Engineering Post Report
The world is moving fast towards 5G, Industrial Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence, which are the key technologies for Fourth Industrial Revolution. With the advent of 4th Industrial Revolution , new opportunities of prosperity are being created accordingly.
According to the experts in the sector concerned, the new wealth creation paradigm is based on data-intensive decision systems. Therefore,we have to harness these Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovations for national wealth creation.
They said that Pakistan presently stands at a juncture of time where we can become part of and surf the rising wave of new technological era to be counted in the global arena, now it is high time to expand on our accomplishments and put concerted efforts into other areas as well, especially extensive utilization of ICTs I industry, agriculture and other sectors of the national economy, a multi-dimensional and holistic approach would enable us to become more competitive, the work has already been started in some areas in this regard which need to be further built upon in future.
As for the performance of the Information Technology sector is concerned during last financial year 2018-19, official sources pointedly stated, National Incubation Centers (NICs) have been established at federal and provincial headquarters Islamabad, Karachi,Lahore , Peshawar and Quetta. Presently about 200 start-ups are housed in these facilities. Furthermore, many of these start-ups have the potential to create marketable products and services have been accordingly approved for appropriate funding.
Pakistan’s growing ICT sector is somehow ranked lowest amongst South Asian countries. It is ranked at 127 in ACT adoption out of 140 economies while India is ranked at 117, Bangladesh at 102, Nepal at 101 and Sri Lanka at 109 are quite ahead of Pakistan. Republic of Korea is ranked very low at 125, however, in Digical Skills amongst the population Pakistan is a little better ranked at 75 and in graduate skills sets at 51 while India is far ahead at 48 and 36 respectively. Also , Malaysia, Singapore are ranked 24 and 20 respectively in Overall skills, 11 and 6 in Digical Skills and 6 and 5 in graduate skill sets.
In Innovation capability, Pakistan is ranked at 75, while India is ranked at 31, China, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia are ranked at 24,14, 8, and 30 respectively. The leader in Innovation Capability is Germany.
It is evident that Pakistan is behind on most of the dimensions even in the regional context and other countries are moving very fast thus creating a bigger gap and posing a serious challenge for developing countries Pakistan for catching up.
Pakistan taking appropriate measures to tackle and overcome the onrushing environmental challenges posing serious threats to all sectors of national economy
Engineering Post Report
Erratic weather patterns and climate change have lately emerged as the biggest environmental challenges that are affecting, in varying degrees, almost sectors of national economy particularly water resources, energy, health, biodiversity with a major impact on agricultural productivity.
Keeping in view Pakistan’s high vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change, the present government is committed to meet this challenge and the Prime Minister has already constituted “Prime Minister’s Committee on Climate Change” to provide high level strategic guidance and platform for coordinated efforts on the issues of climate change.
Federal Forestry Board has also been revived to rehabilitate forests and forest cover in the country.Accordingly, Ministry of Climate Change has appropriately adopted a comprehensive approach on the disaster risk reduction and management.
Furthermore, the federal government has also introduced climate budget coding and expenditure tracking system. This initiative has become a solid conduit for the climate change finance mainstreaming and will obviously foster transparency in public investments. The monitoring of the expenditure will also give confidence to the international development partners in tracking expenditure under different funding streams to ensure that the finances are being spent on the intended objectives.
Furthermore, according to information available from official sources, the Ministry of Climate Change has taken various initiatives in the area of climate change adaptation and mitigation with our National Climate Change Policy which are as under:
- To ensure effective implementation of Natonal Climate Change Policy and its Framework, meetings of the National Climate Change Policy Implementation Committee are also being held regularly.
- The Ministry has already completed process of ratification of Data Amendment to Kyoto Protocol.
- Pakistan Climate Change Council and Pakistan Climate Change Authority are also being established to address the issue of climate change and meet Pakistan’s obligations under international conventions relating to climate.
- Climate Change Council is in the process of being established with the following mandate:
- Monitor implementation of international agreements.
- Approve and monitor implementation of comprehensive adaptation and mitigation policies ,strategies, plans, programmes and projects.
- Monitor implementation of National Adaptation Plan.
- Protection and conservation of renewable and non-renewable resources, species and habitals.
- Preparation of Pakistan’s Second Second National Communication (SNC) on Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions is in the final stage.
- Biennial Update Report is an extended report on National Communication which describes the status of GHG emissions and mitigation measures taken by the countries. The Ministry has also started preparatory work on Pakistan’s first Biennial Update Report.
All these are indicators of a shifting landscape in Pakistan under the federal government towards a cleaner, greener and sustainable future aiming for lowing the emissions and ensuring climate resilient growth in Pakistan, the sources maintained.
