Why public policies fail in Pakistan

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