The eleventh round of Pakistan-India Legislators and Public Officials Dialogue was facilitated by PILDAT in Dubai, UAE, on March 7, 2017.
The dialogue focused on theme of sharing of lessons on ‘Technology for Better Governance in Pakistan and India’. The dialogue included members of Parliament and provincial assemblies of Punjab and Sindh alongside experts and media representatives from Pakistan who joined members of the Indian Parliament from Assam, Haryana and Karnataka and state legislatures of Delhi and Gujarat alongside experts and media representatives from India.
Participants underscored that technology has immense potential to improve governance in Pakistan and India. They recognised that while tremendous strides have been made across Pakistan and India in using technology for improved governance, there existed a lot of room for sharing of good practices between the two countries. Participants asserted that while use of technology by Governments provided a critical platform to improve the quality of life of citizens, Governments must do so while maintaining the security of data and privacy of citizens.
Participants underscored that real changes in structures of governance to guard against corruption and other systemic ills must accompany and complement the use of technology to improve governance.
Participants recommended that governments must seek regular feedback from citizens to assess the real impact of technology in improving governance.
While technology is helping citizens with ease of access to services, one of its key challenges is to engage citizens, especially the youth, as active participants in governance and public policy issues. The governments must actively encourage individuals, businesses and NGOs to come up with initiatives and interfaces that improve administration and service delivery.
Participants believed that tremendous opportunity for exchange and sharing of information exists between Pakistan and India on a variety of technology-enabled initiatives such as IndiaStack and PakistanStack. Of particular interest are the models of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), monitoring of immunisation programmes, Aadhaar authentication (Unique ID), E-procurement, smart cities, E-cloud for Citizens, land record management and Unified Payment Interface, etc. Setting up a knowledge portal between the two countries can be extremely useful in this regard.
Participants resolved to use their abilities and reach within Governments, Legislatures and Media to project the content and recommendations for action as given in the Joint Statement.
