KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has termed unchecked population growth one of Pakistan’s most serious social and economic challenges, stressing the need for sustained, evidence-based family planning policies to secure the country’s future.
He was addressing the launch ceremony of Pakistan’s largest and most comprehensive social and behavioural change campaign (SBCC) on family planning at the Hindu Gymkhana, NAPA Auditorium, on January 30. Titled “Waqfa ”, the campaign will be run by the Mir Khalil ur Rahman Foundation (MKRF) and Population Council, Pakistan.
The chief minister recalled that Pakistan underwent a historic turning point in 1971, when the country was divided. He said that at the time, Pakistan’s population was around 62 million, Bangladesh had about 70 million people, and India’s population was slightly below 550 million.
Highlighting the demographic shift over the last 54 years, he said that today India’s population has reached 1.48 billion, Bangladesh stands at 177 million, while Pakistan’s population has surged to 259 million.
Shah explained that population growth patterns reveal stark contrasts. “India’s population grew by 2.7 times, Bangladesh’s by about two and a half times, while Pakistan’s population grew by 4.2 times,” he noted.
He further said that while India and Bangladesh maintained a population growth ratio close to 1.8 percent, India still managed to keep its growth rate 1.7 percent lower than Pakistan’s, underscoring the effectiveness of long-term population management policies.
The chief minister observed that had Pakistan followed a population growth trajectory similar to Bangladesh since 1971, the country’s population today would have been around 155 million — nearly 100 million less than its current size. “We must ask ourselves what went wrong and why we failed to acknowledge our mistakes in time,” he remarked.
Calling population growth a deep-rooted social issue with far-reaching economic consequences, he recalled that in the 1970s, public awareness campaigns such as “small family, prosperous family” were regularly aired on television. “At that time, there was only PTV, and we grew up hearing these messages,” he said.
However, he lamented that during the martial law period, population control lost priority and family planning campaigns gradually disappeared from public discourse. “Other countries took timely measures, knowing population growth would eventually become an economic burden, but unfortunately, we did not,” he added.
CM Shah said that during General Zia-ul-Haq’s era, family planning was sidelined, though discussions resumed after the restoration of democratic governments and NGOs began playing their role. “Despite these efforts, the impact was still far less than what was required,” he observed.
Highlighting successful initiatives, the chief minister credited Shaheed Benazir Bhutto’s Lady Health Workers Programme for creating meaningful awareness by taking family planning messages door to door. “This programme has benefitted communities immensely, yet even today, when compared with other countries, we remain far behind,” he admitted.
He rejected the notion that family planning is a religious issue. “This has been unnecessarily turned into a religious debate, whereas in reality it is not,” he said.
The CM cited international comparisons, stating that over the last decade, Saudi Arabia’s population growth remained at 1.22 per cent, Iran’s at 0.5 per cent, Iraq’s at 0.54 per cent, and Turkey’s at just 0.12 percent. He also noted that the United States, with a population of around 310-315 million, has managed its demographic growth despite vast economic demands.
Referring to Pakistan’s geography, the chief minister pointed out that the country’s land area is approximately 800,000 square kilometres, yet it has failed to develop a sustainable population management programme. He hoped that such initiatives would help steer the country toward informed decision-making and long-term socio-economic stability.
In his welcome address, Shahrukh Hasan, Managing Director of the MKRF, said that the unmanaged population growth underpinned every other challenge that Pakistan faced, whether it was economic stress, unemployment, water, poverty or even climate vulnerability.
“At a growth rate of over 2.5 percent, we are adding millions of people every year, faster than we can feed them, faster than we can put them in colleges or schools or provide medical care to them,” he added. “At this rate, unmanaged population is a threat multiplier. It makes every crisis, every problem that we face worse.”
He stressed that unless the issue is addressed collectively, no economic plan, no reform agenda, no development vision can really be successful, adding that it is for this reason that family planning is not just a peripheral or a provincial issue but a national priority.
Sharing details of what he described as “most successful and effective social and behavioural change campaign on family planning,” he said that Waqfa, though a simple word, was very meaningful and very native. “Waqfa means a pause, to reflect, think and choose wisely. It is about responsibility to the health of the mother, well-being of the child, and most importantly, the future and prosperity of this country,” he maintained.
About the logo of the campaign, Hasan said that this simple, colourful logo showing the nucleus of a small and happy family, — a father, mother, and their child — symbolised the very heart and the very concept of the campaign.
This campaign has been developed after drawing lessons from successes and shortcomings of past campaigns on family planning, he said, adding that the campaign drew its strength from the creative excellence, the networking, the reach and most influential media conglomerate.
