EDITORIAL: Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal’s call to declare education, health, nutrition, clean water and population management issues a national emergency, made while chairing a meeting of URAAN Pakistan’s Human Capital and Skills Mission, underscores the gravity of Pakistan’s human development crisis.
Beyond inadequate investments and poor planning, the crisis reflects a governance structure unable to translate policy into effective service delivery.
At its core lies the abject failure of provincial governments to devolve meaningful authority, finances and accountability to elected local bodies, undermining efforts to combat illiteracy, improve healthcare and nutrition, and manage population growth.
These governance shortcomings are compounded by the sheer scale of Pakistan’s demographic challenge.
With the country’s population growing at a runaway rate of 2.55 percent annually, it is driving the demand for schools, healthcare facilities, nutrition and employment faster than the state can expand provision.
Yet successive governments have failed to align their population policies with the incentives embedded in the country’s governance and resource distribution systems. Under the NFC Award, for instance, population accounts for 82 percent of the formula for distributing resources among provinces while parliamentary representation and public sector job quotas are also linked, directly or indirectly, to population size.
Such arrangements reward demographic expansion without adequately rewarding improvements in human development. The state cannot credibly declare a population emergency while retaining structures that privilege population numbers over development outcomes.
The consequences are evident in Pakistan’s dismal human development indicators.
Ranked 168th among 193 countries on the Human Development Index, Pakistan has a Human Capital Index score of just 0.41, meaning a child born today is expected to achieve only 41 percent of their potential productivity. Some 26 million children remain out of school, stunting affects 40.2 percent of children, while maternal mortality stands at 186 deaths per 100,000 live births, all figures among the worst in the neighbourhood, representing social deprivation, lost productivity, diminished earning potential and a weakened foundation for economic growth.
Reversing this trajectory requires a governance structure capable of turning resources and policy commitments into tangible improvements in people’s lives.
This is where the question of devolution becomes critical. The 18th Amendment sought to bring decision-making closer to citizens by devolving substantial responsibilities to the provinces.
Yet 16 years on, progress has fallen well short of expectations. As the planning minister observed, a single provincial secretary cannot effectively address the needs of an entire province. Too often, authority transferred from Islamabad has remained concentrated in provincial capitals, leaving districts reliant on distant bureaucracies for decisions affecting schools, health facilities and basic services. Without empowered local institutions, resources and accountability cannot reach the level where needs are identified, priorities set and performance effectively monitored.
Provincial governments must be held accountable for failing to establish and sustain genuinely representative local government systems. Devolution must mean more than shifting power between bureaucracies. Elected local bodies need predictable funding, administrative autonomy and the authority to hold frontline service providers accountable, identify underserved communities and tailor services to local needs.
A national emergency must therefore drive structural reform, with the federal government providing evidence-based planning, national standards and coordination, and provinces devolving budgets and operational authority to the local level.
Population stabilisation must also be integral to this effort through voluntary family planning, reproductive healthcare, girls’ education and public awareness. The NFC formula, meanwhile, should reward measurable gains in population management and human development rather than demographic size alone.
Pakistan cannot achieve lasting economic or social progress while its population grows faster than its capacity to educate, employ and care for its people. The emergency has been acknowledged. What we now need is meaningful devolution, accountable governance and tangible improvements in people’s lives.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026