ISLAMABAD: Experts speaking at the ‘Population & Economic Growth’ session of the Pakistan Population Summit 2025 stressed that population management must be a key political agenda in Pakistan, as high population growth remains the main impediment to the country’s economic and human development.

Dr Luay Shabaneh, representative of the UN Population Fund in Pakistan, said that while macroeconomic indicators have improved, the impact has not been reflected in the social sector.

He added that the high fertility rate and fragmentation among government family planning programmes were major concerns.

He suggested that Pakistan needs to examine how other countries have managed to reduce their population growth rates and develop a clear direction to determine “what Pakistan is trying to achieve in the family planning programmes.”

Experts at Pakistan Population Summit 2025 warn country heading towards ‘demographic disaster’ driven by persistently high fertility rates

The speakers noted that several Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, have successfully reduced their fertility rates, but it remains a persistent challenge in Pakistan.

Dr Rashid Amjad of the Lahore School of Economics said that Pakistan has failed to benefit from the youth bulge and the demographic dividend.

Due to the high fertility rate and limited funds allocated for human resource development, he warned that Pakistan is heading toward a demographic disaster.

“How can we pursue any export-oriented growth now?” Dr Amjad said, adding, “Like previous programmes, Uraan Pakistan will not yield any benefit if population growth is not managed.”

The speakers emphasised that the population agenda goes beyond family planning and includes empowering women through education and involving them in productive sectors.

Charge d’Affaires of Indonesia, Rahmat Hindiarta Kusuma, highlighted the efforts undertaken by the Indonesian government to reduce its population growth rate, including creating awareness among women and restricting child welfare benefits for the offspring of government employees to two children only.

Professor Mehtab S Karim, President of the Population Association of Pakistan, was highly critical of the bureaucracy as well as successive political leaderships for the overall failure of family planning programmes in the country.

“Apart from the Gen Ayub era and the government of Benazir Bhutto, no political leader took family planning and unchecked population growth seriously,” he said, adding, “The population growth rate of Bangladesh was 2.6pc in 1991 and has now dropped to around one per cent, whereas we are still over two per cent. This is one of the reasons their Human Development Index has improved significantly.”

It was suggested that appropriate resource allocation and result-oriented policymaking were essential for effective population management.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2025