Research vital to support trade

Speaker stresses closer interaction between evidence users and producers


Our Correspondent November 04, 2020
PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:

The government has taken several policy initiatives to provide relief for the trade sector in order to reduce the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, said National Tariff Commission (NTC) Chairperson Robina Ather.

While these initiatives had been based on past learning and evidence, the capacity of using research and evidence in the public sector needed to be enhanced for more impactful measures, she added while speaking at a dialogue on “How evidence on Covid-19 is being used to support the trade sector?” on Wednesday.

“We need to develop in-house capacity for the use of evidence but the lack of financing for such measures has been a major constraint.”

Ather added that greater political will was the need of the hour to support capacity building of the government. Moreover, efforts were required for closer interaction between evidence users and producers.

Oxford Policy Management (OPM) UK SEDI Programme Team Leader Claire Hutchings was of view “we need to align research and evaluation with the problems being faced by policymakers. Likewise, the policymakers should be asked about what evidence they require and then build research programmes around this.”

During pandemic time, there was a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity all around and thus, it was important to understand the changing questions of decision-makers and contextualise evidence, she added.

Also speaking on the occasion, World Bank senior economist Gonzalo Varela informed dialogue participants that data was there but it was not made available to the right users. “Recent census of manufacturing industries is required for more useful research and policy decisions.”

He added “we cannot confuse the lobbying power with reality and thus, need to be careful in selecting stakeholders who benefit from trade promotion schemes.”

Moderating the session, Sustainable Development Policy Institute Joint Executive Director Dr Vaqar Ahmed said there was gradual emergence of evidence, explaining how the pandemic had impacted economic growth and trade.

However, it is not clear at this point in time how the public sector decision-makers are using the recent evidence. “We also need to know what type of evidence has proved most useful during the first and second waves of Covid-19 and it requires in-depth discussion with the decision-makers,” Ahmed said.

“We also need to discuss which channels of communicating evidence were the most helpful during the Covid-19 outbreak.”

In the trade sector, he said, understanding the factors which could hinder the implementation of already approved policies, for example, the National Tariff Policy, e-commerce policy, etc was quite important.

Ministry of Commerce official Tayyaba Batool said the trade sector was being regarded as an essential service during the pandemic. Therefore, the government has taken steps to ensure that trade continues smoothly and exports are not hurt due to any supply chain disruptions.

The Ministry of Commerce was supporting transit trade with Afghanistan despite the Covid-19 outbreak, she said. “For this, we are working closely with NCOC. Pakistan’s commercial officers posted abroad are sending reports on a daily basis to help exporters,” she added.

UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Governance Adviser Naveed Aziz highlighted that frequent turnover of civil service could hurt sustainability of research and evidence reforms in the public sector. “This matter needs to be addressed under the overall set of civil service and institutional reform initiatives by the government.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5th, 2020.

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