ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s rapidly changing demographic profile requires an urgent shift from short-term population interventions to evidence-based, multi-sectoral planning, experts said on Monday, warning that weak coordination, inadequate financing and uneven implementation were undermining the country’s ability to respond to demographic pressures. Speaking at a seminar organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) titled “Population Growth and Policy Coherence in Pakistan: Challenges and Pathways”, policymakers, health experts and researchers called for greater institutional coordination and long-term investment in health, education, skills and human capital.
The discussion focused on institutional silos, regional implementation gaps and community-level perceptions that continue to shape Pakistan’s population policy. The keynote address was delivered by Prof Dr Shezad Ali Khan, executive director of the Health Services Academy, while the panel included Rabia Zafar of the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS) and Farah Ashraf of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Prof. Dr. Shezad Ali Khan, Executive Director, Health Services Academy, presented some of the seminar’s starkest findings, arguing that population dynamics cannot be understood through a narrow medical lens alone. He said an estimated 48 percent of pregnancies in Pakistan are unwanted, contributing to roughly 380,000 abortions annually, many carried out through unsafe procedures in unregulated clinics that result in severe complications and sepsis. On maternal and infant health, Dr. Khan said Pakistan records around 700,000 stillbirths a year the highest number in the world while 42 out of every 1,000 babies die within their first month, the highest neonatal mortality rate globally since 1960. He further noted that 20 out of every 100 couples face unmet family planning needs due to structural resource shortages rather than community resistance, underscoring that population challenges stem from systemic failures rather than public failure.
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He cautioned against relying excessively on externally driven terminology that could generate cultural resistance and called for a more locally grounded narrative centred on “population welfare”. Such an approach, he said, should give greater attention to maternal nutrition, birth spacing, breastfeeding and other interventions that can improve maternal and child health.
Dr Khan also stressed the need for a broader, multi-sectoral response, arguing that population policy could not succeed if treated as the responsibility of the health sector alone. Education, economic planning, nutrition and social protection, he said, needed to be integrated into demographic policy.
Rabia Zafar of NIPS highlighted structural weaknesses in long-term financing, inter-provincial coordination and implementation at the grassroots level. She urged policymakers to replace reactive planning with systematic, projection-based frameworks capable of anticipating demographic changes.
She said targeted investment in human capital, healthcare and skills development would be essential if Pakistan was to take advantage of its demographic window and convert its large young population into an economic asset.
Farah Ashraf of UNFPA called for an end to fragmented policymaking, saying departmental silos continued to impede effective responses to demographic challenges.
Referring to UNFPA-supported initiatives, she stressed the need for unified data governance, stronger coordination between federal and provincial institutions and greater alignment of public spending with long-term demographic trends.
Dr. Shafqat Munir Deputy Executive Director (Policy) SDPI, noted that Pakistan’s 57 million women currently in their reproductive age are projected to surpass 100 million by 2050, while the country’s working-age population currently bolstered by a youth cohort making up 67 percent of the population is expected to grow from 164 million to 292 million over the same period. He added that Pakistan’s core challenge is not a shortage of policy statements, but inadequate long-term financing, uneven regional access and weak inter-departmental coordination.
“Pakistan must now move from dialogue to implementation,” Dr Munir said, stressing the need to translate research and policy discussions into concrete government action.
He said the seminar formed part of SDPI’s continuing research agenda on demographic and development policy and was aimed at strengthening evidence-based dialogue between researchers, policymakers and development partners.
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