ADAM SMITH INTERNATIONAL
SUBMISSION FROM THE PAKISTAN COUNTRY DIRECTOR: IZZA FARRAKH
1.INTRODUCTION
1.1 Adam Smith International (ASI) has already contributed to this call for evidence from a macro perspective in a submission from our CEO, Jalpa Patel.
1.2 This submission focuses on the micro elements of the call for evidence, namely the sections on focus and scale, and COVID-19 response.
2.1 The UK’s aid programme does support progress towards SDGs in Pakistan. Examples of specific achievements of ASI projects towards SDGs are offered in section 5-8 of this response. The projects that Adam Smith International delivers contribute to SDG numbers 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13 and 16.
2.2 Pakistan’s economic and social development status, combined with the broad definition of SDGs, means that all SDGs are relevant to Pakistan and there is significant overlap between them and the UK’s aid programmes. Greater focus on specific SDGs may be one way for the UK to achieve greater prioritisation of its aid programme in Pakistan.
2.3 Greater clarity at the centre on SDG priorities could also be helpful. The seven current policy priorities and the Integrated Review do not reference them.
3.1 UK aid projects that we deliver in Pakistan explicitly target poor, marginalised and vulnerable people. The three large projects that we currently implement have their primary beneficiaries as the unemployed, victims of sexual violence, and girls and boys. We are also aware of other UK-funded programmes that tackle poor, marginalised and vulnerable groups. Section 5 of this response provides more information on the results that these projects deliver, framed within the SDGs.
4.1 We recognise that aid expenditure is a policy decision for the government and that it must balance a range of spending needs. We are committed to contributing to development results and UK interests with the resources available to the projects we deliver on behalf of the government.
4.2 Nonetheless, it is inevitable that the recent reduction in aid expenditure will reduce the impact that the UK is able to achieve. Five issues related to changes in expenditure are worth highlighting:
4.3 COVID-19 has set Pakistan back in terms of education, economic development and disease control. We must recognise that the cut to aid investment means that Pakistan has not entered 2021 at an equivalent level of development as it had in 2020, but well behind.
4.4 Pakistan is a more stable country than it was a decade ago, with weaker extremist groups and having pushed through multiple election cycles. That is a firmer foundation for economic development, which offers a case for reducing aid. Pakistan does, however, continue to present risks to the UK. Pakistan has unstable border regions to its north and east, which offers an opportunity for extremists and those wishing to destabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan. China has an increasingly influential role as it implements its ‘Belt and Road’ initiative and associated economic and political activities. Russia is making efforts to increase its influence in Pakistan. The Kashmir issue continues to undermine stability regionally, and potentially beyond. Domestically, media and civil society freedom is limited and human rights are often not protected. For these reasons, while Pakistan has arguably become more stable, it remains a country of great importance for UK foreign policy.
4.5 The recent UK aid cuts have shifted the balance of spending away from bilateral programming and towards funding multilaterals. Multilateral spending does not serve UK interests as clearly and directly as bilateral spending. As such, the shifting of this balance implies that aid spending may now be less focused on UK interests than it was previous to the cuts.
4.6 The sudden cuts to budgets, combined with challenges around the merger of two government departments, has put the results of existing programmes at risk. Individual initiatives that were achieving results have been cut where they were previously expected to be extended. Implementation gaps as a result of new approval processes risk backsliding of others.
4.7 Multi-year engagements deliver disproportionately better results for the money. For example, the Punjab Education Sector Programme benefitted from analytics and insights to drive Punjab’s famous progress ‘stocktakes’, led by the Chief Minister and attended by multiple local and international stakeholders. This was only possible by generating and measuring results over a period of time in order to establish credibility.
5.1 The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Sector Programme (KESP)
5.2 KESP aims to improve access and quality of education for children, particularly girls, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.
5.3 ASI, on behalf of FCDO, is implementing the technical assistance component of the programme and working closely with the Elementary and Secondary Education Department (E&SED) to improve access and quality for children enrolled or enrolling in government schools, the majority of whom belong to low-income households.
5.4 KESP technical assistance is organized along four main outputs: teaching and learning, schools and facilities, equity and access, and governance and management to meet programme objectives.
