Progress and growth in all sectors of a country require sincere leadership, vision to achieve goals, and transparency at all steps. The local, regional, and national levels of the governmental setup of Pakistan need to create avenues for real growth to materialize in all sectors. Unfortunately, the country is at a delicate turning point since its creation. It is time that the vision for the future must be planned and executed in letter and spirit.
A holistic development strategy in this regard needs to be implemented at the earliest. Key areas for development must be marked and tasks must be allocated to proficient experts in their relevant fields. In this regard, education, health, justice, infrastructure, trade and commerce, technology, vocational training, and the industrial sector must be focused upon.
The government needs to create committees and sub-committees at the provincial and federal levels that comprise of learned professionals who know their work inside out. These sub-committees monitor the work done at the local and regional levels. The tasks pertaining to education need immediate attention. The objective is to spread awareness among adults and education among children. Ghost schools in rural areas must be abolished and schools imparting education must be established. The course curriculum of all tracks and boards must be made similar. Furthermore, vocational training institutes and skill development centers must cater to the adults who may not have a degree but can be taught skills to avail employment opportunities.
The sector of health also needs a facelift. The public sector hospitals in the metropolitan cities must be upgraded to cater to the needs of all those who cannot afford treatment at private hospitals. The private hospitals too must create avenues to provide medical relief to those who need immediate medical attention but it is heavy on their pockets.
When talking about infrastructure, special emphasis must be given to repairing the major roads of all cities, properly cleaning the discarding the garbage, renovating buildings, flyovers, underpass, and creating greenbelts across all cities. This daunting task will not be completed overnight. A dedicated workforce along with appropriate equipment and manpower is required to complete this mission. Take the example of Karachi. This city was deemed an icon. However, now the city represents a dystopian look as roads are damaged, garbage is scattered at the roadside, public transportation has become an annoyance and the city buildings and infrastructure need immediate attention so it can be repaired. Sewerage lines need to be restored and pollution needs to be controlled.
While education and health are directly related to the citizens, trade and commerce affect the economy directly while indirectly affecting the citizens. The economic policies along with the various ideas and initiatives must focus on the factors affecting economic growth. These include discovering and using natural resources, acquiring and utilizing physical capital, developing labor, enhancing human capital, using technology, and implementing and protecting laws and regulations. Similarly, special measures must be taken to address the factors that limit economic growth that includes poor health, low levels of education, lack of infrastructure, the flight of capital, political instability, and a weak institutional framework.
The economic sector of Pakistan is also in a dire need to bring reforms in the industrial sector. There needs to be an increase in the manufacturing and production of products to facilitate and boost the gross domestic product. Policies must be put into place to provide subsidies to industries and relief in their expenditure so they can produce more to generate higher exports. This will result in a positive balance of payment. At the micro-level, inflation must be controlled and lessened so that all strata and classes of the population can have more savings than expenses.
The economy in the 21st century is guided and aided by technological forces including e-commerce and startups. With an environment conducive for venture capitalists, investments are easy to acquire by startups in the tech industry. Several tech companies are operating in Pakistan serving the needs of local and international clients. However, the need is to develop the digital ecosystem of Pakistan that can multiply the work being done by such tech companies to increase the revenue by ten folds. All these initiatives can be achieved through a well-organized public-private partnership at all levels of the various sectors of Pakistan.