Promoting growth and productivity in Pakistan

Due to the success of the first event in Lahore, the IGC Pakistan team organised a second event to be held as part of the ongoing project "Support to the Consortium for Development Policy Research for Policy dissemination for 2015-16".

The full-day seminar took place on 16th November and brought together both local and international researchers to discuss issues of policy relevance which presently include firm capabilities, state capabilities and Growth via CPEC.

It included presentations of IGC and other CDPR partner institutions’ projects that discussed how growth and productivity could be promoted in Pakistan.

• The opening session of the event provided the present policy context in Pakistan as well as initiatives being taken by the government and donors. It featured the Head of DFID Pakistan, Country Programme Director of IGC and Director of IDEAS among others.
• The first session looked at how improving productivity of firms could stimulate growth. This session included a panel chaired by Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Revenue and IGC project counterparts from the government and the private sector.
• The next session was on state capabilities which looked at a variety of issues such as education, use of technology to improve livestock practices and procurement efficiency. This session had Secretary of Education KP and other prominent policymakers from the federation and KP.
• Another session on regional trade looked at the impact of how expanding trade and removing current barriers could help Pakistan achieve stability and growth. Policymakers relevant to this field were part of the panel.
• The last session was a special panel discussion on CPEC and how provinces could integrate their strategies to benefit the most out of CPEC. There was representation from KP, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the Federation.

Watch short video interviews from the conference on CDPR's Youtube page.