Shahrukh Wani works with policymakers, researchers, and development partners to support evidence-based policy decisions and reforms. He has worked with governments in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda, and Zambia to deliver actionable research, strategy, and policy advice focusing on urban development, public finance, public sector management, poverty reduction, and infrastructure financing.
He leads IGC’s engagements in Zambia as the Country Manager based at the LSE and the Lusaka office. The program’s efforts involve enhancing the use of data analytics in public policy, addressing challenges in agricultural productivity, informing decentralisation, promoting the mining sector’s contribution to the economy, place-based economic policies, and positioning Zambia for the global energy transition.
Before his current role, he was an urban economist at IGC’s Cities that Work initiative based at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, where he worked on delivering research and policy advice on urban governance, transport, property taxes, and public-private partnerships in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda, and Zambia. He also supported multilateral initiatives, including the UK’s Global Future Cities Programme.
He has been quoted widely on economic, tax, and urban policy, including in Financial Times, Africa Report, BBC, Fortune, and Al Jazeera. His writing has also appeared in Dawn.com, and The Guardian, among others. He served on an advisory panel for the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s initiative on innovation in public policy and has worked at Innovations for Poverty Action, the Grameen Foundation, and the UN-Habitat.
He was born and raised in Pakistan before studying at the London School of Economics. He can be emailed at s.rukh@lse.ac.uk.
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Why doesn’t Pakistan tax enough?
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Pakistan has been unable to expand taxation. Despite several donor-supported reform attempts, the tax-to-GDP ratio continues to hover around 10% of the GDP. The inability to expand tax revenue contributes to significant public service delivery gaps: over 20 million people live without clean water, almost one in every three people do not have a decent toilet, and about 40% children under the age…
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Pakistan will survive this crisis. The government is slowing down the economy; it has almost entirely reversed the disastrous fuel subsides and started negotiations to resume the IMF programme. If it’s lucky, some friendly countries might even give us few billions in loan to shore up our dollar reserves. Crises averted – for the 22nd-odd…
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The curtains have drawn on Imran Khan’s premiership. His successor finds himself in a remarkably similar position as Khan did in 2018: struggling to pay for the large import bill, a budget deficit that likely needs to be financed by more debt, and a sliding rupee. That is the thing about Pakistan’s economy: nothing changes,…
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Co-authored with Sir Paul Collier and Victoria Delbridge The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed policymakers to high levels of uncertainty: governments simply do not have enough information to know what to do. The result is changing policy decisions mid-course: Britain reversed its strategy of building herd immunity when a new estimate put the likely death toll from this…
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Co-authored with Astrid Haas. COVID-19 pandemic started in a city and spread through them. The core benefit of cities — as an enabler of proximity — is also their biggest liability. This is exacerbated when infrastructure and services are scarce. Across sub-Saharan Africa, only a quarter of people have access to necessary handwashing facilities, including…
Shahrukh Wani 