The Pakistan Digital Authority hosted a delegation from the World Bank Group at its headquarters in Islamabad for a strategic engagement on Pakistan’s digital transformation agenda and opportunities for continued collaboration under the Digital Economy Enhancement Project. The meeting was chaired by Dr. Sohail Munir, Chairperson of PDA, and attended by senior officials from both institutions, including Michel Rogy, Regional Practice Director at the World Bank, and Sylvia Solf, Practice Manager at the World Bank.
Discussions during the meeting covered a wide range of topics central to Pakistan’s ongoing digital transformation efforts, including Digital Public Infrastructure and citizen centric digital services, along with WASL, Pakistan’s National Data Exchange Layer, which is designed to enable secure and interoperable data exchange across government systems. Participants also discussed the National Digital Master Plan and its priority sectoral use cases, giving both sides an opportunity to align on how specific sectors are being prioritized within the broader digital transformation roadmap.
The engagement also extended into data governance considerations, covering classification, residency, and sharing protocols, along with artificial intelligence related topics including responsible AI safeguards and the development of AI ready datasets. Additional discussion points included federal and provincial interoperability and shared digital infrastructure, AI and GPU compute capacity under public, private, and hybrid models, and machine readable legislation, primary data registries, and open data. This broad range of topics reflects the multifaceted nature of the ongoing collaboration between PDA and the World Bank, spanning technical infrastructure, governance frameworks, and emerging technology considerations relevant to Pakistan’s digital transformation.
As part of the engagement, the World Bank also offered support through its Design Lab, with both sides discussing joint work on selected priority use cases aimed at simplifying citizen facing digital services. The meeting concluded with both institutions reaffirming a shared focus on secure, interoperable, and citizen centric digital transformation, setting out practical avenues for continued collaboration going forward. The discussion adds to PDA’s ongoing engagement with international institutions as it continues developing the technical and governance frameworks needed to support Pakistan’s broader digital transformation agenda under the National Digital Master Plan.
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