Islamabad (Web Desk): Caretaker Minister for Information and Broadcasting Murtaza Solangi on Tuesday said that the government recognizes the growing need of a culture of evidence-based decision making to ensure efficient allocation of resources.
Addressing a conference on civic problems in Islamabad, he said there is a great potential in Pakistan to focus on developing innovative local solutions.
Murtaza Solangi said this conference is also aimed at making an effort to find digital solutions of the civic problems.
He expressed the confidence that these issue-focused conferences and civic hackathons will deliver more sustainable results in this regard.
The minister said he believes this process will ultimately help improve public service delivery, bridge the digital divide and strengthen local governments.
“Collective brainstorming to jointly identify problem statements will enable local governments in Pakistan to strengthen digital transformation,” he said.
The information minister said that the caretaker government has officially launched Pakistan's first startup fund worth Rs2two billion to boost the IT sector.
“We hope to generate at least Rs50 billion annually in the startup ecosystem,” he said.
Solangi said that Pakistan boasted a network of eight National Incubation Centres (NICs) supporting startups, with over 4,000 startups currently active in the country.
The information minister expressed gratitude to the government of Germany for supporting Pakistan through 12 separate projects in collaboration with the federal and provincial governments.
These include the areas of local government, climate change, energy transition, social security, sustainable economic development and vocational education and training.
