At first glance, discussions about Balochistan in Pakistan’s policy circles often follow a familiar script, the province’s challenges with governance, infrastructure and service delivery dominate the narrative. Yet on a recent visit to the Balochistan Civil Services Academy (BCSA) in Quetta, that stereotype was challenged head-on. Inside the training halls, a very different story is unfolding, one of innovation, inclusion, reform, and a growing cohort of public servants eager to rethink governance from the ground up.

Breaking the Capital’s Echo Chamber

Living and working in Islamabad, I often found myself surrounded by conversations about Balochistan; in seminars, newsroom discussions, and over coffee at policy circles. These conversations, though well-intentioned, tend to orbit around familiar aspects, governance deficit, infrastructure gaps, corruption, service delivery failures. Balochistan, in this narrative, is often portrayed as a province to be fixed. Yet, beneath these critiques lies the facts – the challenges are real, even if the lens through which they are viewed is often incomplete.

My recent visit to Quetta for a design thinking workshop at the Balochistan Civil Services Academy provided a contrasting view. Away from the capital’s abstractions, I met a community that, despite of limitations and challenges, hums with quiet resolve. Inside the Academy’s training halls, young officers, locally educated and deeply connected to their communities, are redefining what public service means in Pakistan’s largest province. They speak not just of challenges, but of solutions: improving healthcare delivery, building resilient infrastructure, and introducing smarter systems. Their sense of ownership and optimism contrasts sharply with the cautious pessimism often heard in the capital.

My experience with these officers was a powerful reminder that the story of Balochistan is not written in policy papers, but in the determination of its people to build systems that work, from the ground up.

Embedding Innovation: The Integrity Innovation Lab

This design thinking workshop was part of a broader effort to transform governance ecosystem in Pakistan. Through its Integrity Innovation Lab initiative, the Accountability Lab, with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is integrating principles of ethical leadership, transparency, and citizen-centered thinking into civil service institutions. The partnership with BCSA builds on Accountability Lab’s growing collaborations in Balochistan.

One example is the collaboration with the Balochistan Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where the Lab helped digitize the entire oversight process through a customized Management Information System (PACIS) developed with GPP – World Bank support. PACIS now enables real-time tracking of audits, hearings, and recoveries replacing stacks of paperwork with an efficient, transparent digital process. It demonstrates how innovation and accountability can reinforce each other, even in resource-constrained contexts.

Additionally, to promote citizen-led accountability for improved governance in Balochistan, using citizens’ scorecard, Lab collected citizens’ feedback on services related to water, sanitation, and solid waste management and published a research report. Through this project, several events including town hall meetings were also conducted to inform the government about citizen feedback and encourage citizen engagement in decision making.

Design Thinking at Work

Against this backdrop, the Design Thinking and Problem-Solving Workshop held in collaboration with BCSA, exemplified how new approaches to governance can take root. The training invited participants to confront a fundamental question:

“Why do we need change, and how can we drive it effectively?”

Led by Asad Baig, the session drew from Kurt Lewin’s 3-Step Change Model; Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze, a framework that helps organizations navigate transformation by first challenging existing mindsets before embedding new practices.

Participants applied the model to local policy issues, such as banning single-use plastic bags. Instead of sudden enforcement, they designed a phased approach: public engagement and awareness to “unfreeze” old habits, incentives for alternatives during the “change” phase, and public recognition to “refreeze” the new norm. The exercise underscored a key principle: policy reform is sustainable only when citizens understand and participate in it.

Reimagining Leadership and Innovation

The conversations that followed revealed both ambition and realism. Participants asked tough questions about political resistance, limited resources and and the slow pace at which new ideas find acceptance in government systems. Yet these reflections also showed a deep understanding that innovation in governance doesn’t always depend on technology or large budgets; more often, it begins with shift in mindset.  In fact, most meaningful reforms emerge precisely from constraints. When resources are limited, creativity becomes essential and that spirit of resourcefulness was on full display at the BCSA, where new generation of civil servants is proving that limitations can be the starting point of transformation.

A Forward-Looking Civil Service

BCSA’s leadership is also keenly aware of the need to prepare officers for 21st-century governance. Speaking during the workshop, Dr. Hafeez Jamali, Director General of the Academy, outlined ambitious plans to modernize training by integrating data analytics, artificial intelligence and simulation-based learning into the curriculum. Upcoming initiatives include scenario-based labs where officers can simulate policy responses from managing floods to improving rural healthcare and then analyze outcomes under expert supervision.

The Academy is also developing mechanisms to track and evaluate innovative ideas generated during training, ensuring they continue to evolve beyond the classroom. Such initiatives signal a shift from theory to practice from static learning to an active, feedback-driven civil service culture.

Even the workshop’s  format reflected this shift in mindset. The sessions went largely paperless, with digital presentations, group work and note-taking replacing printed materials, a symbolic nod to sustainability and environmental responsibility. In governance reform, these small practices often speak louder than policy documents. They model the kind of long-term, systems-based thinking that design thinking promotes.

Changing the Narrative

As Balochistan continues to navigate its governance challenges, spaces like BCSA offer a glimpse of a changing reality. The officers emerging from these programs are not waiting for external solutions; they are crafting homegrown ones, grounded in practicality, collaboration, innovation and empathy. The story of Balochistan, then, is not one of perpetual crisis, but of quiet transformation. In its classrooms and institutions, a new generation of public servants is reimagining how government can work for citizens, with citizens.

The collaboration between the Accountability Lab and BCSA reflects this emerging shift; one that prioritizes integrity, innovation, and evidence-based leadership. It demonstrates that sustainable reform is possible when capacity building goes hand in hand with local ownership. If there is one takeaway for me from this recent experience at BCSA, it is: with the right tools, mindset, and trust, even deeply rooted systems can evolve, one reform, one leader and one idea at a time.

About the Author:

Muhammad Abubakar is Programs and Communications Officer at Accountability Lab Pakistan and can be reached out at mabubakar@accountabilitylab.org