Pakistan 2010 Programme

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif\'s Pakistan 2010 Programme aims to realise the Quaid\'s glorious vision. Economic prosperity is essential to this vision, but neither is it the only goal nor the most important one. The vision is based on four goals:
Justice: for all Pakistanis, including women, minorities and other vulnerable groups;
Tolerance: of opinion, belief, customs, values, behavior, life style and knowledge;
Knowledge: for production and competition and for its own sake; and Entrepreneur ship: not in the sense of an ability to exploit others, but rather as a behavior that innovates, produces and serves society.
Our ability to achieve these goals depends upon good governance.
The immediate goals of the Pakistan 2010 Programme are to establish good governance, double per capita income and ensure equitable access to economic opportunity and quality social services.
To achieve these goals requires a broader definition of development --not as catching up\' (which focused almost exclusively on physical capital), but as \'making things work\' with a primary, though not exclusive, emphasis on social and human capital.
Pakistan remained underdeveloped not because the endowment of physical capital was low, but because we had a low capacity to operate and maintain that capital effectively; not for want of institutions, but by a dearth of standards of behaviour that enable institutions perform effectively; not because we did not have sound policies, but because we lacked the ability to implement those policies effectively; not for want of laws, but because of the absence of norms of conduct that prevent the misuse of laws.
The experience of the East Asian countries provide certain lessons on how to reduce poverty and double incomes in a decade. Their details and contexts differ from Pakistan.
Nevertheless, their experience and our has shown that six key enabling conditions are necessary to achieve the 2010 vision:
* A sound system of governance with political stability and a reasonably competent and honest public service;
* high investment in education and research;
* a culture of high savings, investments and exports;
* the ability to take advantage of the emerging international opportunities;
* responsible economic and financial institutions; and collaborative partnerships between the government, the private sector and the citizens.
In keeping with the partnership approach, the Pakistan 2010 Programme has been developed over extensive consultations with a wide cross section of stakeholders.
Such consultations will continue during the entire implementation phase to ensure that the programme does not lose direction and enjoys broad ownership in society.
The purpose of the programme\'s strategic policy is to prepare the economy to carry forward Pakistan\'s vision in the light of prevailing and oncoming global trends, to enable it benefit from emerging opportunities while protecting it from adverse consequences.
The programme\'s core strategy is based on a collaborative partnerships between, the government, the private sector and citizens in general, with the role of the government restricted to services that cannot be provided by the private sector, the regulation and monitoring of private services and ensuring quality control.
Following are the goals of the Pakistan 2010 Programme:
* Double per capita income to $ 1, 000;
* Increase investment to 30%, savings to 28%, and exports to 20% of the GDP;
* Raise industrial share of GDP to 22% and average industrial growth to 9% per annum;
* Promote science technology through proactive programmes;
* Maintain average agricultural growth of 6% per annum;
* Attain life expectancy of 66 years, literacy rate of 65%, universal access to primary health care and primary education, 50% secondary enrolment and inclusion of at least 5 Pakistani universities amongst the top 50 Asian institutions;
* Improve the distribution of income assets across individuals and regions;
* Enhance the role and the status of women;
* Conserve the environment and the natural resources;
* Lower national debt maintenance of low inflation and unemployment;
* Eradicate malnutrition and poverty;
* Eradicate corruption by a combination of incentives, institutional strengthening and penalties;
* Decentralize decision making to local, district and provincial levels;
* Empower citizens through access to information, acknowledgment of rights and support for their defence;
* Reform and strengthen the three branches of government -- the civil services, the legislature and the judiciary by incentive measures, institutional changes and managerial innovation;
* Ensure that the system of law, order and justice protects the weak against the strong, rather than becoming an instrument for the strong to control the weak.
The uniqueness of the Pakistan 2010 Programme lies not in it\'s overt goals or intermediate targets, but in it\'s approach, it\'s choice of strategic interventions and it\'s deeper objective to create a new partnership between the stake holders, a new government, a new polity, a new economy, a new approach to development and ultimately a new society.
The Programme\'s Long Term Vision
* Instead of the Government managing all issues directly, the programme will help introduce a new partnership between the government, the private sector and the citizens in general.
* The means of this end is a new government, small but effective, decentralized responsible, customer oriented and managed professionally.
* The consequent limitations on the power of the government and the provision of incentives and support to the legislature and the judiciary would help create a new politics, clean, stable, decent and based on respect for the opposition, for business, for the mass media, for academic and civil society institutions (trade unions, professional association and NGOs).
* These infrastructural changes are necessary for a new economy to transform the inward-oriented, state-driven, low-tech production structure into a dynamic, outward-oriented, technologically competitive, partnership-based system, driven by market and quality concerns rather than those of input, exploitation and quantitative targets.
* Behind this lies a new approach to development based on knowledge, creation and it\'s utilization as opposed exclusively to infra structural creation.
* These are the building blocks of a new society characterized by the Islamic values of integrity, discipline, industry, innovation, quality, excellence, social cohesion, tolerance, equity and justice. The Southeast Asian experience brings out clearly the important role played by non-economic factors (including various values, culture and the degree of trust prevalent in society) in the process of economic change.
These norms of conduct also need to be incorporated in governmental, functioning at all levels.
Contributed by Ministry of Planning & Development Government of Pakistan.
To focus the attention on Pakistan 2010 programme Pakistan Post Office is issuing a set of 4 commemorative postage stamp of Rs. 2/- denomination each on November 27, 1998.