivity, agricultural productivity and young entrepreneurs and startups related to small and medium businesses. enterprises (SMEs) to ensure its economic sustainability and revitalization.
Aisha Ghaus Pasha, former minister of State for Finance and Revenue, said that if the default had not been avoided, the country would have faced high inflation, unemployment and civil unrest.
He added that IMF assistance is needed to manage the country’s fiscal issues while prompt and accurate policy decisions are needed.
Salim Mandviwala, a former minister of state for finance, said governance is the country’s key issue and the last 16 months have been crucial to save the country from default. However, he said, lack of governance, political instability and bureaucratic loopholes need to be addressed for better economic system and improvement of the country.
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, secretary general of the Awami National Party (ANP), said that fear and insecurity were the main problems in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, with poor water management exacerbating the crisis as nearly 80 percent of fresh water is lost due to poor storage. Capacity.
He regretted that the International Monetary Fund had tasked the government with helping the poor, but the budgets presented at the parliamentary session were just a play on words.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Taj Haider said economic development should be a priority in the face of war as it is an existential threat if left unattended.
Former SAPM Youth Affairs Shaza Fatima Khawaja emphasized the need to ensure ease of doing business, consistent policies, youth-led policies and e-governance, while progressive taxation and targeted subsidy to improve the country’s economy.
Country Representative, UNDP-Pakistan, Samuel Rizk, appreciated the political leadership’s discourse on key issues of public interest. He suggested the stakeholders to adopt a social and political contract to make government decisions in favor of the underserved and the poor.
In another session titled: “Towards an Affordable and Sustainable Food System in Pakistan”, experts said that women’s involvement was key to gender equality in the context of food security, as Pakistan’s food systems were vulnerable to shocks that severely affected nutrition. Individuals, especially women, are therefore affected by their future resilience.
Prof. Tariq Mukhtar, Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, said from a global perspective, a total of 3.1 billion people are sadly unable to afford a healthy diet by 2021.
Besides, he said, the insecurity of Pakistanis has also increased after the Russia-Ukraine war, which has led to a sharp rise in commodity prices worldwide.
Dr. Lawrence Haddad of Gian International said: “Malnutrition is an intergenerational transmission mechanism of weakness today, translating into weakness tomorrow, and so good nutrition can be a way to break this intergenerational cycle and build resilience today and equal resilience tomorrow.”
Jamie Morrison from Gain International talked about issues arising in the ecosystem and how to develop partnerships. “We also propose that all organizations in the support ecosystem should take leadership from the national government and ideally through a national convening that coordinates and is also accountable for action on food system transformation issues within the country.”
He also emphasized the need for data availability.
Dr. Shaheen Ashraf Shah of world Food Program said that the condition of women farmers in Pakistan was very poor and there was a need for their financial inclusion and skill development.
However, she said, women had very low employment rates in the country’s systems, whether it was the food system or the transportation system. According to him, bringing more women into the institutions will be the first indicator of a significant change.
In a session titled: Empowering Communities: Conclusioning Poverty in Pakistan, PPAF Executive Director Nadir Gul Barech said their strategy is based on five core values: engagement, participation, transparency, accountability and leadership. According to him, his organization gave out about three million interest-free loans, of which 55 percent of the beneficiaries were women.
Professor Imran Rasul from University College London, UK spoke about the impact of interventions on economic attitudes. He suggested that economic attitudes can be understood in terms of three sets, namely, distributional preferences, market-supportive beliefs, and trust in neighbors. Social protection programs were a central policy issue for governments in the developing world, he quoted.
Dr. Kate Viborni from the South Asia Region Gender Innovation Lab, TWA, USA highlighted the role of community institutions in promoting social and economic empowerment.
Dr. Ayesha Khan of the AHKF said that the community institutions of the poor were either very weak or missing altogether. As a result, NGOs have stepped in to fill this gap. According to him, the task of non-governmental organizations is to facilitate the transition of community institutions and strengthen them. The success of this transition depended on community participation, he added.
