Pakistan-India Legislators and Public Officials Dialogue on Sharing of Experiences on Governance and Democracy

Joint

Statement

1. The tenth round of Pakistan-India

   Legislators and Public Officials Dialogue was facilitated

   by PILDAT in Dubai, UAE, on March 07, 2017. The dialogue focused

   on the theme of sharing of lessons on Technology for Better

   Governance in Pakistan and India.

2. The Dialogue included Members of Parliament

   and Provincial Assemblies of Punjab and Sindh alongside experts and media

   representatives from Pakistan who joined Members of the Indian Parliament

   from Assam, Haryana and Karnataka and State Legislatures of Delhi and

   Gujarat alongside experts and media representatives from India.

3. Participants underscored that technology

   has immense potential to improve governance in Pakistan and India. They

   recognised that while tremendous strides have been made across Pakistan

   and India in using technology for improved governance, there exists a

   lot of room for sharing of good practices between the two countries.

4. Participants asserted that while use

   of technology by Governments provided a critical platform to improve the

   quality of life of citizens, Governments must do so while maintaining

   the security of data and privacy of citizens.

5. Participants underscored that real changes

   in structures of governance to guard against corruption and other systemic

   ills must accompany and complement the use of technology to improve governance.

6. Participants recommended that Governments

   must seek regular feedback from citizens to assess the real impact of

   technology in improving governance.

7. While technology is helping citizens

   with ease of access to services, one of its key challenges is to engage

   citizens, especially the youth, as active participants in governance and

   public policy issues. The Governments must actively encourage individuals,

   businesses and NGOs to come up with initiatives and interfaces that improve

   administration and service delivery.

8. Participants believed that tremendous

   opportunity for exchange and sharing of information exists between Pakistan

   and India on a variety of technology-enabled initiatives such as IndiaStack

   and PakistanStack. Of particular interest are the models of Benazir Income

   Support Programme (BISP), monitoring of immunisation programmes, Aadhaar

   authentication (Unique ID), e-Procurement, Smart Cities, e-Cloud for Citizens,

   land record management and Unified Payment Interface, etc. Setting up

   a knowledge portal between the two countries can be extremely useful in

   this regard.

9. Another area of priority for the two

   countries is to provide necessary and uniform improvements to support

   technological governance. Each country has good use of technology implemented

   in different regions which must be extended nationwide. Exchange of good

   practices in this area will also enable the two countries to address the

   challenges of digital divide in both countries.

10. Participants resolved to use their abilities

    and reach within Governments, Legislatures and Media to project the content

    and recommendations for action as given in the Joint Statement.

11. Participants underscored that dialogue

    provides a good forum to share successful models. While commending PILDAT’s

    efforts in conceptualising, designing and facilitating dialogue and interaction

    between Pakistan and India, dialogue participants urged PILDAT to continue

    the dialogue on relevant themes in the future as well.

With Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar,

Indian Express, Punjab, India

With Mr. Muhammad Tallal Chaudry,

Projects Manager, PILDAT.