With all hopes pinned on the government’s National Population Policy 2010, it would be a tragedy if the plan failed to meet its targets.

The country’s population growth rate is the key determinant of progress in achieving the goals envisaged in every sector of national life. With the population currently growing at a rate of 1.9 per cent per annum, the government is faced with the challenge of a huge backlog and higher targets in the provision of education, healthcare, housing and every other basic right while the economy remains under pressure.

Small wonder that Pakistan continues to slide down the development ladder, and no visible impact is created on the national economy or the social sectors in spite of the heavy investments made from time to time. The government has admitted that family planning services have failed to keep pace with growing demand and that the strategy adopted has not been focused enough. Greater general awareness on the issue has led to a huge unmet need. Sadly, the demographic scene has not changed significantly.

The 2010 policy speaks of making family planning services more effective, contraceptives more accessible, the support of religious leaders readily available and of getting male mobilisers to reach out to men. All these are effective approaches and should be adopted if the fertility rate is to be reduced and ultimately brought down to replacement level.

Two aspects must be addressed urgently. One is the need to move away from the static approach that expects users to contact the contraceptive delivery facilities that have been increased over the years but can never be as accessible as health visitors and mobilisers. It would also make greater sense to integrate the population sector more closely with the health sector because health providers have greater access to the population at large. Secondly, it is important to make population imperatives the underpinning of every policy — education, economic, housing — that is formulated. All this, of course, has to be linked to a proactive strategy to raise the status of women in Pakistan.