On 3rd July 2026, the Ministry of Planning, Development & Special Initiatives issued a notification that deserves more attention than it has received. The Prime Minister has constituted a National Population Council, chaired by himself, with the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces among its members, alongside the four provincial chief ministers, the Prime Minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, the Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, and the federal ministers for planning, finance, health, education, law, information, and religious affairs. On paper, this is the most powerful gathering ever assembled around Pakistan's population question.
I have waited a long time for a notification like this. In December 2023, in these very pages, I wrote that Pakistan's population program was a tale of failure ("Pakistan's Population Program: A Tale Of Failure And Urgent Call To Action," The Friday Times, 18 December 2023, https://www.thefridaytimes.com/18-Dec-2023/pakistan-s-population-program-a-tale-of-failure-and-urgent-call-to-action).
One in six married women who want to delay or avoid pregnancy are still not using any method of contraception. That gap translates into millions of unsafe abortions every year and preventable maternal deaths.
I wrote then: "In the obvious state of denial, loss of interest, intellectual laziness, and unpreparedness of the concerned departments and forums, the question is who should take the leadership of this significant operation. In all earnestness, I would suggest that the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) of Pakistan looks into the matter and prioritizes it amidst national interests and security concerns at the earliest."
I do not repeat this to claim credit for a decision that was the government's own to make. I repeat it because the inclusion of the COAS/FM on this Council is, in my view, exactly the kind of high-level backing this issue has lacked for decades. Pakistan's population currently exceeds 259 million, making it the fifth most populous country globally. With an intercensal growth rate of roughly 2.55%, the country continues to face immense pressure on its socio-economic infrastructure.
Fertility has been falling, but slowly, and roughly one in six married women who want to delay or avoid pregnancy are still not using any method of contraception. That gap translates into millions of unsafe abortions every year and preventable maternal deaths. These are not abstract numbers. They are girls pulled out of school and families locked into cycles of poverty they did not choose.
This is why I want to state plainly what I believe the Council's real mandate should be. Family planning is not, at its core, a supply problem to be solved by handing out contraceptives. It is a human development problem. Human development is the best contraception. When girls stay in school, when young people have real economic prospects, when couples can marry without crushing dowry and bari demands, and can agree on a nikahnama that safeguards their rights, birth rates fall on their own, as they have in every society that has gone through this transition.
A National Population Council that treats this only as a demographic accounting exercise, rather than an investment in human capital, will fail exactly as previous efforts have failed. I would therefore respectfully urge the Field Marshal, in his new capacity on this Council, to use his considerable convening power to do something specific: empower Pakistan's youth to make informed reproductive choices, and ensure they have dignified, unhindered access to contraceptives, including reliable, high-quality methods, not the substandard or intermittently available supplies that too many clinics offer today.
Unmet need is not simply about ignorance. It is about girls and young couples who want to plan their families and cannot, because the system does not take their dignity or their choices seriously. And here I must say something that will not please everyone, but that I believe needs saying. With all due respect to the medical profession, obstetricians and midwives who earn considerably more from delivering babies, and in far too many cases from conducting abortions, whether safe or unsafe, cannot reasonably be expected to serve as the primary stewards of family planning. Their financial incentives run in the opposite direction of prevention. This is not an accusation against individuals; it is an observation about a health system that has never seriously addressed the perverse incentives built into it. Family planning stewardship needs champions whose interest lies in fewer unintended pregnancies, not more procedures.
The National Population Council now has the authority to change this. What it needs is the will to treat population stabilisation as a human development agenda, not a health/population department/s line item, and the courage to confront the incentive structures that have quietly undermined family planning for years. I remain hopeful, and I remain available to contribute whatever expertise is useful to this effort.Pakistan's problem is not overpopulation but the management of population and investments in its people.