Country Strategy and Program (2002 to 2006)

12. The most recent country strategy increases the list of ends sought to four, headed by good governance. The other three are (i) poverty reduction, (ii) sustainable pro-poor economic growth, and (iii) inclusive social development. General means identified to achieve these ends were

(i) mainstreaming good governance across all ADB operations; (ii) specific governance interventions;

(iii) structural reforms in key sectors; (iv) rural development;

(v) employment generation; (vi) regional cooperation;

(vii) increased women's participation in the workforce, government, and judiciary; and (viii) mainstreaming environmental concerns.

13. Specific means to be the focus of ADB social sector operations were:

(i) Improvement of public debt management capacity by assisting provincial governments to improve public resource management and local governments to enhance their own revenue base, and more effectively use resources to deliver basic public services to the poor.

(ii) For women: (i) targeting projects for women, (ii) mainstreaming gender across all projects, and (iii) promoting policy and institutional reforms for awareness and enforcement of women's rights and representation in all aspects of economic and social development.

(iii) Provide social protection to the most vulnerable groups, particularly children and the indigent through the enforcement of child labor laws and promoting self- monitoring by business.

14. Governance became the dominant theme. This was strongly reflected in new approvals for projects classified as governance interventions, but less well in other sector operations and very little in the ongoing program. While SAP attempted to increase social sector spending with no consideration given to where the funds would come from, this strategy moved to help provincial governments create fiscal space for greater social sector spending (among other priorities). Goal congestion becomes more apparent in this strategy. While governance becomes an overarching theme, the breadth of operations increases as the size of the program goes up.

15. A country strategy program update was prepared in 2003 to cover the period from 2004 to 2006.7 This put poverty reduction as the primary end sought with good governance, pro-poor economic growth, and inclusive social development as the general means to this end. In other words, ADB’s overarching objective and the pillars for achieving this were adopted at the country level with no apparent analytical underpinning. The tendency to equate strategy with the

6

Asian Development Bank. 2002. Country Strategy and Program: Pakistan 2002–2006. Manila.

7

program becomes very explicit in this update. Specific means relevant to social sector operations were:

(i) Strengthened decentralization, improved delivery of social services at the local level, and gender and social development.

(ii) Support for legal, judicial, police, and civil service reforms.

(iii) Building capacity of the Government of Punjab for improved strategic planning and fiscal sustainability through efficient and transparent financial management. (iv) Support community participation, NGOs, and private sector involvement in social

sector development.

(v) Support quality basic education for girls in rural areas, and decentralized elementary education in Sindh.

(vi) Improved reproductive health, expanded service provision, district health systems development, support to health policy reforms in NWFP, and anti-child labor action plan. Planned assistance includes decentralized social service programs in four provinces, a technical education project, family protection project, and a social health insurance project.

(vii) Environment improvement and sustainable urban development in Rawalpindi. (viii) Support for high-priority basic urban infrastructure investments in NWFP.

(ix) Future assistance included basic urban services development projects in Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan.

16. A further update was prepared in 2004 covering the period from 2005 to 2006. This has seen some significant changes to ADB’s strategic agenda necessitated by the Government’s decision to use OCR resources only for infrastructure projects and provincial debt restructuring. The primary end sought by the strategy remained poverty reduction. The number of general means to this end increased to six: (i) greater emphasis on higher and sustained pro-poor growth, (ii) good governance, (iii) social development, (iv) gender and development, (v) private sector development, and (vi) regional cooperation. Specific means for social sector operations were:

(i) ADB to mainstream governance as a crosscutting theme in all project interventions at the sector level.

(ii) Promotion of good governance in the management of the development process; public resource and expenditure management; strengthening of institutions, systems, and capacity; and promotion of local participation and ownership.

(iii) Increased allocations for social sectors.

(iv) In the education sector, support to local governments to increase their capacity; improved access to quality basic education, especially for females; community participation in management and monitoring of schools; and adequate provision of recurrent expenditure for teachers' training, school supplies, and improved sanitation in schools.

(v) In health, nutrition, and social protection, support to local governments to increase their capacity, expanded access to health facilities for women, decentralized management, adequate provision of basic medicine, and private/sector partnership.

(vi) In water supply and sanitation, urban development initiative to reduce poverty in NWFP, support for water supply schemes under the Sindh Devolved Social Services Program, as well as assistance for local government capacity to efficiently provide water and sanitation services.

(vii) Development of a strategy to determine the role of the private sector in financing, construction, and operating and maintaining of infrastructure through the formation of public/private partnerships; creation of policy, regulatory, and institutional frameworks to support such partnerships; and development of pilot partnership models for specific projects.

17. This update reflects a problem inherent in formal strategies in changing environments— a single event, in this case a decision by the government, can render a large part of the formal strategy obsolete.

ADB’S INSTITUTION LEVEL STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK RELEVANT TO