IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), a representative body of multinationals, has called for building a ‘Digital Pakistan’ to increase ease of doing business, enhance transparency and improve government- to -government and state-to-citizen services through e-governance.

Apparently, the high cost of doing business has been a major cause for Pakistan receiving a very low level of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) — around one per cent of GDP — against the norm of three per cent in regional countries. The total FDI inflows in FY18 were just equal to OICCI members’ reinvestment of $2.7 billion recorded for 2017.

e-Governance, sometimes referred as e-government, online-government or digital government, is the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to assist in the transformation of government structures and operations for cooperative and integrated service delivery for citizens and government agencies. e-Governance involves using ICT tools to improve the delivery of government services to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies. e-Governance encompasses a wide range of activities and actors, these include government-to-government (G2G), government-to-business (G2B), and government-to-citizen (G2C).

e-Governance, sometimes referred as e-government, online-government or digital government, is the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to assist in the transformation of government structures and operations for cooperative and integrated service delivery for citizens and government agencies. e-Governance involves using ICT tools to improve the delivery of government services to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies. e-Governance encompasses a wide range of activities and actors, these include government-to-government (G2G), government-to-business (G2B), and government-to-citizen (G2C).

Gokina is an idyllic-looking village located 25 kilometers from Pakistan’s capital city. Our car ride there took us uphill on winding roads into the verdant mountains overlooking Islamabad. Goats greeted us as we walked down the steep, narrow path to the village school.

The village hosts a pilot Smart Villages project – the first Smart Village of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in the Asia-Pacific region. It is part of ITU’s Smart Villages and Smart Islands (SVSI) initiative, first launched in Niger in 2020 and subsequently adopted and adapted for Asia and the Pacific as a means of connecting unconnected people and communities by 2030.

Digital transformation can help Pakistan unlock up to Rs. 9.7 trillion ($59.7 billion) in annual economic value by 2030, equivalent to about 19 percent of the country’s GDP in 2020, according to a new report commissioned by Google.

The report—released at the Google/P@SHA online event, “Unlocking Pakistan’s Digital Potential”—finds that Pakistan has a thriving technology sector. The country is home to more than 300,000 IT professionals, produces over 25,000 IT graduates annually, and has nurtured over 700 tech start-ups since 2010.

Pakistan is promoting increased global connectivity through a series of initiatives and the government is committed to transform the country into a knowledge-based economy, Finance Secretary Dr Waqar Maood Khan said on Saturday.

Speaking at an event ‘Global Connect Initiative’ at the World Bank, Washington, the finance secretary reiterated Pakistan’s resolve to support the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), action lines and targets which were set under the agenda for sustainable developments goals (SDG).

Minister of State for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja has said that the government is committed for digitalization and transforming Pakistan into Digital economy.

She was talking to Global System for Mobile Communications Association's Head of Asia Pacific Julian Gorman who called on her in Islamabad.

Chinese tech giant Huawei and Pakistan's eastern Punjab province's urban development project Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop the world's largest riverfront safe and smart city.

Under the MoU, both sides will join hands to revive the dying Ravi River into a safe and smart green city with all the latest safe and smart city technologies. The memorandum reaffirms an existing one-year healthy relationship between both entities, a handout shared by Huawei Pakistan said on Thursday.

Huawei Pakistan and Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA) have signed a memorandum of understanding MoU to join hands to revive the dying Ravi river into Safe/Smart Green City with all the latest Safe/Smart city technologies.

The memorandum reaffirms an existing one-year healthy relationship between both entities.

Realising the need for a change in ICT perspective, growth and jobs was chosen as central theme of the 2013 edition of Global Information Technology Report (GITR), which is the flagship ICT publication from World Economic Forum released in partnership with INSEAD. Since 2002, the GITR has been monitoring ICT advances worldwide, raising awareness for ICTs on competitiveness and societal well-being.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said yesterday the high number of residency applications marriages between Pakistanis and EU citizens from the Baltic states was a concern. He had asked his officials to examine as “a matter of urgency” the possibility of the deployment of biometric technology to all visa applications from Pakistan.

There were 1,894 applications for residency based on marriage to an EU citizen in 2010. Some 378 of these applications were made by Pakistanis, 172 were to Latvians and 39 to Lithuanians.

Once launched, the home ministry will make it mandatory for visa applicants from the United States and United Kingdom as well to provide their 10 fingerprints.

"We are going to start the biometric collection at the time of granting visas over the next few days," a senior home ministry official.

Biometric machines were installed by the Immigration authorities a few days back. Their trial run has begun with Pakistani cricket fans, an Immigration official told The Indian Express, adding that at present biometric details of other Pak nationals crossing over to India were not being collected, but the same could be done “later on”.

In particular, India ranks fifth highest in terms of the impact from automation and ninth in terms of their level preparedness for this impact

India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are most at risk and least prepared for the coming wave of automation, while Japan, Singapore and Australia are the most prepared within the Asia Pacific region, according to a latest report by Deloitte and Autodesk Foundation. Close to half of all businesses intend to increase their adoption of robotic process automation over the next year, with Covid-19 greatly accelerating the process across the world, according to the report 'The Future of Work is Now: Is APAC Ready?'.

Digitization is transforming in Pakistan’s services sector. The shift is most prominent in the domains of e-commerce, fintech, and e-government, where new ventures and approaches to deliver services are gaining momentum. Specifically, the market size of e-commerce has grown significantly in Pakistan over the last few years. Economic experts forecast that Pakistan’s e-commerce sales are projected to cross the one billion dollars mark by 2020 as compared to $622 million recorded in 2017. Leading Pakistan into the Digital Age.

At the forefront of this e-commerce, buzz stands Daraz, leading the industry with worthy contenders such as Yayvo, Aliexpress, and Goto.

The move is significant for around 85,000 Pakistanis in Doha, who earlier had to go to Pakistan to upgrade their passports to machine-readable from the manual, handwritten ones, as countries around the world started enforcing the MRP as a mandatory travel document.

The UAE for instance, announced in summer that all Pakistanis travelling to the Emirate should have the MRP.

Meta organised a workshop on Digital Transformation for government partners in Pakistan at the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication on Friday.

Minister of State for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Secretary IT Captain Muhammad Mahmood (retired), Additional Secretary Aisha Humera Moriani, Member IT Syed Junaid Imam, and DG International Coordination Syed Jawwad Ali Sherazi were present on the occasion.

All e-Governance programs must remain citizen-centric as technology itself tends to become alienated to the needs of the people unless the citizens' social fabric is integrated with it.

Pakistani expatriates in Oman will no longer have to wait in queues at the embassy to get national cards issued or renewed.

With the introduction of an online system, the embassy has stopped manual issuance of NICOP (National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis), CNIC (Computerised National Identity Card) and POC (Pakistan Origin Card) with effect from October 1. The processing time of these cards which earlier took three months, now takes only two days.

Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OP&HRD) and all its attached departments have been modernized to further serve Pakistani expatriates across the world in an efficient way.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister OP&HRD Zulfikar Bukhari said this while talking to the participants at the launching ceremony of "Call Sarzameen", "E- Governance" and the new "Website" of the ministry here on Monday.