Ahsan for declaring education, health issues ‘national emergency’
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal called for declaring education, health, nutrition, clean water and population issues a “national emergency” and devolving authority to districts to ensure essential services reach citizens at their doorsteps.
The minister expressed these views while chairing a meeting on the Human Capital and Skills Mission, the seventh of the 11 National Economic Missions under URAAN Pakistan, on Wednesday.
The meeting reviewed Pakistan’s performance in health, education and skills against peer countries, the mission’s URAAN targets, and a proposed federal-provincial mechanism for delivering them.
The minister said investment in human resources and skills was the foundation of Pakistan’s future development.
He said social sector challenges were more important than roads and buildings and must be treated as a national emergency. Education, health, nutrition, clean water and population balance must be among the country’s top priorities, he added.
“A single provincial secretary cannot effectively resolve the problems of an entire province. Authority must be transferred to local governments,” he said.
Iqbal said empowered departments should be established at the district level so citizens could access basic services at their doorsteps, adding that administrative reforms would be required to make this possible.
He urged provincial governments to introduce governance reforms in education, health and other social sectors and appoint highly capable officers to these departments.
“Pakistan’s literacy rate is 63 percent. With literacy at this level, we cannot develop at the speed we need,” he said.
The minister said Pakistan’s population growth rate of 2.55 percent was a major challenge, warning that unchecked growth could undermine efforts to achieve economic progress. He added that significant improvements in social indicators would require at least 10 years of sustained and coordinated efforts.
Pakistan ranks 168th among 193 countries on the Human Development Index, while its Human Capital Index score of 0.41 means a child born in Pakistan today is expected to achieve only 41 percent of his or her productive potential, he said.
“Stunting stands at 40.2 percent, the highest among peer countries, and every province and region is above the WHO ‘very high’ threshold of 30 percent. Maternal mortality, at 186 per 100,000 live births, remains well above the SDG target of 70,” he added.
According to the briefing, around 26 million children, or 28 percent, are out of school. Of every 100 children entering Class 1 in public schools, only 46 reach Class 10. Literacy ranges from 68 percent in Punjab to 49 percent in Balochistan.
In skills, female labour force participation stands at 22.7 percent, compared with 68.7 percent for men. Some 45.4 percent of young women are not in education, employment or training, while participation in technical and vocational training has remained around 11 percent. About two million young people enter the labour force every year.
The briefing also highlighted progress, including national full-immunization coverage, which has risen to 81.3 percent.
The minister said the 18th Amendment was intended to improve social sector outcomes, but the desired results had not been achieved because authority was not sufficiently devolved to lower tiers of government.
He said progress between 2010 and 2025 remained far below expectations, largely due to the centralisation of authority, and that social sector indicators had not improved as required over the past 15 years.
Iqbal stressed that the time for merely making plans was over and that effective implementation must now be ensured.
“The job of the Ministry of Planning is to provide the best evidence-based planning. Implementation rests with the relevant departments and the provincial governments. Only the best planning combined with effective implementation can guarantee that we achieve our development goals.”
The Human Capital and Skills Mission is the most devolved of the 11 National Economic Missions, with health, education and skills falling primarily under provincial mandates. The federal role focuses on developing standards, policy coordination, international commitments, financing dialogue, and data consolidation.
Under URAAN Pakistan, the mission’s targets include reducing maternal mortality by 35 percent, and stunting and under-five mortality by 18 percent each; raising skilled birth attendance to 85 percent; increasing education spending to 4 percent of GDP; improving the literacy rate by 10 percent; creating 1.5 million jobs annually; and increasing female labour force participation by 17 percent.
The meeting was informed that the national targets would be broken down into annual, provincial and regional milestones to make progress clear, comparable and trackable. Population indicators, including the total fertility rate and contraceptive prevalence rate, were also proposed for inclusion in the mission’s monitoring framework, along with increasing health spending to 2 percent of GDP.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026