Public policies are adopted and formulated by governments for the public’s welfare, to resolve their issues, and to provide better services. Public policies are not scanty in developing states such as Pakistan, but the heart of the issue lies in the implementation procedures. The lack of implementation has kept the developing states from moving forward and further pushed them backward. There are a myriad of reasons that contribute to hindering successful policy implementation in the public sector. Pakistan is no exception, like other developing states, as it has always strived to enforce policies and schemes for the welfare of the populace. The superfluity of setbacks and challenges faced by government institutes nullifies nearly all earnest efforts made to administer policies. The challenges have made the public policy landscape a muddy maze with no future aspirations of development for the country. The development of a state is heavily dependent on its policy formulation, the role of various stakeholders in the policy process, and its implementation. But unfortunately, Pakistan is a victim of political instability, weak institutions, governance problems, and socio-economic differences. These challenges give rise to various problems that have no solution in the long run.
This article will focus on the challenges aforementioned and their implications in the realm of public policy implementation. Political instability has caused changes in governments frequently, either through the intervention of a military junta or the democratic electoral process. In the early years after the creation of Pakistan, several governments were abrogated by the military establishment, imposing martial laws that destroyed the fabric of governmental institutions and halted developmental programs and policies. Similarly, the incoming democratic government shuns the policies of the previous government without observing their completion and introduces new policies to be implemented. The inadequacy of political will leads the new government to prioritize agendas under their names to leave a mark and secure their votes until the next elections.
The institutions involved in the public policy process are also corroded. Despite having a key role to play in policy implementation, these institutes are preoccupied with corruption, nepotism, bribery, internal breakdowns, and embezzlement. The key institutions involved in the policy process are federal departments, ministries, national and provincial regulatory authorities, the planning development and special initiatives division, and law enforcement agencies. The political parties impede progress by prioritizing their political gains in the short term rather than focusing on the long-term policy goals. There is a lack of accountability and transparency, giving room for corruption and mismanagement to mushroom, incapacitating the institution. The budgets allocated are not used properly, causing a deficit in the form of experts, infrastructure, and technical prowess to implement and evaluate the policy process. This causes errors and omissions in policies to go unchecked, a lack of enforcement procedures, delays, and inefficiencies in policy implementation.
The absence of good governance is another issue in policy implementation. Lack of competency, merit, accountability, and transparency in institutions is directly proportional to governance. If the system is competent, governance is good, and vice versa. In Pakistani administration, initiatives taken by the government are often blown away in the air by corruption, mismanagement, legal challenges, regulatory inefficiencies, ethnic and sectarian divides, security concerns, and fragmentation within institutes. The fragmentation leads to a persistent vacuum between the formulation and execution of a policy. This gap is evident in the policies crafted in the past at the national, provincial, or federal levels. The policies lack clarity, stakeholder management, feasibility, and practicality. Language is the biggest barrier in this domain because policies are drafted and released in English that cannot be understood by the general public. This non-coherence leaves room for ambiguities, manipulation, and misinterpretation that further dilute the effectiveness of policies. The people are not educated to the extent that they can analyze the rights and wrongs of a policy and often rely on secondhand information. This worsens the situation as the public is liable to be manipulated and misinformed, which aggravates regional and ethnic divides. The “Sardars” and “Waderas” air the socio-political differences among people to enhance the complexity of any situation and promote their interests.
The ethnic tensions exacerbate socioeconomic discrepancies. The elites manipulate people into believing that they have not been given due rights; this has roots in polarization, xenophobia, patronage politics, and identity differences, undermining consensus-building and coordination among the citizens. The social divide hinders the success of policy implementation. In a nutshell, political chaos, institutional deterioration, bad governance, and socioeconomic disparities have turned public policy implementation into a maze of failures. The failures can be tackled by using a multi-pronged strategy to cater to systemic aberrations, root causes of corruption, inefficiency, and institutional decay. Investments in technical expertise and human capital must be enhanced to ensure quality and timely proceedings within government agencies. Pakistan must curb these challenges to get out of this bewildering maze, promising an inclusive and prosperous future for its citizens.
The writer is a student of “BS Strategic Studies” at “National Defence University, Islamabad” and a member of PYDIR.