Dear Editor,
The government’s new National Adolescent and Youth Policy is an important recognition of Pakistan’s demographic reality. Around 67 per cent of the population is below 30, yet Pakistan ranked 162nd out of 193 countries on the Commonwealth Global Youth Development Index 2023.
The policy will ultimately be judged not by the breadth of its promises but by whether young people’s lives measurably improve.
Pakistan has launched numerous youth schemes over the years involving laptops, loans, skills and entrepreneurship. What remains difficult for ordinary citizens to determine is what happens after announcements: how many beneficiaries secure employment, how many businesses survive, which districts receive opportunities and whether women and rural youth benefit equally.
The new policy should therefore be accompanied by a public youth outcomes dashboard. It could report provincial and district-level data on employment, internships, skills training, entrepreneurship, education and programme outcomes. Independent evaluations should follow participants after training instead of counting enrolment as success.
Young people do not need another policy whose achievement is measured by the number of certificates distributed.
Pakistan’s youth bulge can become an advantage, but only when government programmes are judged by outcomes: Who found work? Who started a sustainable business? Who gained access who previously had none?
That is the accountability the new youth policy needs.
Zooha Indhar