Press Release
From the wisdom of the sages of the world to the collective sense of the world body, the United Nations, we know that if we want to build the future of the world we must invest in the youth.
Ahh, the hapless youth of Pakistan. Pakistan has one of the largest populations of young people ever recorded in its history. A whopping 64% are under the age of 30, with some 29% between the ages of 15 and 29. For at least the next three decades, Pakistan will continue to be a younger country. Notwithstanding the statistics showing us at the bottom of the list of all the development and social indicators the ‘glass half full’ view of this youth bulge presents us with a unique opportunity to bring about phenomenal progress in the country. Their ideas and energy can lead the way for social, economic, and political progress. However, this opportunity comes with a heightened responsibility of developing this youth to become that powerful force which can bring transformational development to the country. The challenges in capitalizing this opportunity are, conservatively speaking, more than a few, with education and health of the youth sitting at the top.
There is no eureka moment in the discovery that investment in education and health brings the most value for money. We know this reality intuitively; we know it by looking at the progress made by other countries; despite this we continue to neglect it. The world bank’s human capital index, measuring how much capital each country loses through lack of education and health, shows Pakistan at 134 out of 157 (India, by the way, ranks at 116).
There are several levers that need to be pulled to properly deliver education and health to the youth. While I won’t go into all of these, there is, however, one that I want to zoom into which cuts across both. It is the calorie intake of the children which most affects their health and has a compounding effect on education. We manage nutrition of the children, and we kill the proverbial two birds with one stone. A casual search on the net will bring forward several studies that will show that nutritional status can directly affect mental capacity among school-aged children. Beyond the school years, it endangers their success as an adult by reducing their productivity. Their underdevelopment has further consequences for their families, their communities, and entire nations. World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a cost of more than $3.5 trillion dollars each year in lost productivity, increased healthcare costs and emergency services due to malnutrition of all types. Back of the envelope working with the above number shows that Pakistan, too, is losing billions.
Unfortunately, on nutritional count, the lay of the land in Pakistan shows a grim picture – malnutrition abounds. We usually know of the malnutrition in children under 5 – the statistics are indeed alarming, but we are generally unaware of the nutritional status of children of 5-15 years of age – the school going ages where I want to focus on in this piece. A recent study in Karachi’s urban slums found that the frequency of malnutrition among this category was found to be: 38.3% (stunting), 28.5% (wasting), 17.5% (underweight). Another study from Islamabad showed similar results. From these two studies one can infer that the issue of malnutrition among the school going age group prevails across the country.
Additionally, in my opinion, undernutrition, a significant subset of malnutrition, is quite widespread in the school going children in the low-income segments of the society. In this segment of the population the continual increase in economic stress further fuels the menace of undernutrition among the children causing weakness, weight loss, impaired thinking, and a compromised immune system. To overcome this threat several countries, developed and developing, have instituted meal programs in their schools. In Pakistan, we haven’t. Recently, there have been workshops and consultations on the subject but nothing on ground yet. Additionally, we have learnt from our own experience with meal programs for disadvantaged children in schools in Karachi that these programs provide an incentive for the parents to send their children to school which increases school enrolment, attendance, and retention. The benefits of School Meal Programs are more than a few.
As a nation we need to move beyond our fixation on politics of everything, from IMF plans to the paranoia that the entire world is out to pull us down, and seriously address the issues that are grave enough to impact our future. Taking care of the youth of the country is one such grave matter. The best time to invest in them was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.