Media urged to make population-resource balance part of national development debate

by Khalid Shaikh

ISLAMABAD: The Population Council, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has urged the media to make the balance between population growth and available resources a central part of Pakistan’s national development debate.

The call was made at a meeting of the Media Coalition on Population, organised under the theme “The Role of Media in Informed and Practical Actions for Population Balance.” More than 30 journalists from national, provincial and regional media organisations participated in the meeting.

The participants discussed the role of the newly constituted National Population Council, barriers faced by poor women in accessing family planning services and the role of media in monitoring implementation of the government’s population welfare strategy.

Population Council Country Director Dr Ali Mir, in his welcome address, said population was not merely a demographic issue but was closely linked to water scarcity, rapid urbanisation, declining agricultural land, food security, malnutrition and the education and health of women and children.

He said per-capita agricultural land in Pakistan had declined by around 80 percent since 1965, making it essential to bring the relationship between population growth and limited resources into the mainstream development discourse.

Kazim Salman, Deputy Chief Population at the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, said the National Population Council, headed by the Prime Minister, included all four chief ministers, the prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan and key federal ministers.

He said the Planning Commission would serve as the council’s secretariat. The government, he added, was treating family planning as part of a broader development agenda encompassing health, education, youth development, women’s economic empowerment, skills development and social protection.

Kazim Salman said population welfare was about maintaining a balance between rights and responsibilities, adding that consultations were under way with the provinces to formulate a comprehensive action plan while respecting provincial autonomy.

Population Council Director Programmes Dr Aram Kamran presented the results of the “Karein Zindagi Asaan” family planning voucher model, piloted in Rahim Yar Khan in collaboration with the Benazir Income Support Programme and the Punjab Population Innovation Fund.

She said nearly 22,000 women were provided services over a period of 10 months, resulting in an increase in contraceptive use from 53.5 percent to 59 percent.

Among the poorest women, unmet family planning needs declined from 10.7 percent to 6.5 percent, she said.

Dr Aram said the initiative demonstrated that women willing to adopt family planning but unable to access services could be reached through targeted interventions. She termed the initiative a simple and practical model, which was now being expanded to 14 districts of Punjab.

The participants stressed the need to make girls’ secondary and higher education, employment opportunities for women, greater involvement of men in family planning, improved Lady Health Worker services, quality reproductive and maternal healthcare, and effective enforcement of relevant laws integral components of the population-resource balance strategy.

Dr Ali Mir said Pakistan had introduced numerous population welfare programmes over the past six decades, but lack of continuity remained the major challenge.

He stressed that the National Population Council should be protected from political changes to ensure continuity in national population welfare priorities.

In his concluding remarks, Dr Ghulam Fareed Khan, Programme Analyst at UNFPA, said allocations for family planning had increased, but sustainable investment and greater mobilisation of domestic resources should become part of the public debate.

The meeting concluded with a call for stronger cooperation among the media, policymakers and civil society to ensure that population-resource balance remained a permanent part of Pakistan’s broader development agenda.