The following recommendations provide a roadmap for transformative reforms in Pakistan and the need for a holistic approach to address economic disparities, enhance public investment, and leverage the country’s demographic potential for sustainable growth:
o Focus on reducing vulnerability to economic shocks that push people into poverty, through comprehensive and equitable reforms.
o Utilise an assets-based approach to understand and address disparities in human, financial, social, natural, and physical capital.
o Invest in improving the productivity of the poor, transitioning from pro-poor growth to fostering pro-growth equity.
o Mobilise domestic resources by broadening the tax base in a progressive manner, without increasing poverty in the short term.
o Enhance public investments in physical, social, and human capital, especially for the benefit of the poor, to stimulate long-term growth.
o Forge coalitions among domestic and external actors for inclusive and sustainable growth, involving elite bargains, citizen engagement, and understanding international/global influences.
o Encourage virtuous cycles by incentivising productive behaviours and entrepreneurship.
o Capitalise on Pakistan’s young and growing population to potentially achieve higher growth rates.
o Implement enrollment campaigns, address multi-grade teaching challenges, improve teacher accountability, and progressively increase budget allocations to health, education, and social protection.
o Strengthen revenues by expanding the tax base, harmonising GST and reducing tax expenditures.
o Utilise targeted taxation specifically for direct beneficiaries of poverty alleviation programmes.
o Intensify skills development programmes for women, including vocational training targeted specifically towards them.
o Draw lessons from global best practices, particularly neighbouring countries like Bangladesh in human development and digital domain strategies.
o Redirect funds from subsidies towards healthcare and education sectors.
o Establish a solid theory of change before implementing policy programmes, with a focus on evidence-based policies that target results.
o Concentrate on improving learning outcomes over simply increasing enrolment in tertiary education and include digital and financial literacy for women in policy designs.
o Perform detailed cost-benefit analyses for each policy project to ensure effective and result-oriented implementation.
