World Bank Launches New Report on Fiscal Federalism in Pakistan

World Bank’s ‘magical discovery’

BARELY had the dust settled on the IMF’s insipid report on governance than the World Bank launched, with much fanfare, its latest prescription — this time on fiscal federalism. The bank’s report presents itself as a fresh diagnosis of Pakistan’s malfunctioning intergovernmental system, when actually there is little that is either new or thought-provoking about it. In fact, the report comes across as an overwhelmingly technocratic exercise. It catalogues institutional weaknesses, distils lesso...

By [email protected] (Shahid Kardar)