Government Initiative

*Imran Khan launches Data4Pakistan

Prime Minister Imran Khan launching the Ehsaas District Development Portal, Data4Pakistan, said the initiative was part of the government’s commitment to reduce poverty in Pakistan, as progress and prosperity were directly connected to uplifting the impoverished.

It is my belief that Pakistan where there is an ocean of poor people and few rich cannot make progress, he said, adding the Data4Pakistan portal would assist the government of Pakistan distribute development funds per people’s needs. Imran Khan said the portal would also assist identify the regions that were in most need of funds, while also offering vital figures about issues being faced by the people.

Sources recorded that Data4Pakistan would also help in higher-level policymaking also budget allocation, he said, adding that the earmarking of the budget would be on a need and merit basis without any political considerations. Earlier, addressing the launch ceremony, Special Assistant to the P.M. on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Sania Nishtar said the Data4Pakistan portal was developed in collaboration with the World Bank and will prove a precious resource for federal, provincial and district level policymakers. Sania said Data4Pakistan was the first initiative of its kind in Pakistan, and would offer open and public access to a spatial interactive portal that has poverty estimates for every district in the country, along with over 120 development and policy indicators. Furthermore, the portal presently has 6 rounds of district-level poverty and development data, covering the period between 2004 and 2018. It includes interactive maps that permit the user to visualize and compare districts on poverty and two additional indicators, including but not limited to water and sanitation and housing characteristics. It is also recorded that the interactive portal also permits for detailed information on individual districts, with pop-ups, and users can focus in on subsets of provinces or districts using a simple drop-down list.

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Custom maps with data chosen by the user can also be downloaded and printed. According to Nishtar, the portal uses data provided through the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), as part of its Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Surveys also the multiple indicators cluster surveys produced through the provincial Bureaus of Statistics. Presently the indicators obtainable in the portal include a range of demographic, health, education and employment facts on access to key services like water, sanitation, electricity and gas. It also offers a number of gender parity indices at the district level. Sources also noted that an additional resources section on the website offers information on the indicators included in the portal and other background material and reports. New material also data and indicators would be added frequently. On the other hand, Nishtar said the Ehsaas program was dedicated to fostering the creation of a welfare state through countering elite needs and leveraging data and technology to create precision safety nets and poverty alleviation solutions. The launch of Data4Pakistan was another significant step to foster evidence-based decision-making, she added. Furthermore, the analysis of Economic survey of Pakistan FY2019 revealed that Prime Minister’s National Health Program (PMNHP) is a milestone towards reaching the goal of acquiring Universal Health Coverage by presently launched healthcare financing system ensuring access to medical health care in aswiftand dignified manner without any financial obligations. In Pakistan, the government of Pakistan is all set to enlarge PMNHP till 2022, to offer social health protection against most of chronic and debilitating diseases / health situations to all families living below the poverty line of US$ 2 per day. Presently sources recorded that the federal government has renamed PMNHP as sehat sahulat program. The ‘Health Card’ has also been renamed sehat Insaf card.