Islamabad: In the context of the new IMF program and the upcoming budget for the fiscal year 2024-2035, Pakistan’s economic stabilization reforms must have a human face to promote a balanced recovery and inclusive growth that does not burden the people and improves the situation in the country. indicators of human development.
This was the consensus among leading national and international policy experts who addressed a high-level panel discussion on national economic reforms organized by UNDP, SDPI and the World Bank under the Prosperity for Pakistan initiative.
In the panel discussion moderated by prominent economic journalist Khurram Hussain, Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, former Caretaker Minister of Finance and Revenue; Ms. Kanni Wignaraja, UN Under-Secretary-General, UNDP Administrator and Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific; Mr. Tobias Akhtar Haque, Chief Economist and Acting Country Director, World Bank Pakistan; and Dr. Abid Suleri, Executive Director, SDPI.
Dr. Shamshad Akhtar emphasized the need for a whole-of-government approach to reforms. “Macroeconomic stability must be our religion,” she argued.The single most important obsession a country should have is increasing revenue and export earnings.
UNDP Regional Director Ms. Kanni Wignaraja highlighted findings contained in UNDP’s Integrated SDG Insights Report for Pakistan 2023, which shows that the country is on track to achieve only 35 of the 169 SDG goals. “The road to the 2030 Agenda will be long and challenging,” she said.
Tobias Haque of the World Bank identified regressive subsidies in the energy, fertilizer and gas sectors and the fiscal costs of state-owned enterprises as contributing to Pakistan’s fiscal pressures. “The burden of reform needs to be spread more widely, and further measures to increase tax returns should be aimed at the top of the income distribution,” he advised.
Dr. Addressing climate vulnerability and climate finance, SDPI’s Abid Suleri said: “More than climate vulnerability, Pakistan’s climate finance negotiations should focus on private sector climate justice and community response to the 2022 floods.”
Earlier, the Resident Representative of UNDP Pakistan welcomed the guests to the event.
“We anticipate that stabilization policy will continue over the next 3-5 years, and to be successful, it must be people-centred and address economic injustice,” he said.
Participants agreed that the government needs to balance economic recovery with stabilization, creating income and livelihood opportunities for people, and discussed a National Economic Recovery Plan focused on the following reforms:
• Ensuring solvency, income and fiscal sustainability;
• Bending Pakistan’s political economy towards economic justice and good governance:
• Deficit reduction through inclusive growth and effective import and export management;
• Transition to a green economy;
• Ensuring social protection and social safety nets in order to minimize the adverse impact of structural reforms on the most vulnerable.
