ISLAMABAD: To meet a structural benchmark set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Ministry of Planning and Development has released policy guidelines and a scorecard for evaluating development projects and their financing through the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) over the next three years.

Additionally, the ministry will exclude provincial projects from the federal portfolio, except those in the 20 poorest districts.

The guidelines sent to all the federal ministries, divisions and departments besides the provincial and regional governments would apply to PSDP for 2025-26, 2026-27 and 2027-28.

The ranking for cross-sectoral comparison for inclusion into PSDP or continuation of ongoing projects would be done based on some key factors with strategic alignment to Uraan Pakistan. “Until 2029, the Uraan Pakistan - 5Es National Economic Transformation Plan (2024-29) serves as the guiding reference for strategically aligning all actions with the country’s leadership. Weights will be assigned from 0 to 10,” according to these guidelines.

Therefore, 10pc marks would be considered for eight factors based on alignment with Uraan Pakistan, foreign funding, urgency and need, economic impact, social impact & SDGs, environmental sustainability, fiscal risk and economic & financial return, while 5pc marks would be assigned each to technical aspects, viability gap funding for public-private partnership, balanced regional development and national level projects.

Not only this, projects in each sector would be examined on the basis of 60pc weightage to technical consideration for climate change and environment and 40pc for financial and economic consideration, including operations and maintenance in the infrastructure and production sectors. On the other hand, for social sectors, 50:50 weights would be assigned to technical (climate change & environment) and economic aspects.

For ongoing projects, federal ministries, divisions, and provincial governments would be required to thoroughly scrutinise their respective approved portfolios in order of priority to determine whether the development projects fall under the overall development objectives of the government. Priority would be accorded to the allocation of development funds for core ongoing projects that are in line with the implementation of the strategic transformation plan of Uraan Pakistan.

Priority would also be accorded to projects with 80pc plus expenditure in all sectors to complete them during FY26 and the ministries and divisions would be required to first ensure allocation to ongoing projects according to annual phasing and no further allocation would be given for the projects where full funding has been allocated in PSDP 2024-25. PAOs are required to ensure completion of such projects by June 30, 2025.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2025