ISLAMABAD: The government of Pakistan on Tuesday discussed about the need to manage population growth to ensure provision of better human health, economic stability and social life of people.

The recent data reveals that Pakistan is the 5th most populous country in the world, despite only being the 33rd largest in size.

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While its huge population is constantly eating up national resources threatening the national life especially provision of sufficient healthcare as well as quality education, job opportunities, climate change, depleting water resources and even our national security.

The government ministers showed concerns over the constant population growth and the resources which are quickly running out on the reference of the World Population Day on July 11, 2022.

The Minister for Federal Health Services Abdul Qadir Patel said on the occasion that, “overpopulation always eats up national resources hindering the national prosperity. There is a misconception that family planning is meant to control child birth. In fact, this initiative was launched to ensure better health of mother and child.”

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Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal discussed, about 60 per cent population in Pakistan is below the age of 30, who want to have better education and reasonable employment. However, with available resources in the country, perfect education facilities and jobs availability is a difficult task but we can improve it with practical measures.

Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation Shazia Marri, termed the overpopulation a major concern for development planning in Pakistan.

She said, “If we maintain a balance between national population and resources it would ensure better health of people especially of mother and child.”

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She further said that “the data shows that maternal mortality ratio in Pakistan stands at 186 deaths per 100,000 live births. The need for family planning is staggeringly high in Pakistan.”

She also said that the grassroots challenges are present such as misperceptions, lack of trained health staff, communication gap between the partners, and others.

To make a real difference in this area and normalize family planning amongst the masses, we need to design and execute behavior change campaigns through use of media tools that reach out to everyone across the board, including rural and most marginalized communities.

As part of the efforts to raise awareness about the importance of adopting family planning measures, KhairKhwah (campaign name means well-wisher) launched an advocacy campaign on the World Population Day with testimonial videos of government officials. These video testimonials directly speak out to the population of Pakistan on the link between overpopulation and problems facing Pakistan such as economic crisis, unemployment, healthcare etc. and encourage people to adopt family planning measures.

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At the same time, this campaign aims to mobilize the government officials and engage them to make commitments to address this growing issue.

Names of Officials:

Names of stakeholders:

Dr Arif Alvi, President of Pakistan.

Ahsan Iqbal

Abdul Qadir Patel

Dr Zaeem Zia

Shazia Fatima Khuwaja

Ali Jan Khan

Dr. Zaher Gul

Shazia Marri

Taimur Khan Jhagra

Riaz Hussain Pirzada