The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency (PILDAT) under the DAI-Tabeer Consolidating Democracy in Pakistan (CDIP) programme are working to support democratic processes in Pakistan by strengthening the capacity of the country’s institutions to be more effective, accountable and responsive to the needs of the Pakistani people.
To this end, the Young Politicians’ Fellowship Programme was conceived and implemented by PILDAT and DAI-Tabeer. This highly-competitive fellowship programme is designed to provide a unique opportunity to selected young members of Pakistan’s political parties represented in the National Assembly and/or the four provincial assemblies to tackle political challenges and opportunities and effectively contribute to policy reform.
The first cohort of the Young Politicians’ Fellowship Programme ran from 18 March 2019 to 12 April 2019. The fellowship offered in-depth insight into the political and governance structures in the country through briefing sessions, roundtable debates, study visits to national and provincial institutes, party attachment opportunities and meetings with the top political leadership. Fellows were required to submit manifestobased policy briefs to be shared with their parties at the end of the fellowship. Fellows spent one week at their respective party’s offices or, in some cases, at a senior legislator’s office, to gain insights into the internal workings of their parties and collect the data required for their briefs. The fellows submitted and presented the policy briefs after one month of rigorous research. These were graded by a panel of experts including Wazir Jogezai (former deputy speaker, National Assembly), Dr Ijaz Shafi Gilani (chairman, Gallup Pakistan), Senator Anwar ul Haq Kakar, Dr Shoaib Suddle (former Federal Ombudsman), Syed Talat Hussain (senior journalist) and Ahmed Bilal Mehboob (president, PILDAT).
This report contains the five top-graded policy briefs prepared by fellows of the first cohort (March–April 2019). The authors are Abdullah Dayo (PPP), Ahmed Umer Sohaib (PTI), Alishae Khar (PTI), Dawar Hameed (PPP) and Palwasha Sajjad (PTI).