5.5 KESP contributes towards SDG 4 and its achievements include:
5.6 The number of out-of-school children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has dropped from 2.56 million in 2017 to 1.9 million in 2019. Out-of-school girls has dropped from 1.7 million in 2017 to 1.17 million in 2019.
5.7 Enrolment in government schools increased by 682,042 between 2012 and 2020. 360,330 of these are girls.
5.8 Student learning has improved by 10 percentage points in English, 22 percentage points in science, and 26 percentage points in math between 2017 and 2020 on assessments administered at the end of primary school in Grade 5.
5.9 Student attendance has improved overall by 11 percentage points from 71% in 2014 to 82% in 2020 and by 12 percentage points for girls from 68% to 80% in the same period.
5.10 Teacher attendance has improved by 11 percentage points from 81% in 2014 to 92% in 2020. Teacher presence is crucial for student learning.
5.11 Basic facilities (toilets, drinking water, boundary walls, and electricity) were available in 86% of all government schools in the province in 2020. This is up from 50% in 2014. 90% of all girls’ schools have all basic facilities. A conducive school environment is linked to better student learning.
5.12 66,849 teachers have been added to the government school system between 2014 and 2020 through a merit-based recruitment process. 39,098 of these have been for primary schools. Teacher recruitment is crucial to address acute teacher shortages in the system and to drive up teacher-student contact time (about 81% of schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are multigrade).
5.13 A Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme has been rolled out to 79,630 primary teachers across 28 districts (who in turn teach 2.4 million children in primary grades in government schools). Training takes place each month for a full day in small groups in a nearby school. Teachers are trained on content and pedagogy for improved student learning. Teacher attendance at these mandatory trainings averages at about 92% (73,000 teachers) each month. A comparison of student scores for districts where this programme had been introduced and those in which it had not been showed that learning gains were greater in all subjects in CPD districts. CPD also helped to narrow the learning gap between girls and boys. Girls in CPD districts performed much better than girls where the programme had not been introduced at the time.
5.14 A mandatory tablet and video-based Teacher Induction Programme was introduced in 2018 for all new teachers to train them on content and pedagogy at the start of their careers for better student learning. 24,000 primary, middle and high school teachers have/ or are being trained through this programme. The programme also includes a module on inclusive education.
5.15 Textbooks for English, math and science for Grades 1 to 10 were revised to ensure that they met student needs and to make them more inclusive (to check that they were free from gender, ethnic, religious, sectarian, geographical, cultural, occupational biases and respect diversity). These were printed and distributed to more than 4 million children enrolled in government schools.
5.16 Improved implementation of conditional cash grants to girls regularly attending school at the middle and high level. Approximately 460,000 girls receive the cash grant each year.
5.17 An Independent Monitoring Unit (now Education Monitoring Authority or EMA) was established in 2013 to support a complete overhaul of how the Education Department in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa approaches and undertakes education policy and planning with emphasis on use of data to drive system improvements. The EMA was set up to collect data from schools each month on several access and quality indicators (teacher and student attendance, availability of basic facilities, availability of learning materials and so on). Data is collected by EMA monitors who physically visit schools and enter and upload the information on tablets in a custom-built school monitoring application. This data becomes available in real time to different stakeholders/tiers of government to drive system improvements.
5.18 For example, it is used to: 1) Identify schools where there are no toilets or drinking water facilities to direct government funding for parent teacher councils to make these available. 2) To identify teachers who have taken unauthorised leave, for their supervisors to take action against. 3) To make District Education Plans whereby district officials commit to improvements on indicators where they are lagging over the course of the academic year. The EMA is now a permanent body with regular government funding.
5.19 District rankings and performance scorecards were introduced in 2017 to hold district education officials accountable each month for performance on access and quality indicators for improved service delivery. District Education Officers (DEOs) from all 28 settled districts come to the provincial capital each month to attend a meeting chaired by top education officials (including the education minister, secretary and director) where top performers are given recognition and financial incentives and low performing districts are asked to explain reasons for poor performance and given a chance to ask for support they may require to improve performance. The ranking and scorecard have been instrumental to driving up teacher and student attendance, and attendance at teacher trainings.
