Punjab is Pakistan’s largest province, accounting for 74 million of a national population of 132 million in 1998; it is also the country’s wealthiest, with a share of 52 percent of the economy. However, the incidence of poverty is the second highest in all of Pakistan—more than 19 percent in 2013. As a result, economic inequalities within different classes of households and between urban and rural areas have risen, inducing wide variations across districts and along the urban/rural and gender divide. Additionally, quality of, and subsequent use of and faith in government services such as family planning (10 percent), basic health units (30 percent), veterinary services (17 percent), agriculture extension (15 percent), and 5 policing (9 percent) is even lower than the extremely low national average.
Since 2013, World Bank has worked to implement The Punjab Public Management Reform Program (PMRP), an activity designed to support transparency, results-based management, e-governance, and creation of fiscal space, through the improvement in management of key departments and the removal of information barriers to accessing services.
DevTech’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) experts worked to assess the performance of PRMP as the project reached its final year by utilizing a highly qualified team that effectively carried out essential evaluation tasks to improve transparency, and performance, and resource management of targeted departments of the Province of Punjab. While current evaluation data is not yet available, previous evaluations (June 2017) have shown great progress for Punjab:
- Against a 2019 target of 75 organizations publishing updated institutional information on their websites for information of the public, 81 websites, up from an original baseline of zero, were found in compliance with the requirements of PRMP.
- Against a 2019 target of 180 district services being monitored by smart management tools, 216 services, up from a baseline of 18, are now being monitored.
- Against a 2019 target of 180 district services for which performance information and citizen feedback is published online, 180 services, up from a baseline of zero, now have performance information and citizen feedback published online.
DevTech has modernized government systems around the world in order to create more transparent and efficient financial and fiscal policies. From decentralizing fiscal systems to establishing performance-based budgeting and medium-term expenditure frameworks, our projects have produced sound economic and fiscal policies across the globe. Our rich history in monitoring and evaluation intersects with our public financial management and fiscal sustainability practice through our skilled technical evaluations, allowing us to handle the assessment of World Bank’s PRMP with accuracy and agility. To learn more about this project and DevTech’s capabilities, please visit the page for this project.
