A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Pakistan Freelancers Association (PAFLA) here. The MoU was coined with the aim to bridge policy research, policy advocacy, influencing gap to create an enabling environment for freelancing in Pakistan.  The cooperation also aims to create awareness about the benefits and importance of freelancing and self-employment, bolster Pakistan’s freelancing exports by upskilling the freelancing community with particular focus on the country’s youth and women by skill trainings, awareness campaigns about policies and raising the issues faced by freelancers at policy fronts. 

Under this MoU, SDPI and PAFLA will jointly organize seminars, webinars, trainings and policy dialogues for freelancers and policy makers. Speaking on the occasion Dr Sajid Amin, Deputy Executive Director (Research), SDPI said that SDPI is well placed as an independent policy think-tank to conduct robust policy influencing.  He added that engagement with private sector enables SDPI to develop comprehensive understanding of issues faced by stakeholders, identify policy gaps and build capacity of both private and public sector supplemented by evidence-based policy influencing. Ibrahim Amin, Chairman, PAFLA said that Pakistan is third largest freelancing market with reported annual size of Rupee 2 Billion, however, he added that only Rupees 700 million worth of freelancing export is documented. 

He attributed the high undocumented exports to lack of financial and regulatory literacy, low competitive skills and general lack of awareness about freelancing in the country.  He stressed that  considering the population of youth, increasing internationally competitive freelancing skills, creating a clear and conducive regulatory environment can exponentially increase documented freelancing exports and increase foreign remittances for economic growth.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)