NA to launch Strategic Plan 2015-2018 today

The National Assembly for the first time in its history will launch National Assembly Strategic Plan ( NASP) 20152018 today (Monday). "These reforms are aimed at moving away from the traditional piecemeal approach to a more holistic approach, ensuring that the entire House benefits from the reform process," the spokesman for NA secretariat Mehboob Ali Gurmani said.

This strategic plan has been made under the supervision of Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, who formed a Strategic Planning Oversight Committee (SPOC), with representation from all major political parties, to ensure sustainability and continuity of previous useful measures. The cornerstone of the strategic plan is to ensure that National Assembly moves away from conventional working environment, which is deemed to be outdated, to a more modern, professional and automated form of working. Information Communication and Technology (ICT) reforms are one of the six goals that will be cross cutting through the five goals which drive the NASP. Five key goals set under the strategic plan are as follows:

Strengthen all aspects of legislation making it effective and beneficial to Pakistanis

Ensure that oversight is enabled at all times and across all platforms particularly for parliamentary committees assuring transparency, accountability and judicious use of time and resources

Safeguard the integrity of the assembly by improving its representative role

Move from the traditional mode of working towards an automated e-parliament by undertaking structured reforms in Information Communication and Technology (ICT)

Strengthen PIPS (Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services) into a premier training and research institute for members and staff of the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies

Strategic Planning Oversight Committee (SPOC) deliberated upon development of the NASP 2015-2018 with the assistance of the Project Management Unit (PMU) and the EU-funded Improving Parliamentary Performance in Pakistan (IP3) project.