Investor Presentaiton
Chapter IV - Annual Development Programme
education sector, infrastructure improvement and provision of new educational facilities and development of online education models. It will
also take measures to ensure efficient distribution of conditional cash transfers managed by SED. In addition, expansion of Insaaf Afternoon
School Program will be done that aims to provide opportunities to students at the middle and secondary school level who drop out. Once the
schools re-open, a mass re-enrolment campaign shall be carried out.
For improving management and monitoring regime in the sector, the Government shall be focussing on capacity building of the school councils
for efficient utilisation of the non-salary budget and carry out integration of data management system to enable the digitisation of the functions
of School Education Department. The department has initiated the pilot School Improvement Framework in six districts. This School
Improvement Framework is a system of monitoring and data collection that ensures that each school is able to collect and receive data to
assess its own performance.
Risk Communication
The fight against pandemics or disease outbreaks such as COVID-19 cannot be won without effective risk communication. The Government's
response strategy to COVID-19 places risk communication at the heart of its major intervention. The focus and effort required to bring about
behavioural change in over 110 million people in the Province, of whom a large portion has low levels of literacy, is indeed a deep challenge
and one that requires a dedicated intervention. As a first step, the strategy will look towards assessing the existing information value chains
and building on them an integrated and unified public channel to disseminate risk communication. This will further involve policy changes and
coordination between a host of departments and stakeholders, and between the media and cyber control agencies to ensure strict standards
are developed and enforced. The Government will also leverage more with international agencies and channel good practices and common
information on risk mitigation through mediums that would work more effectively in local contexts. It is important to highlight that inclusion is an
important aspect and is often under-represented in communications, especially in the context of Pakistan and Punjab, where the social and
digital divide is stark. Finally, communication interventions will involve a large number of diversified and relevant stakeholders and experts to
ensure a greater impact.
Public Financial Management Systems
The strategic interventions presented above can only be implemented effectively if the public financial management systems are flexible enough
to respond to large-scale shocks and there exist clear approaches and processes for disaster risk financing. The Government is cognizant of
the fact that it will not have much space to introduce new taxes as the economy is already in recession; however, at the same time, it will have
to work towards reducing the deficits that will accrue from stimulus and bailout packages. Therefore, the strategy is to enhance revenue
potential through increased expenditure efficiency and by increasing the effectiveness of existing taxes. In the initial response, the Government
relaxed provincial taxes worth PKR 18 billion till June 2020; however, some of these relaxations may need to be reviewed. Additionally, the
Government will review spending authorisations and release of funds policies to ensure that cash is available at service delivery units
responding to the COVID-19 emergency. All cash plans will be reviewed to prioritise essential expenditure and consolidate Government cash
by pooling all assets at the treasury. The framework also requires improving reporting and expenditure tracking capabilities and developing
disaster risk financing strategy for the Province to ensure that funds are allocated and used judiciously and effectively.
Implementing the RISE Framework
Though the agenda presented above is extensive, the Government is committed to implement it and has already initiated adequate measures
to implement it. P&D Board has developed an ADP Development Framework to filter existing as well as new projects to ensure alignment with
RISE Punjab. It will also ensure that the identified projects are implemented during the next fiscal year. The interventions requiring softer policy
reforms have also been identified and the Government is working actively to implement them. Similarly, interventions that can leverage PPP
and donor funding have also been identified and a dialogue with potential partners has already initiated.
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