Policy Dialogue

Pakistan currently boasts a huge demographic dividend and untapped human resource; it has the largest group of youth (ages 10 – 24) with nearly 54.2 million individuals. These projections of youth population statistics, call for enhanced policy and programmatic measures to address young people’s vulnerabilities and empowering them to be agents of change for development and eventually breaking the cycle of poverty in Pakistan. Pakistan’s youth represents vast untapped potential, which, if properly harnessed, could be the key to guiding this nation to a brighter future, as opposed to the current situation. Government of Pakistan is in the process of designing policies and programs for harnessing the “Demographic Dividend”. This is an appropriate time to bridge the gap between policy makers and youth to ensure an enabling policy for the youth in Pakistan.

In order to bridge the gap between the youth and policy makers World Population Foundation – Pakistan held a Policy Dialogue on “Harnessing Youth Potential in Pakistan: Enabling Policy Environment” at the Best Western Hotel, Islamabad on the July 30, 2007.

The first session was commenced by Mr. Fahad Shafiq, Coordinator Youth Programme, WPF – P. He gave a presentation on the Youth situation in Pakistan. He stated that the level of youth in Pakistan is at an all time high, with nearly 34% of its population comprising of youth. Pointing out the problems faced by the youth, he singled out the adolescents as a particularly vulnerable group due to their lack of awareness and understanding of the changes taking place within them and around them.

The second session included presentation by Dr. Nausheen Mehmood, Director PIDE on ‘Policy Processes, Demographic Dividend and Youth’. She reemphasized the potential benefits of the demographic bonus that can be attained through enhanced education, skill development, increased employment and labour productivity. She felt that the youth have a lot of untapped potential that can be utilized by providing them with proper opportunities. Speaking of youth concerns at the ministerial level she felt that the vision is there but the ministry lacks the proper foresight for its effective implementation and execution. She also game an overview of the youth ministry’s long and short term plans and credited a few like the national internship plan which have been effective.

In the last session, Dr. Zeba Sathar, Director Population Council gave a presentation on, ‘Harnessing youth potential and Role of youth coalitions’. Dr Zeba viewed the ideal outcome of this dialogue to be a consensus about the type of education and vocational skills, required by our youth which are pertinent to today’s needs. She feels that there is a mismatch between the sort of education that the youth get and the type of jobs that are available.

Some of the participants included: Mr. Zulfiqar Rao of Save the Children – UK. He stated that SC-UK is primarily working on three fronts: Education, HIV/AIDS and Children’s health. Even though some programs may be targeting the whole family, their main focus is always on the well being of the children. Through their various programs around 65000 children have been helped till now. Ms Seher reiterated that Pakistan currently has the largest youth population in its history. Speaking of the health facilities she agreed that there are not any proper facilities in place leading to maternal deaths, sexual education remains a taboo while on the other hand high risk sexual behaviour is rising, leading to an increase in the STD’s. Mr. Saadat Ali (RNE), pointed out that there are three main types of schools in Pakistan public, private and the madrassas. Whilst the first two are catered to by the NGO’s the madrassas are often left in the dark. The madrassas currently enroll about 1 million of our countries youth. He felt that the NGO sector has enough facilities available to cater the madrassas and counter their extremist teachings.

Qadeer Baig concluded the session by identifying expert organizations, parents and religious leaders potential partners that the youth organizations should target. He felt that there was a need of youth representatives at policy making bodies and that the youth should be encouraged to activate their potential, and enter into advocacy and lobbying.