LocationsDelivering Reform Through Roadmaps
By Naveed Aziz | Principal Consultant, Oxford Policy Management
Through its Reforms and Innovation in Governance Project, UNDP, supported by the UK Government through the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), introduced the roadmap approach in the Prime Minister’s Office to provide a structured, outcome-focused system linking national priorities to measurable progress.
Fragmented planning, weak coordination, and limited accountability have historically constrained delivery. Through its Reforms and Innovation in Governance Project, UNDP, supported by the UK Government through the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), introduced the roadmap approach in the Prime Minister’s Office to address these challenges. It provides a structured, outcome-focused system that links national priorities to measurable improvements, enabling the Prime Minister to drive progress across reform priorities.
At its core, the roadmap approach establishes a shared definition of success. Rather than tracking activities, roadmaps focus on a small number of priority outcomes aligned with Pakistan’s growth priorities, such as growth and exports, fiscal stability, investment and productivity, and jobs and competitiveness. These outcomes are translated into clearly defined indicators with baselines and measurable and time-bound targets, enabling consistent tracking over time and across ministries. This shift from inputs to outcomes has fundamentally changed how reform performance is reviewed at the Prime Minister’s level.
Roadmaps serve as a strategic interface across government, providing a structured mechanism for coordination among ministries and agencies that often operate in silos. By anchoring diverse interventions to shared outcomes, common indicators, and clear delivery responsibilities, UNDP is helping the Government of Pakistan to build alignment and coordination across institutions while respecting sectoral mandates. This systematic structure helps replace fragmented action with collective problem-solving, ensuring that policy intent, implementation efforts, and leadership oversight are connected through a single, coherent delivery framework.
Roadmaps serve as a strategic interface across government, providing a structured mechanism for coordination among ministries and agencies that often operate in silos.
A defining strength of the roadmap approach is its role in enabling leadership decision-making. Standardized dashboards and traffic-light reporting provide a shared, comparable view of progress across sectors. As a result, stocktakes chaired by the Prime Minister have become decision-oriented forums, where progress against agreed targets is reviewed and bottlenecks are resolved. In partnership with UNDP and FCDO, the Government of Pakistan is implementing and tracking 11 reform roadmaps across multiple federal ministries. These are helping Pakistan to translate national priorities into measurable outcomes and strengthen accountability through clear ownership and regular monitoring.
The roadmap approach is progressing as intended, and has supported the delivery of several tangible outcomes across priority sectors. In the power sector, long regarded as one of the most complex reform areas, technical support enabled a sustained focus on financial viability, efficiency, and service delivery, contributing to a decline in circular debt stock from PKR 2.4 trillion to approximately PKR 1.6 trillion between June 2024 and mid-2025. Recovery rates improved to over 96 percent, while transmission and distribution losses fell from above 18 percent to around 15 percent. These shifts were supported by sequenced actions on tariff rationalization, market reforms, and privatization, and were reviewed regularly at the highest level.
Privatization reforms gained renewed momentum under the roadmap framework. Roadmap support through structuring, milestone-setting and the follow-up of the long-pending Pakistan International Airlines reform contributed towards effective due diligence, leading to transaction readiness and investor engagement. Buyer-side due diligence has been completed, pre-bid engagements held, and the transaction progressed to the bidding stage. While timelines were adjusted to ensure investor readiness and competition, the roadmap ensured sustained visibility and senior-level oversight.
In the information technology and telecom sector, roadmaps support contributed to the abolition of nationwide Right-of-Way charges, reducing the cost of fiber rollout to zero and accelerating broadband expansion. This reform supports the long-term objective of scaling IT exports toward USD 25 billion by 2030. Early indicators show improvements across digital infrastructure, internet speeds, and connectivity.
In partnership with UNDP and FCDO, the Government of Pakistan is implementing and tracking 11 reform roadmaps across multiple federal ministries.
Trade and export reforms have similarly benefited from the roadmap approach. The roadmap was instrumental in introducing an ambitious and export-oriented National Tariff Policy in Pakistan. Following escalation during roadmap reviews, the Export Development Fund surcharge was abolished in late 2025, providing immediate relief to exporters and reducing anti-export bias.
Fiscal reforms supported by the roadmap framework have also demonstrated progress. Pension reforms have been notified and rollout initiated, addressing one of the fastest-growing long-term liabilities of the federal government. Fiscal discipline has strengthened, with the government maintaining a primary surplus and improving its sovereign credit rating from CCC+ to B-. These indicators are reviewed alongside broader macroeconomic metrics.
Beyond sectoral results, the roadmap approach has begun to influence institutional behaviour. Ministries increasingly organize work around outcomes rather than activities. Data quality has improved through routine review, and teams are shifting from reactive reporting to anticipatory problem-solving, supporting a delivery culture grounded in ownership and accountability.
Importantly, roadmaps are designed to be adaptive. They evolve as reforms progress and conditions change. Indicators are refined, actions re-sequenced, and priorities sharpened, while remaining anchored to agreed outcomes.
In periods of economic stress, these attributes are particularly valuable. The roadmap approach does not promise quick fixes. Instead, it provides a disciplined system that sustains momentum, focuses on leadership attention where it matters most, and converts national ambition into measurable, sustained impact. Together, these results demonstrate how disciplined delivery, consistent leadership engagement, and evidence-based monitoring can shift reform from aspiration to implementation. In doing so, they strengthen public trust, institutional credibility, and confidence among development partners supporting Pakistan’s long-term economic transformation at a sustainable national scale.