THE identical query retains developing: why do not you write in regards to the options? Let me give two solutions right here.
The primary reply is that, in all honesty, the sort with hand on coronary heart, no person is admittedly curious about options in Pakistan. All of them simply need to hear what they imagine to be true. If you happen to do not inform them what they need to hear, they tune out. To some extent, that is the results of an algorithmically generated actuality that increasingly individuals are residing in. Algorithms are very keenly tuned to what the consumer needs to see, hear, learn or who the consumer needs to work together with. They then serve this up and the consumer grows more and more accustomed to receiving processed ideas in an simply digestible type that the majority intently approximates the consumer’s personal preferences.
My expertise is that if you inform individuals issues they do not need to hear, they both tune out, begin arguing, interrupt with a stream-of-consciousness-style monologue of their very own analysis and options or, particularly seen among the many youth on social media, react viscerally, normally with hate, abuse, mockery and derision. That is the cognitive impairment of an algorithmically conditioned thoughts. Persons are dropping the flexibility to interact with views totally different from their very own.
Helpfully although, there are nonetheless sufficient individuals who do not undergo from this syndrome {that a} significant dialog may be carried out. To these individuals I say my second factor: what drawback are you making an attempt to unravel?
Each time speaking about options, it’s vital to first have readability on the issue, as a result of the apparent query is, ‘answer to what?’ With regards to the economic system, for instance, are we asking for an answer to the economic system’s incapacity to earn overseas change in portions adequate to pay for its import necessities? Or are we asking for options to the shortcoming to lift revenues in portions adequate to pay for the expenditure necessities of the state, with out operating up unsustainable ranges of debt? Talking of debt, is our envisioned answer to pay this debt down or to lift the state’s capability to hold the burden of servicing this debt? Are we speaking about pump development, or deliver a few sort of development that’s sustainable, and that lifts individuals out of poverty, creates alternatives for the youth and, general, secures the livelihoods of the citizenry?
When speaking about options, it’s vital to first have readability on the issue.
I may go on however you get the purpose hopefully. You can not reply ‘the entire above’, as a result of then the answer turns into a philosophical one: we should be taught to be higher human beings first. We should root our energy within the legit aspirations of the individuals earlier than embarking on any transformative enterprise on a broad entrance. We should be taught to respect the opposition, construct consensus the laborious manner by way of structured dialogue, construct establishments that discharge their obligations with vigor and rigor (pardon the flourish there, please) and, very importantly, that keep throughout the bounds they’re designed for. For broad-based options, it’s higher to have a broad-based mandate.
Within the absence of this, the ambition to unravel Pakistan’s issues ought to stay confined to a slender pragmatic hall. And this may be my recommendation to these operating the nation: deal with a number of issues that may be achieved, the place success carries the promise of cascading change, the place identified metrics for fulfillment may be developed.
There are two areas specifically the place the main target can lie. Each are technology-based, and each promise cascading change throughout the economic system as success rolls on. One is digital funds and the second is renewable power, particularly photo voltaic plus battery options.
Each of those areas have the potential to free the nation from a long-standing drawback that has been hobbling development for many years. Digital funds may help doc the economic system. Photo voltaic may help free us from rising power prices and the round debt. In each areas, identified efficiency metrics can simply be developed.
Right here is an attention-grabbing statistic relating to digital funds: 90 % of retail transactions are being made through digital channels now, however these account for less than 33pc of the entire worth of retail transactions. Little doubt, there’s fast and rising adoption of digital fee channels. For instance, within the first quarter of this yr, near Rs55 trillion had been cleared through digital channels in comparison with Rs10tr through checks and paper devices. This reveals rising adoption of digital fee channels, however a lot of the economic system nonetheless stays caught in old school money.
The prime minister is making an attempt to advance this course of with a steering committee and a few bulletins about making Islamabad cashless. However the true problem is on the retail stage, and inspiring adoption there means making digital transfers sooner, utilizing QR codes, maybe. Digital has displaced paper clearing, however has not made a lot of a dent in cash-based settlements. As soon as two-thirds of all retail transactions, by worth, are being processed through digital channels, we’ll doubtlessly have a unique economic system, with sufficient potential to unlock the following era of enterprise alternatives. Till then, it’ll nonetheless be a ‘basic retailer’ mannequin of the economic system that we’ll be caught with.
It’s the identical with photo voltaic plus battery. The very first thing to do right here is to disregard the bureaucrats’ entreaties to place the facility system’s ‘fastened prices’ on the heart of their political effort. One thing alongside the traces of what was achieved with PIA must be achieved with the round debt and the lifeless, white elephants we’re carrying within the energy sector. Section them out and look to photo voltaic plus battery to energy the long run as a substitute. As soon as free of the grid, individuals’s entrepreneurial energies will take over, as a result of with new types of enterprise enterprises that turn into attainable with versatile power era and distribution methods that photo voltaic makes attainable, the sky is the restrict. Deal with the attainable, and deal with these areas that carry a transformative potential. The remainder works itself out.
The author is a enterprise and economic system journalist.
Revealed in Daybreak, January eighth, 2026
