ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a knowledge and support technical assistance for Pakistan to enhance the capacity building of the new federal and provincial governments on structural transformation, programming, and management of the ADB portfolio in Pakistan.

The technical assistance worth $220,000 will be the first of its kind in Pakistan to systematically address the capacity building demand of the government more broadly and respond to the knowledge support needs of key stakeholders in a coordinated manner.

The assistance is aligned with the development impacts of government reform initiatives and donor-supported operations delivered effectively and efficiently. The ADB assistance will have the outcome of capacity of the government to define its plans and actions increased and operational knowledge of executing and implementing agencies in programming and implementing ADB-supported projects improved.

The government urgently needs to address the large budget and current account deficits, rising debt obligations, and falling foreign exchange reserves.

The challenges are to adopt the right reforms — tighten monetary policy, enhance the tax base, contain losses incurred by public sector enterprises, and resolve the structural issues that undermine export competitiveness — and achieve good outcomes to sustain public support.

The technical assistance, with its overall focus on enhancing the government’s institutional capacity, will assist the government’s structural transformation by analysing current and emerging development and policy gaps and overlapping issues; developing new innovations and sector plans and strategies; and building government capacity to improve project quality at entry and project management during the implementation stages.

The impact of capacity development efforts under transaction technical assistance is not usually sustained after a project ends because of the lack of institutional responsibility within relevant government departments or agencies.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2018