With Pakistan struggling economically while a population bomb goes off inside its borders, the country needs to urgently adopt alternative and practical solutions to contain this growing threat. A cogent and practical solution to this problem was presented by an advocacy and policy platform in Lahore the other day.
The Karakoram Initiative, a Washington DC-based advocacy and policy platform focusing on Pakistan and the region, presented its solution to the problem titled "The Operational Strategy to Control Pakistan's Population Growth Rate," at an unveiling event at a local hotel in Lahore, the other day. During the event, the initiative's founding board members, including Haroon Khawaja, Raza Ahmed Rumi, and Ahmed Nauraiz Rana, presented the paper. Haroon is the founding chairman of the PakPur Foundation and a patron of the All-Pakistan Business Forum, who has previously served as an Advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Raza is a journalist, academic, and author who serves on the editorial board of [The Friday Times] and is the founding editor of [NayaDaur Media]. Ahmed Nauraiz Rana is an economist at the World Bank Group and advises various governments globally on economic reform agendas.
In his presentation, Nauraiz discussed the population problem in historical and current context before proposing the initiative's solution.
"We need to ring the alarm bells with regards to where this problem stands," he said, adding that population used to be an asset for Pakistan but has now manifested into a complex problem.
He noted that Pakistan has one of the leading population growth rates in the region, with its population set to double within a few decades.
"We are a resource-constrained, economically vulnerable, developing country," he said, highlighting the growing gulf between our fast-growing population and shrinking resources.
Citing research, he said that around 22 million children are out of school or around 44% of all children in the country. In contrast, 36% of the population faces food insecurity, and 37% of our children are stunted and malnourished, while around 40% are either close to or below the poverty line.
Earlier, Khawaja had pointed out that some three million people enter the workforce every year, which means that Pakistan needs to grow economically at a rate of 8% annually to ensure these people get jobs. However, it was barely growing at 3%, creating an unsustainable disparity.
Nauraiz said that even as its population grows, Pakistan finds itself sinking deeper in debt with the recent budget committing 50% of all receipts to debt servicing, leaving little to no money to invest in its human capital or address any issue or crisis we face.
"We cannot feed the amount of mouths we need to feed, it is just not possible," he stated.
Nauraiz said that many economic models and studies have shown a codependency when it comes to economic development and factors that help lower fertility or population growth rates. At the household level, he said that it is directly linked to poverty levels.
He cited the example of South Korea, which was at one point quite similar economically and socially to Pakistan, had managed to reduce its population which helped improve its economy with its income to GDP per capita growing from $1,800 in 1981 to $3,500 in 2021. During the same period, Pakistan had improved per capita income from $300 to $1,500.
Nauraiz said that religious and cultural norms are often cited as reasons for the high birth rate in Pakistan. However, he said that their research showed that the greater issue was the lack of access to necessary healthcare and contraceptives. This was evident because of a high rate of unintended pregnancies, that is children which neither parent had planned for. Another reason for his conclusion, Nauraiz said, was that Pakistan had the lowest penetration and access to contraceptives among Muslim countries, which dispelled the contention of religious resistance to better family planning.
He said that Pakistan was among the first countries to form family and population planning programmes in the 1960s, but the country was unable to implement them and meet their targets. Politicians, he said, who shout about issues such as corruption, have never raised the issue of population growth.
He noted that a cogent policy could not be developed at the national level after the introduction of the 18th Amendment, and subsequent governments could not use the inter-provincial ministry to further population policies.
Nauraiz then presented the Karakoram Initiative's proposed solution of forming a Population Planning Board that directly reports to the prime minister while circumventing the existing bureaucratic system to provide tangible actions and solutions.
Nauraiz said this board will raise its own funds and mobilise the existing network of non-governmental organisations working at the grassroots.
However, he noted that, realistically, some sectors require government investment and attention, adding that policies introduced by the government through the existing system take time to implement. By sitting outside the existing system, the board would work unencumbered.
Earlier, Khawaja presented his 14-point plan for controlling Pakistan's population which commences with a civil service reform, followed by population control, justice at the doorstep, redrawing the federal budget, local government, education and skills, health and social safety, homeland security, housing, water, energy and environment, food and agriculture, industry and commerce information communication technology and transport and infrastructure.
Khawaja said that if it were up to him, he would want to start with population planning, education and skill development, but given Pakistan's current state, efforts must begin with comprehensive civil service reforms. He further said that this step does not require any major cash injection and has a deep bearing on several sectors.
Raza Ahmed Rumi introduced the Karakoram Initiative, stating that it aims to explore opportunities that may help reshape the bilateral and regional trajectories of development, identify potential avenues of cooperation and foster constructive engagement through research, public and policy engagement, and innovative multimedia productions. Among other objectives, this platform will act as a thought leader in repositioning the relationship between Pakistan and the United States in view of the fast-changing political, economic, and technological imperatives in the global and national contexts.
He further said that their inspiration for embarking on this endeavour comes from the Chinese diaspora, which, in the 1980s and 1990s, not only supported China by sending remittances but also fostered a critical flow of ideas which formed the bedrock of China's progress today.