Slowly and gradually, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are shaping things in Pakistan. The country is already witnessing growth in online marketplace as well the emergence of sharing economy. On the non-commercial side, too, silent changes are in motion, as highlighted recently by the World Bank’s recently-released World Development Report (WDR) 2016.
WDR ranked Pakistan as the fourth largest nation in terms of offline population (165 mn; following India, 1.06 bn; China, 755 mn; and Indonesia 213 mn). It should be a cause for concern, but that does not mean that the fruits of technology are not flowing to offline folks. Going through the report, one notices quite a few encouraging examples.
In governance, citizen feedback system is helping reduce problems of “petty corruption” and “poor services”. Thanks to the Punjab government’s Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program (CFMP), WDR credits Pakistan as one of the very few developing countries to have installed a “proactive feedback mechanism”. Since 2012, Punjab government officials have made, on average, quarter million inquiries a month, to gain citizens’ feedback on delivery of sixteen different services.
The report also identified Pakistan’s digital identification system as more advanced than high-income North American countries. This is thanks to professional management at Nadra, which has strong digital ID infrastructure in place that can also be expanded to health insurance and pension schemes.
The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), which provides cash handouts to about five million beneficiaries through debit cards, also figures in WDR for its female empowerment and convenience for the elderly and the disabled.
In the agriculture sector, technology is helping reduce information asymmetries. Using a working paper of Saher Asad, LUMS alumna and a PhD candidate at the George Washington University as of April 2015, the WDR illustrates how mobile phones are helping farmers reduce post-harvest losses for their most perishable crops in the country.
Ms. Asad’s paper, which investigated the result of cell phone usage on crop choice and farmer-trader coordination, had found a positive impact of cellular coverage. “For the extremely perishable crops, the area allocated increases by 23-27 percent the gap between harvest and sale decreases by 5-7 days; and post-harvest losses fall by 21-35 percent…”
Technology is also helping folks realize their creative passions, and the report makes a special mention of Usman Riaz, the 25-year old Pakistani who became a percussive guitar whiz thanks, in most part, to YouTube.
“Usman Riaz began piano lessons at age six in his native Pakistan. He later wanted to explore new instruments and musical styles, but he could not find the right teachers in his own country. Instead, watching videos online, he taught himself percussive guitar, a style that uses the strings and the instrument’s body for percussive effects. Riaz also used the internet to showcase his music. His song “Fire Fly” went viral in 2011. A year later, he shared a stage in Edinburgh with Preston Reed, one of his online idols…”
While good things are happening, one is reminded while reading the report that government policies also need to be more enabling. Among a handful of governments, Pakistani government is also taxing digital products as they were luxury goods. Import tariff on mobile phones stood in excess of 20 percent, the WDR noted. Most of the money raised by USF, the telecom development fund, remains unspent.
In addition, effectiveness of projects like CFMP is somewhat compromised when the dishonest among civil servants enjoy absolute job security and can get away after mere reprimands. Moreover, the democratic government’s indulgence in selective Internet content filtering brings itself at par with autocratic countries. For digital dividends to really come through, policies will need to catch up, too.
