UK Economic Development Portfolio in Pakistan: Federal Reforms for Growth; Provincial Reforms for Growth (PRG)

One of the UK’s key goals in Pakistan is that the UK benefits from an enhanced trade and investment partnership with Pakistan, driven by business deals and partnerships, a better and more stable business environment, and an improved growth trajectory which makes Pakistan a significant market of the future.

To support this goal, and to meet the UK’s ambitions to tackle poverty in Pakistan through Official Development Assistance, the British High Commission in Islamabad is planning FCDO’s future ODA portfolio on economy and trade in Pakistan. Subject to Ministerial approvals and internal quality assurance processes, our intention is that this portfolio will comprise the following three programmes:

a. Federal Reforms for Growth (‘FRG’) – a five-to-seven-year successor programme to the Revenue Mobilisation, Investment and Trade programme. This will provide agile technical assistance to federal government ministries, regulatory bodies and autonomous bodies. FRG will drive reforms to promote growth through improved fiscal policies (taxation, expenditure, wider PFM) and private sector environment reforms (sectoral approaches and cross-cutting trade and investment policies). The approximate maximum budget for the contract will be £35 million.

b. Provincial Reforms for Growth (‘PRG’) - a five-to-seven-year successor programme to the Sub-National Governance II and Sustainable Energy and Economic Development programmes. This will provide agile technical assistance to the provincial government departments, regulatory bodies and autonomous bodies, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh provinces. PRG will drive reforms to promote growth through improved fiscal policies (taxation, expenditure, wider PFM) and private sector environment reforms (sectoral approaches and cross-cutting trade and investment policies). The approximate maximum budget for the contract will be £35 million.

c. Jobs and Economic Transformation for Pakistan (‘JETPAK’) – a seven-year private sector development programme in Pakistan. JETPAK will aim to drive economic transformation in Pakistan by using a market systems approach to increase productivity, investment and value add exports in 3-4 high growth sectors. The contract would require the supplier to provide expertise to secondary market providers (banks, skills providers, industry associations etc), and direct TA and grants to medium- large firms. The programme will be mainly RDEL with a CDEL component. The approximate maximum budget for the contract will be £90 million.