Creation of a National Policy Making Can Help Pakistan Develop as a Global IT Destination

Pakistan has all the fundamentals in place to emerge as one of the leading global IT destinations. These include our cost advantage over other leading countries, including India and China, as well as the presence of a large pool of local IT resources. As the sixth most populous country in the world, with some of the highest youth representation in the population, Pakistan is well poised to leverage its resources for greater economic growth driven by technology and export of IT solutions and IT enabled services. However, this cannot be achieved in the absence of a clear national policy that provides the right incentives, guidelines, resources and priorities to help growth and development of IT in the country.

The current IT policy, developed in 2000, has already set us on the path towards achieving the objective of IT led development. It has helped highlight all areas that need to be covered in a comprehensive drive toward bringing about technology led growth and development in the country. However, where it lacks is in not being able to provide a clear roadmap toward achieving well articulated goals of IT led growth.

In order to move forward from here, we need a focused strategy towards developing resources, skills and competence in specific areas of IT. This is a major focus of the ICT Task Force that has been constituted by the Government. It has a clear agenda to review the existing IT policy with the view of providing recommendations for moving forward. These recommendations are being developed in eight key areas: software development and export, IT enabled services and BPO, e-governance, quality IT education, IT security, use of Urdu in IT, IT hardware development, and telecommunications and infrastructure.

The Task Force has taken an aggressive and innovative approach toward setting a clear direction for development of the IT industry. From the start, it has decided to maintain a fast pace, to achieve the huge task it has undertaken in minimum time. This sense of urgency is borne out by the rapidly changing global environment. The financial crisis facing the world

today is likely to bring a lot of changes in its wake. Many existing success stories will be shaken up, and new ones will emerge to take their place. Especially vulnerable are the businesses in the West, including those in the financial and automotive industries, as well as the global companies that serve them, including the Indian IT firms. Related incidents concerning companies such as Satyam and WIPRO are further likely to shake the confidence of businesses and governments in the ability of established players. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for countries like Pakistan to build on their strong fundamentals to tap the huge global demand for cost effective and reliable IT solutions and services. However, it is a small window of opportunity, and in order to make the most of it, we need to act quickly and with vision and clarity.

Accordingly, the Task Force has constituted as many working groups to prepare recommendations in each of the eight key areas, simultaneously. It will not only help achieve more in the limited time frame available to the Task Force, but is also consistent with our belief that more work gets done in smaller groups when everyone is productive and can be heard.

At the same time, the Task Force felt that there was need to ensure participation of other stakeholders. For this reason, it has undertaken to involve others in the meetings of the various working groups, who are not represented on the Task Force, directly. In addition, a separate meeting was conducted in Karachi to gain inputs from various organizations based there, to seek their involvement and contribution in this process, as well. The Task Force has also engaged representatives of various associations in the IT industry to obtain the viewpoints of specific sectors.

Based on the input being received from the various working groups and stakeholders, the Task Force plans to put together its recommendations for development of IT in Pakistan. These recommendations are aimed to contribute in the development of the next five year plan and the future IT policy. It is also aimed as a guiding document for government functioning in IT and other ministries, aided by the Planning Commission. We also hope to strengthen the institutional capacity of various bodies, including PSEB and PASHA to facilitate the development of IT in the country and its export potential.

Salim Ghauri is the Chairman of the ICT Task Force and can be contacted at salim@netsolpk.com

What’s your take on the IT Policy?
How inclusive should it be and are you even impacted by it? Through the CIO Pakistan forums available on LinkedIn and Facebook, we’ve been trying to reach out to the stakeholders who perhaps haven’t been approached to talk about their involvement in the creation of the IT Policy. Like most processes, there is a large silent audience of observers who simply want to put their head down and work, keeping a low profile.

What policy would create an enabling framework for your business? How can we better involve and mobilize the large youth population we have? The large English-speaking population? Is braindrain still a problem or has globalization and ICT solutions eradicated that phenomena? What’s your take on the matter?

We would, however, like to hear from you. If you can take a few moments to give us your feedback on what your ideal wishlist of inclusions in the policy should be, these will be the points that we will include in the YearAhead event later this month. We will also be including these as reference points for the Financial Insights Round Table, part of the same event.

Send us your feedback to any of the forums or to feedback@ciopakistan.com or you can simply participate in a more visible debate on the CIO Pakistan portal at www.ciopakistan.com