Federal Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiatives, Professor Ahsan Iqbal, participated in a landmark high-level international event co-hosted by UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Government of Spain. The forum brought together global leaders and advocates to advance the critical agenda of child and family well-being through evidence-based caregiving strategies.
Addressing the first-ever Global Caregiver Forum, Minister Ahsan Iqbal acknowledged the significance of this initiative while noting he carried the distinction of being the only male participant in the panel discussion. "I think this forum should have taken place much earlier, but better late than never," the Minister stated during the forum.
The event focused on developing a comprehensive global roadmap for scaling up evidence-based parenting programs aimed at supporting caregivers, strengthening families, and safeguarding children's rights and development. Senior representatives from governments, UNICEF, WHO, and international advocacy organizations shared best practices and policy perspectives on universal caregiver support as essential social infrastructure.
Minister Iqbal highlighted a fundamental challenge confronting governments globally: the mismatch between political cycles and the timeline for social investment returns. "The fundamental problem that we face in our governments is that governments run through five-year cycles, and these are the investments that do not give results in five years," Minister Ahsan Iqbal said during his address. He explained that governments typically prioritize short-term investments that yield visible results within three to five years to secure reelection. Consequently, critical social investments in early childhood development are frequently overlooked despite their transformative long-term impact.
To address this structural challenge, Pakistan has forged strategic partnerships with media and civil society organizations to create voices of accountability, ensuring that early childhood development remains a national priority beyond political cycles. Minister Ahsan Iqbal stressed that investing in children's early years is not merely a matter of social well-being but represents a fundamental question of human rights and sound economic policy.
The Minister articulated the economic imperative behind early childhood investment, noting that inadequate nutrition and poor caregiving during formative years permanently compromise children's physical development, cognitive abilities, and creative potential. "If a child is not fed well, if a child is not taken care of well in early years, the child's development suffers, cannot be productive, cannot be creative. Physically, due to stunting, children are weaker. In their cognitive abilities, they are compromised," Minister Iqbal stated during the forum. In an era defined by innovation and creativity, he argued, the quality of early childhood care will determine nations' future economic competitiveness and their children's capacity to contribute productively to society.
Pakistan approaches the Global Caregiver Forum representing one of the world's largest human capital frontiers, with over 95 million children and nearly 41 million under the age of five. Evidence indicates that 54 percent—approximately 33 million—of Pakistani children under five are at risk of not reaching their full developmental potential due to poor nutrition, limited early learning opportunities, poverty, and weak caregiving environments. Additionally, between 80 and 89 percent of children experience violent disciplining at home, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive parenting support programs.
Minister Ahsan Iqbal candidly addressed Pakistan's complex development context, noting that the country faces simultaneous challenges including devastating floods, internal displacements, refugee inflows, food insecurity, and severe fiscal constraints. "I come from a country that is facing floods, displacements, refugee inflows, food insecurity, and severe fiscal stress. And then the instinct is often to treat parenting and early childhood as something we can wait for," the Minister said. However, Pakistan has deliberately chosen the opposite path, guided by scientific evidence demonstrating that delay in this domain is never neutral and permanently damages human capital, which constitutes any nation's most valuable resource.
As one of the top ten most climate-vulnerable countries globally, Pakistan contributes less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions yet bears disproportionate consequences. "We are among the most climate vulnerable countries. Our global greenhouse gas emission is less than 1%. In 2022, we faced a flood that brought one-third of our population underwater. It hit the poorest of the poor areas and washed away eight years of our progress in sustainable development goals," Minister Ahsan Iqbal stated during the forum. He noted the bitter irony that Pakistan pays the price for irresponsible development practices of other nations, and when seeking international support for reconstruction, is advised to incur additional debt rather than receiving genuine climate justice.
In humanitarian crises and natural disasters, children and women invariably stand on the frontlines of suffering. Recognizing this reality, Minister Iqbal emphasized, "We made a deliberate choice that we would not allow climate shocks to permanently damage a generation of our children." This commitment led to the development of Pakistan's comprehensive Early Childhood Development Strategy, providing a clear roadmap for addressing these challenges systematically.
In 2025, Pakistan launched its Early Childhood Development Policy Framework, anchored in the national growth policy and aligned with the Uraan Pakistan Framework, in which equity and empowerment serve as foundational pillars. "This framework commits the state to ensure that every child up to age eight has access to health, nutrition, and early learning, responsive caregiving and protection through integrated systems, not fragmented projects," the Minister said. Minister Ahsan Iqbal acknowledged UNICEF's invaluable support in making this progress possible.
Recognizing that policy alone cannot drive transformation, Pakistan has strengthened governance structures by establishing federal and provincial Early Childhood Development Steering Committees led by planning and development departments. These committees coordinate across health, education, nutrition, child protection, and social protection sectors. "This reflects a core policy insight that families experience life as one system and public services must do the same, especially in climate-affected settings," Minister Ahsan Iqbal stated during the forum.
Equity guides Pakistan's approach to early childhood investment. Evidence demonstrates that early interventions yield the highest returns when directed toward the most disadvantaged children. Accordingly, in Pakistan's most climate-exposed and economically vulnerable districts, parenting support is delivered alongside nutrition programs, vaccination campaigns, early learning initiatives, birth registration drives, and social protection schemes. "Under constraint, we chose to protect the youngest first," the Minister emphasized.
In humanitarian settings, Pakistan has applied scientific insights with urgency through pioneering initiatives like Project Play, which integrates responsive caregiving and psychosocial stimulation into the treatment of child malnutrition. "When a child is treated for wasting, the caregiver is trained to talk, play, and bond with the child, reducing toxic stress and supporting brain recovery even in crisis," Minister Ahsan Iqbal said. This approach is now mandatory in Pakistan's malnutrition treatment services and has been incorporated into global guidance frameworks.
Given that social sector responsibilities have been devolved to provincial governments, Pakistan has established collaborative steering committees linking federal and provincial authorities to ensure policy coherence and implementation effectiveness. Beyond governmental coordination, Pakistan actively partners with academia and the private sector to advance early childhood development and raise public awareness about its critical importance.
A transformative recent initiative involves the establishment of Young Peace and Development Corps on university campuses across Pakistan. "We are a very young country and we want youth of Pakistan to take responsibility for the future development. So, we are training thousands of these young volunteers into community social mobilizers," Minister Ahsan Iqbal stated during the forum. These volunteers receive comprehensive training to return to their communities and raise awareness among parents about optimal child care practices, stunting prevention through improved nutrition and sanitary environments, polio vaccination importance, and other essential health interventions. This grassroots approach aims to address Pakistan's decades-long struggle with childhood stunting while building the foundation for a healthy generation that will constitute Pakistan's human resource capital.
Minister Ahsan Iqbal concluded by emphasizing that the magnitude of early childhood development challenges exceeds any single government's capacity to address alone. "This is such a big challenge, no government can alone fulfill this responsibility. It has to be a whole-of-society approach in which government certainly is a major player, but we need to forge partnerships, collaborations beyond government with civil society, with academia and most importantly with the media so that media creates awareness amongst societies and keeps it on the agenda to which governments respond," the Minister said.
The forum underscored the growing international consensus that empowering parents and caregivers through universal support systems is critical to nurturing healthy, resilient, and protected children while building inclusive and sustainable societies capable of meeting twenty-first-century challenges.
Ahsan Iqbal received applause at the forum for pioneer initiatives and leading the global caregiver agenda
