Trade Adviser – Development of Economic Transformation Agenda and Implementation Plan

The Revenue Mobilisation, Investment and Trade (REMIT) is a 39-month (2021 – 2025) program funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and is implemented by Adam Smith International (ASI). The program provides technical assistance (TA) to Pakistan with a broader objective to implement reforms for strengthening macroeconomic stability and improving conditions for high and sustained growth, mutual prosperity, job creation, and poverty reduction. The Programme works towards supporting the Government of Pakistan, its relevant ministries, institutions, and departments to strengthen revenue mobilization reforms/initiatives, address investment environment challenges, facilitate trade and drive competitiveness by reducing trade barriers, and improve the macroeconomic policy and its management.       

REMIT has provided support to the Prime Minister (PM)’s team in providing technical support in the preparation or the PMs Home-Grown Economic Growth Plan, including developing five sectoral priority frameworks. Following on from this work, the REMIT team has been requested to provide a technical and strategic review and inputs into the development of the PM’s Economic Transformation Agenda and Implementation Plan (ETAIP).

The role of the ETAIP reviewers is to provide technical/strategic review and input into the PM’s roadmap process, the roadmaps themselves, and progress reviews (including stocktakes) to ensure the plans developed and actions taken are:

        I.          focused on the objectives of the PM’s Economic Transformation Agenda and Implementation Plan (ETAIP)

       II.          consistent with the economic framework for growth included in the ETAIP, as well as the other policy proposals within the ETAIP

     III.          realistic with regards to implementation capability

     IV.          technically sound, with no obvious false assumptions, misunderstandings of facts, or illogical implicit causal chains

      V.          accompanied by clear and transparent implementation steps and intended outcomes, with realistic and well-executed monitoring plans.

     VI.          accompanied by strategic communication plans

The ETAIP reviewers will be supported in their work by the ETAIP/PM Roadmap team currently embedded in PMO. This ETAIP/PM Roadmap team will share policy documents and updates to the reviewers, who will then review.

We are recruting specifically for a trade advisor to support in developing the ETAIP.  The scope of work will focus particularly on areas of the ETAIP pertaining to tariff rationalisation and general trade policy prioritisation. This resource will be physically based on PMO, though officially part of the ASI REMIT team. The advisor will have the following specific responsibilities:

• Develop written comments to the PM’s top economic team (eg: PM, Minister EAD, Minister Finance, and nominated representatives) in advance of stocktake meetings to enable the PM’s team to convey these messages to government departments.
• Provide technical review on any trade policy issues which relate to, or impact upon, the economic framework for growth included in the ETAIP.
• Provide the PM’s economic team with advice in relation to policy implementation and monitoring, as well as strategic communication support.

The expert will report immediately to the Assignment Lead, and ultimately to the Team Leader of the REMIT programme.