Daily Times

Why does Pakistan’s public policy-making face so many difficulties in first designing the right policies and then sticking to them?

Public policy has been a problem since the establishment of Pakistan.

Good policy making is the way governments address the problems faced by the people they are elected to serve. Pakistan has failed to evolve a mechanism for consistent policy making and implementation. According to the constitution of Pakistan, the Executive is responsible for the development of public policies. After the 18th Amendment, policy making in several areas including education, health and local government has been devolved to the provinces. In reality, policy making since independence has been dominated by vested interests.

It has been said that if people understand where their governments wish to take them and how they will accomplish this, it is policy; and if they don’t understand it, it may be good politics but not good policy.

There are many factors behind the general public policy failure in Pakistan. These include corruption; insufficient or irrelevant financial allocations; incompetent human resource; poor policy evaluation and monitoring systems; a lack of vision and a centralised approach to implementation, weak institutional structures and frequent interventions. The most important factor is the policy-making team. Policymakers are sent to visit other countries to learn from their experience. But many of them formulate policies without fully appreciating the differences between the circumstances of those countries and the local conditions.

Leadership is the main factor behind good policymaking, its application and implementation

It is said that some Pakistani engineers were once sent to France to learn how underpasses were built to ease road traffic. Upon coming back, they constructed two underpasses in accordance with what hey had seen. It was after the completion of the underpasses, that it was realised that France had right-hand driving unlike Pakistan.

The fate of policy making in several areas has been similar.

Public policy in Pakistan has frequently been tied to financial aid. Policies are laid down in accordance with the advice received from the donors. This includes the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank as well as bilateral donors. Local pressure groups, including significant industrialists and landlords also influence policies likely to impact their businesses.

A sound policy-making process is founded in high-quality decisions. This requires empowerment, accuracy and legitimacy. Public policy laid out for any of the sectors has an impact on other sectors. For example, a transport policy affects the environment; an environmental protection policy impacts industrial development; and an industrial development policy impacts the revenue of the state. In short, policy-making means trade-offs. Sometimes the policy makers have to agree to give up on certain benefits on account of the impact the policy might have on other sectors. Good policymakers always strive to find out the unintended impact of their policies.

A good policy-making process produces policies that can be executed without a long delay. Policy-making must be based on ground realities and should not be subject to short-term priorities.

Policy-making and implementations are two different things. In Pakistan, policies are sometimes made but not enforced. This has been apparent in several fields including health, transport and education sectors. Successive governments appear to have had no interest in improving the education and health policies. No wonder the conditions at public educational institutions and hospitals continue to deteriorate.

It is frequently said that nobody wants to send a child to a government school if they can afford the fees the private schools charge and nobody wants to go to a government hospital if they can pay for a private hospital. Nobody, it is said, wants to travel using public transport but everybody wants to be a government servant.

Thorough surveys and research are the first requirement for making public policy. Policies based on poor or outdates facts are that much lacking from the word go. How can anybody expect a sound decision to be made without having the right facts?

Leadership is the main factor behind good policymaking, its application and implementation. In Pakistan, top policy making positions are often decided in view of party political considerations. The sense of public policy is thus lacking from the exercise. Only recently it has been alleged that a state minister’s sister who had been a teacher at a Lahore university has been appointed to the National Counter-Terrorism Authority. How can such appointments be expected to result in good policy making? Political parties are often tempted to give important policy making positions to party workers to keep them happy and ensure their loyalty. Lack of good leadership is a major dynamic in the failure of public policy.

People close to parliamentarians and ministers thus have a high likelihood to be appointed to decision-making positions without having the relevant expertise. It is not as if there is no expertise available in country. Leading light in most sectors of society and governance are rather well known. It is, however, rare for them to be given the key policy making positions. Instead, ministers tend to appoint people they can trust to be loyal to their parties.

Governments must utilise the potential of public as well as private universities where there is ample capacity for conducting researches and surveys for policy formulation. Such an arrangement can be quite cost effective.

It is important to remember that in public affairs doing the right thing is better than doing whatever you do for the right reason. The best part is to get people to do what is right collectively that is to make the best thing for the people to do individually.

Housing is a basic human right but a large number of urban poor continue to live in miserable conditions. It is strange that the prime minister’s vision of Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme is formulated for the middle-class rather than the poor. This is clear from the payment plans advertised for the houses to be built. This is clearly not good public policy. The government must revisit the policy to ensure that the intended beneficiaries of its policy actually get the benefit.

There was no public input in making this policy and research was not carried out to verify the assumptions. The public-input vacuum in policy making is almost always filled by lobbyists working for personal gains or other vested interests.

Governments must respect public wisdom to provide for the masses’ needs. An important point is the quest for economic, physical, physiological and social security. Even a child knows that a need is more important than an aspiration.

Given its importance national security requires a strong policy. The sense of national security depends on a comparison with one’s potential enemies. States must focus on building peace so that the scarce resources are not unnecessarily wasted in pursuit of security.

Pakistan is a democratic country. A democracy cannot function well without an adequate medium for policy debate. Public policy is often flawed because there is not much debate that would have pointed out and fixed the flaws.

The common man can prosper under a bad government as long as local administration is effective. He can suffer under a good government if local government is inefficient. If a policy is reckless, the corrupt alone are likely to benefit from it. They will do so at the cost of the common man.

The people want a set of policies and principles, not necessarily a person they can identify with these. We are lacking a sense of understanding about our leaders. If a leader is charismatic but cannot provide good policies, he is no good for the state.

A person may be an expert in environmental protection policy, but not in science and technology. It is unfortunately common in Pakistan to see people formulating public policies where they lack expert knowledge.

The writer is a PhD scholar