Pakistan asked to boost regional connectivity

Former National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf has said that economic security lies at the heart of national security.

Addressing a seminar titled “The Future of National Security” organised by the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) on Thursday, he said that Pakistan needed to reorient its focus on geo-economics and this could be achieved by enhancing regional connectivity and developing strong partnerships across the globe.

He said that the extension of economic and development-centric outreach towards Central Asia via Afghanistan was challenging, it was the most favourable option for Pakistan. He said that while Pakistan had relied on aid diplomacy for a very long time, it was now the need of the hour to turn to ‘development diplomacy’ for more sustainable means of ensuring progress at home.

Another integral component of national security, he said, was human security wherein it was disconcerting that Pakistan lacked long-term strategic planning due to the absence of a judicious model for redistribution of resources. Redistribution of resources to geographically underdeveloped areas was imperative to bridge the widening gap between the developed and underdeveloped regions within the country, he said.

Yusuf believed that institutional reorientation in terms of ensuring provincial-federal synergy while approaching the outside world was crucial, especially in the context of the 18th amendment which had rendered the provinces equally powerful in cinching agreements, for development purposes and otherwise. While speaking about the challenges to effective policy implementation, he expressed the hope that while it was true that established norms within the status quo were at times resisting reasonable changes, policy consensus among the decision-making circles was the first step towards redirecting the course of planning and development.

He said political consensus mainly hinged on a stable political environment in the country. He said that on an administrative level, the public sector in Pakistan needed to move from a regulatory framework to facilitate the private sector. “A close-knit public-private partnership was vital for Pakistan to move forward. The problems confronting Pakistan at present were challenging, however, they were entirely solvable,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 16^th, 2022.