Ayesha Saba

The monitoring and evaluation of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) projects conducted by the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives in August 2025 surpassed the set targets, achieving 160% of the planned evaluations.

The ministry evaluated 32 projects compared with the target of 20, including two special assignments.

According to the latest Monthly Development update from the Planning Ministry, which is also available with Wealth Pakistan, the monitoring exercise also covered six education sector projects, jointly reviewed with the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training. Alongside this, the Planning Ministry completed the pre-qualification of 26 third-party firms for monitoring, validation, and inspections of development projects, with details published on the Planning Commission’s website.

To further strengthen accountability, a Complaint Management System (CMS) has been developed to provide a centralised digital platform for receiving, tracking, investigating, and resolving PSDP-related complaints. The CMS portal is currently being tested and will soon be made operational. Moreover, a mobile application designed to facilitate field monitoring is also in the final stages of development, incorporating feedback from field staff.

According to the documents available with Wealth Pakistan, as part of the Planning Ministry’s digital transformation initiative, an AI-enabled decision support system has been deployed to provide evidence-based recommendations across all stages of project implementation. The system reduces human discretion, embeds regulatory checks into automated workflows, and ensures real-time tracking of decisions through publicly accessible interfaces. This approach is expected to minimise administrative friction and strengthen public trust in governance.

In addition, the Planning Ministry has rolled out the Intelligent Project Automation System (IPAS), a digital platform that processes all project documents from preparation and approval to monitoring and evaluation. The IPAS has been fully integrated with the government’s Financial Accounting and Budgeting System, which operates on SAP software. This integration enables detailed budgeting, automated budget releases, and real-time expenditure tracking, allowing for more effective monitoring and evaluation of projects.

Through these measures, the Minister of Planning is advancing its vision of a transparent, efficient, and technology-driven governance framework to accelerate development outcomes.

Credit: INP-WealthPk