The Imran Khan government has launched a major economic diplomacy project — Economic Outreach Initiative. The project targets to reposition Pakistan internationally through a ‘paradigm shift’ in foreign policy narrative away from security and political issues and seeks to showcase the country’s economic potential to the world to increase trade, tourism and foreign investment. The idea behind the initiative is to have a coherent strategy, which brings together the entire space known as economic diplomacy and is predicated on the premise that the nation’s military security is intrinsically linked to its economic security.

Given their experience with similar exercises, the businesspeople remain sceptical (about its success). However, Dr Moeed Yusuf, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Security and Strategic Policy Planning, is quite optimistic about achieving the goals, even if partially. “It’s a major, transformational initiative; nobody should expect 100 per cent results. It involves a cultural shift (within the government). Even if we get 20pc results, it would still be a huge achievement,” Moeed, whose office has developed the initiative, told this correspondent in an interview last week.

The Economic Outreach Initiative is predicated on the premise that the nation’s military security is intrinsically linked to its economic security

According to him, all stakeholders are on board and signed on.

Moeed was brought from Washington to the country a year back and given the job of creating a dedicated office for long-term strategic thinking and planning in the National Security Division (NSD). Unlike his predecessors, his job is to combine both national security and strategic planning. According to him, this way his office does a lot of things that are transformational (in nature).

“Before me, the NSD has had only one job: to create a national security policy. This policy looks at the national security in the broadest (possible) terms… it includes hard security, economic security, diplomacy, climate security, human security (and so on). Our political and military leadership firmly believe that the country’s hard security is intrinsically linked with economic security.

“There’s complete consensus that our future progress depends on a strong economy and our ability to mould our diplomacy to market our economic potential. There can absolutely be no compromise on hard security. But despite that, we have a lot of space for economic diplomacy. Pakistan’s long-term guarantee of hard security is flowing through its economic security. The whole of government, every stakeholder has signed on 100pc. Hence, both things are now combined in one office.”

When he started work on the initiative he had to encounter two major problems. The very narrow definition of economic diplomacy focused on the export of some goods and services and traditional (foreign) investment, and even a bigger problem of lack of coordination within the government owing to the narrow canvas. “When we started focusing on economic security we realised that we don’t have an economic diplomacy policy at all.”

So the new initiative defines the broadest possible canvas of economic diplomacy to bring the country’s potential in hitherto untapped areas of tourism, medical tourism, IT, labour export, business outsourcing and off-shoring, etc on the country’s diplomatic radar in addition to the traditional goods and services.

Second, it has created a formal mechanism to streamline coordination between the different economic actors — ministries, provincial governments, etc — through the formation of a National Command and Control Centre (NCOC), which he heads, for a quicker resolution of issues and hurdles in the implementation of sectoral policies and strategies, as well as the attainment of the targets.

The economic outreach roadmap created under the initiative is now being processed through the relevant ministries for assessing their economic potential by mapping their comparative advantage in five priority countries each. “We do not intend to interfere with the day-to-day functioning of the ministries or departments; they will keep working according to their own individual policy frameworks and strategies. We will just be helping them around reorient themselves, create space for innovation and coordinate better for fast-tracking the resolution of hurdles in the way of achievement of their targets,” Moeed elaborates.

The initiative requires the ministries give the NCOC their targets with a dollar value and identify hurdles that could impede the attainment of their targets, and the NCOC will coordinate with the relevant departments, agencies and authorities for resolving those impediments and issues. “The foreign office will provide us with sectoral analyses of the markets where we can target our specific exports. We are also setting up a private-sector advisory board to review the ministerial targets and the market analyses of the foreign office to advise us on it. In this way we will be able to make realistic targets,” he explains. “Our ultimate goal is to link the private sector with the foreign markets and get out of their way.”

Moeed concedes that the bureaucratic system in Pakistan functions at a very slow pace. “The existing system is flawless and our bureaucracy is much better than many other countries. But the problem is that we have structured the system in such a way that no space is left for innovation. That has to change now. The paradigms developed in 1970 do not work any longer; it is just not possible in the age of the internet. The old system has become obsolete. No ministry can function in silos any more. We need to cut the time of movement from days to minutes.”

His job is not easy as it requires the reorientation of the bureaucracy, overhaul of the entire system, manpower training and, most importantly, changing the world’s perception of Pakistan as an unsafe country for foreigners and as a nation that is at loggerheads with its neighbours. But if “every stakeholder is signed on” the new initiative as is claimed by him, it could prove quite promising for the country’s economic future.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 12th, 2020