6 The Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) programme
6.1 SEED is contributing to improved economic development of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by helping the province plan and finance the investments it needs to increase growth, employment and prosperity. (In doing so, it is directly supporting SDG’s 7, 8 and 9, and indirectly contributing to meet the targets for goals 5, 11, 13 and 17- as below) SEED is supporting the following SGDs:
6.2 SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6.3 SEED is in the process of supporting the formation of a ‘Peshawar for Women alliance’ with the objective of bringing civil society together, by creating urban spaces for women in the city, support entrepreneurship and enhance mobility.
6.4 SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all:
6.5 Support for wheeling transactions: This involves support for the publicly financed Hydro Power Plant (HPP) portfolio through the facilitation of wheeling transactions. Wheeling transactions aim to provide affordable energy to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s industries. Upon agreement with the Energy Department, wheeling support for Daral-Khwar was provided. This included facilitate shortlisting of Bulk Power Consumers, through review of pre-qualification documents (PQDs).
6.6 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Power Sector Business Plan and PEDO’s Funding Strategy: SEED has supported the Energy and Power Department in the development of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Power Sector Business Plan. The business plan serves as a roadmap for an integrated power sector development strategy for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which focuses on innovations in generation, distribution, and transmission. The plan seeks to propose and develop commercially viable structures for identified segments that would enable sustainable growth of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s power sector. As a follow-up to this plan, a funding strategy for ongoing and future projects has also been developed for the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization (PEDO). The strategy provides details of funding requirements, funding availability, possible implementation structures and recommendations for developing PEDO’s fundraising capabilities. After approval of the Funding Strategy by the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, SEED will support the PEDO in its effective implementation.
6.7 Pipeline of viable projects to attract external energy investments: An indicative investment pipeline of around $130 million has been identified through development of a comprehensive Funding Strategy for PEDO that also includes an assessment of the PEDO’s funding requirements. This includes Project Finance (PF) Debt Transactions for two projects under construction in PEDO’s portfolio: (i) Koto HPP – 40.8 MW; and (ii) Karora HPP – 11.8 MW. Additional Corporate Finance Transaction have been identified to bridge the immediate funding gap for PEDO.
6.8 SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all:
6.9 Establishing a PPP regime within Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to leverage private-sector investments. SEED has helped the government to identify an investment pipeline of $130 million to date.
6.10 Increasing fiscal space in the government to increase public investments. Amongst other interventions, SEED has supported the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to increase sales tax revenue through a Sales Tax on Services roadmap and by establishing a nudge unit to inform policy around increasing revenue collection. SEED is also supporting work around ‘Green Tax’ and pension reforms.
6.11 Mobilizing investments in priority areas; housing, construction, and energy. In housing, SEED has identified and agreed on support to potential housing projects support with Auqaf. In energy, SEED is providing support for wheeling transactions and developing a business plan and funding strategy for PEDO.
6.12 Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation:
6.13 Strengthening the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s systems and processes for improved Public Investment Management. For example, modular design for bridges and roads. (These processes will be adopted by the govt by July 2021).
6.14 Supporting evidence-based policy designs to facilitate reform: Innovative approaches to reengineer legacy systems and processes and introduce impact-driven, data-led industry innovations. For example, SEED’s use of satellite imagery data and artificial intelligence to measure regional GDP and SEED’s development of a data portal to facilitate the transformation of the Bureau of Statistics into a premier data agency of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. SEED is also piloting improvements in Urban Immovable Property Tax (UIPT) collection mechanisms by using satellite imagery to identify and recategorize taxable properties.
6.15 Supporting entrepreneurship ecosystem and investment climate in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to highlight entrepreneurial and investment roadblocks and opportunities in the province, along with recommendations to be implemented.
6.16 SDG 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable:
6.17 Piloting innovative initiatives for urban and economic development to make cities more livable and positioned well for investment: This includes initiatives around Medical Tourism, Climate Finance for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Peshawar for Women and the Peshawar Clean Air Alliance. The initiatives are designed to improve the conditions for long-term, sustainable, and inclusive urban and economic development in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
6.18 SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
6.19 SEED facilitated the formation of the Peshawar Clear Air Alliance: to enable air quality improvements in Peshawar, by developing an air quality workplan. The Alliance includes members from the Khyber Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Peshawar Chamber of Small Traders and Industry, Peshawar Transport Union, Peshawar Transport Union, doctors and medical practitioners, civil society advocates and international development partners.
