Public Policy Experimentation Expert

Public Policy Experimentation Expert – National Fiscal Pact Reform

Background

The Revenue Mobilisation, Investment and Trade (REMIT) is a multi-year (2021 – 2028) program funded by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and is implemented by Adam Smith International (ASI). The program provides technical assistance (TA) to Pakistan with a broader objective to implement reforms for strengthening macroeconomic stability and improving conditions for high and sustained growth, mutual prosperity, job creation, and poverty reduction. The Programme works towards supporting the Government of Pakistan, its relevant ministries, institutions, and departments to strengthen revenue mobilization reforms/initiatives, address investment environment challenges, facilitate trade and drive competitiveness by reducing trade barriers, and improve the macroeconomic policy and its management.

Activity Context

One of the key areas of support provided by REMIT is in the implementation of the National fiscal Pact (NFP). The NFP, aligned with the 18th Constitutional Amendment, aims to rebalance federal and provincial expenditures under the IMF Program. It involves devolving federal activities and increasing provincial spending on education, health, social protection, and regional public infrastructure

Under this work, REMIT has completed detailed analyses of federal expenditures in key devolvable functions: Higher Education Commission (HEC), the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), and Social Protection. Through fiscal modeling and policy simulations, REMIT has produced recommendations outlining various devolution pathways, their implications for federal savings, and the resulting fiscal responsibilities for provinces. Reports detailing policy simulation options and policy recommendations for devolution under the NFP have been developed and shared with the government.

REMIT now aims to to use empirical, behavioral, and communication-focused approaches to promote readiness for the NFP reform. Echo chambers within the public sector, media, and academia often reinforce long-held policy views, particularly regarding fairness and necessity. Shifting these entrenched perspectives requires experimentation and evidence on what messages and channels are most effective in promoting openness to change and trust in data-driven decision-making.

Thus, REMIT requires the services of Public Policy Experimentation expert to design and implement an intervention on effecting change in the public sector.

Job Summary

The Public Policy Experimentation Expert will lead the design and implementation of an applied intervention to understand and influence how beliefs, norms, and narratives around fiscal reforms, particularly under the National Fiscal Pact, can shift within the public sector and related policy communities. This role will apply tools from behavioral science, political economy, and impact evaluation to test which messages, formats, and framings are most effective in building openness to reform and readiness for evidence-based policy change. The expert will oversee the full lifecycle of the intervention, from hypothesis generation and experimental design to survey development, field monitoring, and rigorous analysis. The position requires close coordination with REMIT's technical team, government counterparts, and stakeholders to ensure that findings are translated into actionable recommendations and that dissemination strategies support broader reform adoption.

Duties and Responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities of a Public Policy Experimentation Expert are but not limited to:

1. Intervention Design: Develop hypotheses around behavior and belief change in the public sector and determine key treatment arms.

2. Survey Design and Tools Development: Identify and define variables to document knowledge, attitude, and practices related to key policy questions, constraints on adoption of analysis-based programming and policy options and draft baseline and endline surveys and design embedded experiments.

3. Monitoring of Survey Implementation: Ensure fidelity of survey delivery and conduct quality control checks.

4. Data Analysis and Insights Generation: Conduct rigorous analysis, include multiple hypotheses testing, to test treatment effects and generate insights.

5. Stakeholder Engagement: Present findings and co-develop strategies for knowledge and analysis based engagement for policy change.