Pakistan has great potential to focus on developing innovative local solutions: Solangi

Caretaker Minister for Information and Broadcasting Murtaza Solangi has said the government recognizes the growing need of a culture of evidence-based decision-making to ensure efficient allocation of resources. Addressing a conference on civic problems in Islamabad today, he said there is a great potential in Pakistan to focus on developing innovative local solutions. The Information Minister said this conference is also aimed at making an effort to find digital solutions of the civic problems. Murtaza Solangi expressed confidence that these issue-focused conferences and civic hackathons will deliver more sustainable results in this regard. The Minister said he believes this process will ultimately help improve public service delivery, bridge the digital divide and strengthen local governments. The Minister said collective brainstorming to jointly identify problem statements will enable local governments in Pakistan to strengthen digital transformation. He said the caretaker government has officially l aunched Pakistan's first startup fund worth two billion rupees to boost the IT sector. He said we hope to generate at least fifty billion rupees annually in the startup ecosystem. Murtaza Solangi said Pakistan has a network of eight National Incubation Centers that support start-ups. The Minister expressed gratitude to the government of Germany for supporting Pakistan through twelve separate projects in collaboration with the federal and provincial governments. These include the areas of local government, climate change, energy transition, social security, sustainable economic development and vocational education and training. Source: Radio Pakistan