6.20 SEED is supporting the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with the development of a Green financing and investment strategy.
6.21 Development of an Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS) for Public Private Partnerships.
6.22 SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
6.23 SEED is helping to mobilize domestic resources, including domestic capacity for collection of taxes and other revenues. SEED is enhancing multi-stakeholder coordination, through continuously updating donor mapping around public investment and PPP. SEED is encouraging and promoting effective PPP and civil society partnerships through creation of alliances such as Peshawar for Women, and the Peshawar Clean Air Alliance. SEED is building on existing initiatives to develop evidence-based measurements of progress by supporting the statistical capacity building of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government through a range of knowledge products and an online training and learning platform created for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Planning and Development Department employees, including the development of an e-portal for the Bureau of Statistics, and innovative data collection and GDP measurement methodologies to inform policy and facilitate reform.
7.1 ASI’s Punjab E-Procurement Project, delivered through the FCDO Sub-National Government (SNG) Innovative Challenge Fund, supports the Government of Punjab to contributes to the following SDG goal:
7.2 SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full productive employment and decent work for all.
7.3 Digitized, online procurement and procurement management information systems, such as those introduced through this project, introduce transparency and efficiency into procurement processes. They save public and taxpayer money through increased competition, higher quality of goods and services and hence value for money and can also attract investment through lowered risk. Better access to procurement information through online portals also promotes equitable competition, which in turn leads to inclusiveness, and provides an opportunity for small and medium enterprises to participate in government tenders, enabling more inclusive growth.
8.1 The Justice Sector Support Project (JSSP) has been primarily focused on SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. The project has also contributed to SDG 5: Gender Equality, especially the sub goals of ending discrimination and violence against women and girls.
8.2 JSSP works in pilot districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces as criminal justice is largely a provincial matter). JSSP seeks to improve public confidence in criminal justice through decreased acquittals in homicide and sexual violence cases, reduced prison population for non-heinous offences and reduced case time. The project takes a cross-institutional approach that is data-driven and results-oriented. The approach is drive meaningful results for users of the criminal justice system in the short-term, while simultaneously encouraging a better approach to reform for the medium-term. The project directly supports the police, prosecution service, home department, prisons service and probation service. The project also engages with the judiciary.
8.3 Results that JSSP has directly supported include:
8.4 Banning virginity testing for victims of rape and sexual assault across the country. This landmark court by Punjab High Court (it applies nationwide) was against a practice that is medically and evidentially flawed and is itself considered to be sexual assault. JSSP also supported the Punjab government to design alternative procedures that do not include virginity testing.
8.5 Establishment of a Victim Support Service unit in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police, to better support female victims of crime and increase reporting and conviction rates. The Victim Support Service is staffed by women police officers.
8.6 Rewriting archaic, colonial-era prison rules in Punjab to bring them in line with the UN’s Minimum Standards on the Treatment of Prisoners (the “Mandela rules”). This requires prisoners to be treated with dignity, protects human rights of prisoners, changes the focus from punishment to correction and reform, and provides for improved treatment of female and juvenile prisoners.
8.7 Key quantifiable results that contribute to reduced acquittals for homicide and sexual violence cases: reduced the number of homicide and sexual violence police charging documents with deficiencies from 49% to 27% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; increased charges in which deficiencies are addressed by police from 57% to 80%; increased internal inspection of homicide and sexual violence cases from 0% to 89% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; increased processing of crime scenes in Lahore by the Punjab Forensic Science Authority, from 17% to 32%; increased collection of fingerprints in Lahore, from 0% to 10%; increased timely submission of DNA evidence in Lahore, from 20% to 35%; increased use of sexual assault evidence kits in Lahore, from 0% to 41%; increased removal of investigation defects in Lahore, from 16% to 100%.
