03 January 2004	Saturday	10 Ziqa'ad 1424

ISLAMABAD, Jan 2: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a technical assistance (TA) grant of $150,000 to the Pakistan government to establish a network of researchers, academics, development practitioners , lawyers, and others professionals recognized for producing quality policy research.

The ADB country director, M. Ali Shah, in a statement, said the goal of this TA was to develop effective and result-oriented governance, economic, and social policies in Pakistan.

It will also promote high-quality research, debate, and discourse on governance, economic, and social policies, he added. The outputs of the TA will include the production of research-based policy papers on governance, economic, and social policies, and compilation of these papers into a book.

Senior Economic Adviser Naveed Hamid said members of the network would comprise prominent Pakistani researchers, academics, development practitioners, lawyers, and others professionals interested and engaged with policy issues.

The technical assistance will also support involvement and participation of selected expatriate Pakistani researchers as part of the network, primarily in the capacity of peer reviewers or co-authors.

The TA will support regular meetings of the network members, discuss progress on ongoing research initiatives, and build peer review and support to continually improve and expand research horizons of the network.

The statement said the executing agency for the TA would be the Ministry of Finance. An advisory committee, comprising members from the government and private sectors, will be constituted by the finance ministry to provide overall guidance for the implementation of the technical assistance.

The TA will commence in January 2004 and be implemented over 15 months, ending in March, 2005. The statements said there was a need to promote objective analysis and organized debate and discourse on policy issues in Pakistan to build a wide-ranging constituency of support for governance and reforms.

At the same time, intellectual and research-based support is required on sustained basis to assist policy-makers in making informed decisions on major policy issues. Therefore, it is important to develop a network of professionals that is able to provide fresh insights and perspectives on policy issues.