Pakistan is in the process of formulating a National Health and Population Policy (2025–2034) with an emphasis on integrating health and population services, addressing emerging challenges such as climate change and non-communicable diseases, and strengthening primary healthcare delivery.

The policy also seeks to increase health financing, promote resilience and equity in the health system, and, above all, confront the challenge of rapid population growth. A key proposal under consideration is the establishment of a Family Planning Commission as the apex body, to be chaired by the Prime Minister of Pakistan and to include the chief ministers of all the four provinces.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has established a committee, headed by the Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives, to recommend measures to check the uncontrolled increase in population.

Although a draft of the policy has not yet been released, the approach appears to include a review of the National Action Plan on Population (2025–30), which defines specific targets for contraceptive prevalence, fertility, and population growth rates.

The National Action Plan, prepared by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, sets ambitious but essential goals: raising the contraceptive prevalence rate to 60 percent, reducing the total fertility rate to 2.2, and bringing down the population growth rate to 1.1 percent by 2030.

To achieve this, the strategy envisions federal and provincial task forces, an expansion of family planning services, and significantly higher budgetary allocations. Declared a matter of national emergency, these measures are also aligned........

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