8.8 Key quantifiable results that contribute to reduced prison population: increased presentation of prisoners to district judicial committees for consideration of release in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, from 0% to 41%; increased release of prisoners presented in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, from 0% to 38%; reduced wrongful arrests in Lahore, from 56% to 32%; increased use of police bail for eligible cases in Lahore, from 15% to 31%.
8.9 Key quantifiable results for domestic violence: increased registration of domestic violence cases and referral of victims to support services in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, from 0% to 100%; increased registration of domestic violence cases and referral of victims to support services in Lahore, from 0% to 96%.
9.1 The FCDO was proactive in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those responsible for programmes were proactive in requesting changes and open to input on country needs. That was key to ensuring that programmes could quickly and effectively pivot to address the pandemic threat.
9.2 The success of the COVID-19 pivot is evidence that such flexibility would likely be effective in other scenarios in which host countries face new challenges or policy priorities. Below is an account of some of the actions that the projects we implement took to respond to COVID-19.
9.3 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Support Programme (KESP).
9.4 The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in prolonged school closures the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) putting enrolment and learning gains made over the last eight years (over the life of FCDO-supported KESP1 and 2) at risk. Schools were effectively closed from March 2020 till January 2021 except for six weeks in between. KESP pivoted its focus to support E&SED to respond to COVID-19 education challenges. ASI first helped to set up a COVID-19 Response and Recovery Unit (CRRU) in the Education Department comprising of officials from attached departments to coordinate FCDO and other development partners efforts and to push through various targeted interventions that are recapped below.
9.5 We helped develop homework assignments for core subjects in primary grades to be distributed by teachers to students, during the second school closure, by physically calling them in to schools once a week, one grade at a time. This was to ensure some learning continuity. Only 25% of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s households have internet connectivity with incredibly high variance between districts. Continuing learning online has not been a viable option for most children in the government school system. A study of homework utilization undertaken by KESP in 1123 primary schools showed that 93% of teachers received this homework and that 72% assigned it to students. Student attendance, however, averaged at 65% in these schools which means that some students did not come to school to collect their homework or have it checked.
9.6 We helped develop revised academic calendars (RACs) for core subjects for primary and middle grades. Condensing the curriculum was essential given that a normal school year is nine months long, while this school year will be six months or less. We helped identify and select critical student learning objectives (SLOs) that teachers must cover that will support learning progression in subsequent grades. 71,000 teachers were trained on using these RACs and close to 22,000 schools have hard or soft copies of it available.
9.7 We helped develop short school-based monthly diagnostic assessments, provided to primary teachers to check learning in their respective classrooms to modify teaching according to the needs of their pupils. Over 71,000 teachers were trained on using these. A survey designed by KESP showed that that 82% of close to 52,000 teacher respondents had used results from the school-based diagnostic assessment to adjust their lesson plans.
9.8 We helped develop easy to use worksheets for practice and reinforcement of specific topics for Grades 1 -3 in English, Urdu and math on critical literacy and numeracy SLOs. This was to minimize learning loss in the early grades. 71,000 teachers were training on using these and 21,500 schools have access to them. A survey designed by KESP showed that 80% of over 45,000 teachers who participated in the survey had used the worksheets either while teaching in class or as homework.
9.9 We supported changes to the school monitoring application and data collection routines implemented by the Education Monitoring Authority (EMA) in all Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government schools each month. Education monitors now collect data from schools on compliance with COVID-19 SOPs (availability of handwashing facilities, use of masks by teachers and students, and distancing) and the implementation status of the COVID-19 specific support described above (availability of RACs, worksheets and use of school-based diagnostic assessments). The data is made available in real time to government officials at different tiers to action accordingly. Existing district performance rankings and scorecards were also adapted to hold district education officials accountable for implementation of the COVID-19 response. This was done to ensure the safe reopening of schools and uptake/ utilization of targeted teaching and learning materials.
9.10 Effectiveness of the KESP COVID-19 response is hampered by the following:
9.11 Poor connectivity of low-income households to which most government school students belong and of schools across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This means that any learning materials for use by children need to be printed and physically dispatched.
9.12 Major inefficiencies in government printing processes (effort and time intensive) means that there is lag between the actual development of learning materials and their availability to students and schools. Schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa do not have a non-salary budget through which they can undertake printing as per their requirements. High costs associated with centralized government printing are also prohibitive- worksheets and RACs described above were ultimately printed with support from UNICEF (FCDO does not permit use of its funds on printing).