“This is not going to be an advertising campaign. It is an editorially led campaign with editors, anchors, and newscasters to adopt the campaign,” he underscored. “This is not going to be about messaging at people, but it is a conversation with every Pakistani.”
Hasan further said that the campaign was preceded by a very extensive and detailed engagement with all provincial governments as well as the federal governments. “Healthy spacing will save lives, it will strengthen families and it will give children a better start in life. That is the moral core and human foundation of the campaign.”
He hoped that though the campaign will end in the middle of July, its impact and creative content would live even beyond its life itself. “We hope that the conversation we started today through the launch of Waqfa will define the way we speak to each other, the way we think and plan and we take decisions as a society, as a community and as a country,” he added.
He thanked the Population Council, UK’s Foreign Commonwealth Development Organisation (FCDO), Gallup Pakistan, consultant Dr Yasmeen Qazi for their contribution towards the campaign.
UK Deputy High Commissioner Lance Domm thanked partners — the Population Council, and especially MKRF, for leading the creative vision for this campaign. “Family planning saves lives, enables women to pursue education and employment, strengthens households economically, and helps governments plan better for schools, clinics, jobs, and services,“ he said.
“At the population’s current growth rate, to employ the young people entering the labour force, Pakistan would need to create 68 million new jobs by 2050. At the same time, 15.6 million people already live in districts highly vulnerable to climate change—communities without strong infrastructure, facing risks that will intensify as both climate pressures and population numbers rise.”
Domm stressed that empowering people with reproductive choice was not just a good social policy but a smart economic strategy. That is why, he said, since 2012, the UK has prioritised support that gives women and families the information, tools, and services they need to plan their futures.
“This new awareness campaign matters because communication is often the missing link between services and communities. A recent household survey revealed that 67% of women who do not use modern contraceptives believe that using them carries significant health risks,” he said.
“By sharing accurate information, addressing misconceptions, and amplifying trusted voices, particularly at the community level, we can help ensure that more women and men feel confident in making informed decisions for their families.”
Dr Zeba Sathar, Country Director of Population Council Pakistan, partner of the campaign, said that communications around population issues, whether we talk about rapid population growth, child marriages, unchanging family norms, social constraints, and particularly health concerns around multiple births, have been severely neglected, if not missed out altogether.
“The discussions, the conversations, advertisements, and especially a public service campaign have been absent for many decades,” she added. “This waqfa campaign also marks an era of new communications on population.”
She said the campaign was rooted in the new philosophy which is really embedded in human rights—the rights of every family member and every family and newly born child to have a secure, healthy and fulfilling life, for responsible parenthood where planning families are based on available resources and to ensure children receive adequate care, nutrition, parental attention and above all state responsibility.
“This was the ask of the Council of Common Interests that there should be a new narrative on population and we really thought long and hard something that would be acceptable within our own cultural and religious values and also look out for the rights and not be very driven by national goals and not be prescriptive.”
“Tawazun narrative has been tested out as we’ve had sessions with the legal fraternity, religious leaders, women, gender groups, media groups, climate experts and security experts.”
“Our research shows that millions of families in Pakistan are having more children and more frequently spaced pregnancies than they want to have and that has been the core of the problem,”
“Women tend to be more aware of the negative impacts of frequent pregnancies because they themselves bear children and yet most women in Pakistan really lack the agency and power to make decisions on their own.”
Parliamentary Secretary for Population Nida Khuhro highlighted the initiatives taken by the Sindh government to address the population issue. “Family planning or birth spacing is a misunderstood, sensitive topic with many reluctant to speak about, whereas in reality, this is a matter of health, dignity, responsibility and choice,” he added.
“Every mother should be protected, every child born is wanted and every family is given the opportunity to thrive.”
She highlighted that after the 18th amendment, Sindh adopted reproductive health with full seriousness and ownership, strengthening legal, institutional and service delivery framework to ensure that the reproductive health is recognized not as a privilege, but as a right. The messages of Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal and Punjab Health and Population Minister Khawaja Imran Nazir were also played at the event. They lauded the MKRF for the launch of the campaign and vowed their full support for its success.
After the launch ceremony, a panel discussion was held featuring Dr Zeba Sathar, Executive Director of IBA Prof Dr S Akbar Zaidi, Country Director PSI Ayesha Leghari, Shehzad Roy, Population Ambassador of Government of Pakistan, and Secretary Population Welfare Department Hafeezullah Abbasi.
Published in The NEWS on January 31, 2026.
