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Showing all content in Pakistan
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Project
State engagement with religious leaders for effective COVID-19 crisis response
With the outbreak of COVID-19, many Muslim countries throughout the world including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Malaysia, Turkey and Iran imposed restrictions on religious gatherings and congregations, including the mandatory Friday prayer. In Pakistan, however, the state was unable to effectively negotiate with the religious leaderships and mosques remained open. In the...
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Project
Tying rapid response to smart testing: Empowering local government response in Pakistan’s COVID-19 outbreak
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the world have been grappling with how to determine the prevalence of the virus in their own countries and introduce policy responses that will best mitigate its impact. No ‘optimal’ testing strategy has emerged and a shortage of tests has limited the information on population prevalence and transmission...
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Blog post
Responding to the impacts of COVID-19 on informal workers in South Asia
Informal workers contribute the most to the economy in the region but are excluded from the legal and contractual protections of formal workers. As the COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold across the world, informal workers remain exceptionally vulnerable to the economic and labour market shocks of the pandemic. Many of these workers are likely to lose their jobs and face...
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Blog post
Engaging with mosque imams for effective responses to COVID-19
Authors’ note: The results discussed in this blog are based on a pilot. These findings are preliminary and are being presented for initial consideration and discussion. We will update this blog once information from wider research is available. In order to combat the spread of COVID-19, a large number of Islamic countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and...
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Blog post
COVID-19: Pakistan’s preparations and response
The government of Pakistan has taken unprecedented steps to counter the effects of COVID-19 crisis, but is unclear if these will be enough given the challenges facing the country prior to the pandemic. Pakistan is amongst the 180+ countries dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. There are now clear warnings of a global economic recession as workers continue to fall sick,...
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Project
Defining the contours of a spatial strategy for Balochistan
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area and the least inhabited in terms of population. It is endowed with abundant natural resources (such as coal, copper, and gold) and is the largest supplier of natural gas. Two-thirds of the country’s coastline is also along its southern border. It sits at the intersection of key regional trade routes and corridors and...
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Emissions rating programme: Environmental impacts and firm behaviour
Several countries have used emissions rating programmes to incentivise industrial plants to comply with emissions standards and maintain low levels of pollution. Such programmes function by using regularly monitored emissions data from major industrial plants to rate firms from the least compliant to the most compliant. Besides making environmental performance more...
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Blog post
Improving teacher accountability in Pakistan’s rural schools
Pakistan has extremely low learning levels and poor education service delivery is a driving factor. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has expressed a strong desire for evidence on how to design evaluation and oversight systems for the education sector, with the goal of improving learning. Accordingly, we conducted an International Growth Centre (IGC) supported study...
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Emissions rating programme: environmental impacts and firm behaviour in Pakistan
Several countries have used emissions rating programmes to incentivise industrial plants to comply with emissions standards and maintain low levels of pollution. Such programmes function by using regularly monitored emissions data from major industrial plants to rate firms from the least compliant to the most compliant. Besides making environmental performance more...
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Project
Preference parameters and public sector contracts: A field study with polio vaccinators in Pakistan
Workers' time preferences can be measured using their intertemporal allocations of real work tasks and then used to individually customise incentive contracts. In a previous study, we worked with polio vaccinators in Lahore who travelled door-to-door to deliver polio vaccine. The intervention led both to better polio vaccine coverage and provided proof-of-concept that...