9.13 Staggering of attendance in a high number of schools even when they did reopen means that curriculum as per the RACs cannot be covered by all teachers- some students will be learning less, inevitably, compared with other students in this school year.
10.1 SEED’s inception phase began in March 2020, with the objective of building relationships with the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and undertaking scoping work to inform the design of the implementation phase. Inception coincided with the COVID-19 related lockdowns. Since SEED’s engagement strategy was designed to build influence and credibility both within and beyond government, through the COVID-19 pandemic, the team had to reposition itself to align with changing government demands. Relevant and real time technical assistance to Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in light of the pandemic included support for the government’s post- COVID-19 economic revitalization plan Azm-e-Nau. In addition, given the COVID-19 induced fiscal crunch and resulting squeeze on the development budget, SEED prioritized expansion of fiscal space for development activities. This was in line with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Finance Minister’s request for assistance from the SEED team to support pension and tax reforms. SEED shared a draft proposal on pensions and a response on immediate and longer-term tax reforms to assist the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa formulate the province’s post- COVID-19 budgetary response.
10.2 The SEED team identified COVID-19 related delivery, fiduciary and safeguarding risks, and built-in mitigation strategies:
10.3 The pandemic posed risks to in-person stakeholder engagements, limiting government traction for SEED reforms, and competing government priorities. To mitigate this, the SEED team quickly transitioned to effective remote working, adapting processes and ways of working to facilitate coherence, quality and speed. Adaptions were made to internal routines and communications, with greater focus on outputs, shorter feedback loops and rapid and responsive, but transparent recruitment. Stakeholders have become more comfortable with remote engagements, and offices are open for limited staff with government prescribed SOPs in place.
10.4 Heightened fiduciary risks associated with misuse of funds; for example, a demand for quick results could lead to disbursements to third parties in a less transparent manner. To mitigate this, SEED has adapted standardised processes to enable agility in responding to government needs quickly, whilst retaining scrutiny in due diligence of third parties. SEED has increased its proportion of payment by results on sub-contracts, with milestone deliverables are scrutinised at multiple levels internally. Additionally, SEED is seeking to limit the depth of its delivery chain where possible to increase direct line of sight between ASI and suppliers.
11.1 JSSP supported criminal justice institutions to take a coordinated approach to solving system challenges related to COVID-19. For example, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, JSSP initiated and provided capacity support to the rule of law Cabinet sub-committee that brought rule of law institutions together.
11.2 In Punjab province, JSSP supported the Prisons Department and the Home Department to work together to identify prisoners eligible for release, in response to a directive from the Supreme Court. 832 prisoners were granted remission and 439 were granted early release. We also supported coordination between the Police and the Prosecution Department on a ticketing system, to reduce arrests during COVID-19.
11.3 Supporting evidence-driven response to criminal justice system challenges related to COVID-19. JSSP supported the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Prisons Department to monitor COVID-19 cases on a weekly basis, so that action could be taken quickly to address outbreaks. We assisted the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police to assess the impact of COVID-19 on crime patterns, and we designed protocols for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Prosecution Service to minimise risk infection while maintaining system continuity. We also undertook budgetary analysis for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s criminal justice institutions to determine opportunities for reallocation of funds to respond to. COVID-19. JSSP also supported Punjab’s Home Department with data analysis of COVID-19 infections.
11.4 JSSP supported timeliness and continuity of criminal justice service delivery during COVID-19. JSSP supported Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s criminal justice institutions by producing personal safety and health guidelines to mitigate the risk of infection, as well as supporting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s criminal justice institutions to monitor infections amongst staff. We also helped the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab Police to develop a framework for operational response to public order in the COVID-19 pandemic, borrowing some elements of best practice from the UK police, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Prisons Service to amend prison riots management protocols.
11.5 JSSP supported equality under the law, including the process and its outcomes.
11.6 JSSP supported the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to identify prisoners with health vulnerabilities who should be considered for release. We also began designing a response to domestic violence, which was then mainstreamed into the project’s ongoing activity.