PAKISTAN’S ruling elites devote inordinate time and attention to foreign engagements — at the expense of tackling domestic challenges. The country’s media also tends to focus more on foreign policy and international events than on fundamental problems confronting the country. Switch on any TV channel and most talk shows are endlessly discussing Pakistan’s overseas forays, defence agreements, and other global developments. Some of this is understandable as a war in the neighbourhood and regional and international dynamics do have implications for Pakistan that merit comment. But domestic issues more consequential to the country’s fate and future rarely receive the same attention.
There may be several reasons for this. For ruling elites, foreign engagements are a way to access and collect geopolitical rents to keep the economy afloat, enabling them to avoid undertaking domestic reform. Their notion of ‘success’ rests on foreign alignments that can deliver these rents without having to expend political energy solving structural economic problems at home. Hence, the almost obsessive focus on foreign pursuits and lack of reform at home.
For governments resting on dubious electoral mandates, it is also the means to acquire international legitimacy to compensate for its absence at home. This is more so for authoritarian and hybrid regimes. There is also more cachet in taking overseas trips and having photo-ops with world leaders than trying to get ministries to do their job. That is why ministers often spend more time abroad than in the country, with prime ministers exceeding their predecessors’ record of foreign visits. Fixing the country’s problems is much harder than flying off to, say, Davos. A cynical explanation is that the country’s problems — poverty, hunger, lack of education, and health facilities, malnutrition, growing population numbers — don’t affect the power elite, so if they fester there is no skin off its back. Certainly, it sees no urgency in addressing them.
Pakistan’s future will be determined at home, not abroad.
The excessive attention that much of Pakistan’s broadcast media devotes to foreign policy and external developments is explained by other factors. The obvious one is the electronic media simply covers what the country’s leadership is doing. But it also means it is content to play follow-my-leader and not set its own agenda that takes public issues into account. Discussing foreign trips and events involves far less effort than delving into complex domestic issues. Confrontations between the government and opposition do get plenty of coverage. But when a report on an aspect of Pakistan’s economic and social situation is published, the coverage and discussion are fleeting and shallow, with no analysis or follow-up. There are occasional exceptions but an in-depth analysis or investigative documentary on a consequential socioeconomic issue is hard to come by. Above all, TV channels seem to believe serving up formulaic talk shows is enough for viewers.
Yet issues that warrant the attention of primarily the government, that can do something about them, and media, which can encourage authorities to pay attention, have become even more urgent. Improving the living conditions of people is the government’s most important task. That it has not lived up to this task is apparent from the fact that poverty, for example, has risen significantly in recent years. According to the World Bank, Pakistan’s national poverty rate rose from 22 per cent in 2018-19 to 29pc in 2024-25. The WB also estimates that Pakistan accounts for almost half of the poor in the 23 countries of the MENAAP region (Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). UNDP estimates 38.3pc of Pakistan’s population face multidimensional poverty, which measures multiple, overlapping deprivations in education, health, and standard of living that go beyond a purely monetary standard of poverty.
So why is the government unable to deal with the increasing number of people living below the poverty line? It is argued that the government is constrained by the macroeconomic situation and an IMF programme that is contractionary, and has to focus on stabilising the economy. But that should not prevent it from addressing poverty. There is much that can be done to reduce poverty that has nothing to do with the spending cycle. After all, the IMF hardly prevents the government from allocating resources judiciously, mobilising revenue, pursuing non-tax filers, and curbing electricity theft. Stabilising the economy has nothing to do with vanity projects undertaken at the expense of helping the poor.
Poverty is also reflected in the alarming state of hunger in the country. Pakistan is among the world’s 10 countries where millions face acute hunger, according to an international humanitarian organisation, Action Against Hunger. Another recent report, No Security Without Food Security, finds Pakistan is worst hit by hunger in South Asia. Deteriorating food insecurity is attributed to economic instability, inflation, and climate shocks. Malnutrition associated with poverty is also responsible for child stunting. Around 40pc of Pakistani children under five are stunted, which condemns them to a life of physical disability, poverty, and lifelong deprivation.
No issue matters more to the country’s future than education. Yet it barely gets priority attention from the government. Pakistan still has the world’s second highest number of out-of-school children, around 25m (aged five to 16) — over half of them girls. This is a national scandal. Literacy remains stagnant, with 37pc of people illiterate. No country can make economic progress with that level of illiteracy. Without investment in people, economic growth will remain elusive. The education deficit is all the more serious given the youth bulge. Over two-thirds of the population are below age 30. The young will determine the country’s destiny. But if they are uneducated and unemployable, they face a hopeless future. This jeopardises the country’s prospects. Also disturbing is the share of youth (15-29 years) who are not in education, employment, and training, known as the NEET rate, which is 37pc overall and 62pc for women, according to a Gallup report.
Human capital and human development, crucial for economic growth, have suffered from government indifference and deteriorated over time. Foreign engagements count for little when there is no improvement in the condition of the majority of people. Nor does the ‘glamour’ of foreign trips obscure the grim reality of the economic and social deprivations people face across the country. Nation-building at home should have priority. Pakistan’s future, after all, will be determined at home, not abroad.
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.
Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2026
