As we commemorate International Youth Day, we must shift from celebratory rhetoric to meaningful reflection. Pakistan sits at a pivotal juncture in its demographic evolution, with over 60 per cent of its population under the age of 30.
This reality offers both a challenge and an opportunity: a chance to harness the energy, creativity and resilience of young people to transform our society, or risk watching a demographic dividend slip into a demographic liability.
For too long, the youth of Pakistan have existed on the margins of economic policymaking. They are often romanticised as ‘the future’, yet rarely equipped to shape that future. The stark truth is that our systems – educational, economic, digital and political – have not evolved fast enough to meet the needs of this generation. With a national unemployment rate hovering above 6.0 per cent and nearly 45 per cent of the unemployed aged between 15 and 24, we are confronting not just a jobs crisis but a crisis of imagination. The youth are ready, willing and capable, but the pathways to productive, meaningful livelihoods remain blocked or poorly defined.
Living and working in Islamabad, I have seen the tension between the city's growing digital infrastructure and the social inequities that prevent broad-based access to opportunity. While national summits and incubation centres highlight technological progress and promise, many young people remain trapped in cycles of underemployment and undereducation. The irony is glaring: we are digitising faster than we are educating. We speak of AI, cybersecurity, and gaming as the next frontiers, yet the majority of our young people are excluded from these sectors due to a lack of relevant skills, poor internet access, or outdated curricula that still prioritise rote memorisation over critical thinking.
Our reliance on donor-driven models and foreign assistance has perpetuated a culture of dependency, rather than fostering innovation and self-reliance. It is time to reframe the narrative around youth development, not as a problem to be solved, but as an investment to be nurtured. We need to prioritise local solutions that reflect the aspirations and realities of Pakistani youth.
For instance, a promising solution lies in repositioning technical and vocational education. But this requires much more than building infrastructure or launching training programmes. It means embedding entrepreneurship into our classrooms, bringing real-world industry challenges into school projects and treating young people as co-creators of the economy rather than passive recipients of policy.
The growing digital sector offers untapped potential. From AI to app development, from game design to health tech, Pakistan has the raw talent to become a global player, but talent alone is not enough. We need a structured national plan that links skills training with market access, financing and mentorship. Far too often, we ‘train’ youth without building bridges to employment. This gap is not just economic, it’s psychological. A young person who feels perpetually excluded from the system eventually disengages and that disillusionment has a ripple effect on society.
We must also recognise that digital growth cannot be inclusive unless we address the foundational inequities. In rural and low-income areas, young people often lack access to devices, connectivity and even basic electricity. In Islamabad, where the digital economy is more visible, there still exists a clear divide between those who are part of the tech boom and those who remain digitally illiterate. Digital equity must be seen as a core development issue, not an afterthought. We must design a policy that brings technology to the grassroots level through solar-powered community centres, subsidised internet and partnerships between local governments and private tech firms to provide last-mile connectivity.
Education reform must be at the heart of this transformation. But we must go beyond cosmetic tweaks. Our classrooms need to be reimagined as innovation labs where failure is part of learning, where questioning is encouraged and where students are exposed to real-world problems early on. Equally important is teacher training. We cannot expect young people to become critical thinkers if their educators themselves have been victims of a rigid, outdated system.
Another key barrier is trust within and beyond our borders. Foreign investors are hesitant to engage with Pakistani startups due to credibility concerns, governance challenges and policy unpredictability. This trust deficit is mirrored domestically. Young entrepreneurs often face bureaucratic red tape, limited access to finance and a lack of institutional support. We need to streamline regulatory frameworks, provide early-stage funding and build local incubators that are genuinely inclusive, supporting not just English-speaking tech graduates from elite universities, but also self-taught developers, artists and innovators from smaller towns and vocational backgrounds.
Youth voices also remain underrepresented in decision-making processes. While some young leaders have found space in civil society and activism, they are largely absent from mainstream governance and policy circles. Token inclusion is not enough. We need to institutionalise youth advisory boards, lower the age of political candidacy and create structured channels for youth-led policy innovation. The perspectives of young people, particularly young women, religious minorities and persons with disabilities, must be embedded into our governance structures if we are to build a genuinely inclusive future.
One area where I see immense opportunity is in rethinking internships and apprenticeships. Instead of limiting these to university students or urban elites, we should incentivise startups and SMEs to hire interns from underserved communities, including out-of-school youth. This not only helps bridge the skills gap but also democratises access to networks, mentorship and social capital, which are often more valuable than degrees alone.
As a policy analyst, I believe it is not enough to write about the youth. We must write with them, build with them, and most importantly, listen to them – because real progress will come when our systems are restructured to reflect the energy, creativity and ambition that already exists in this generation. The question is no longer: ‘can our youth lead?’ They already are. The real question is whether the rest of us are ready to follow or will we once again miss the moment, distracted by bureaucratic bottlenecks and outdated mindsets?
This International Youth Day, let us not issue statements of hope. Let us take action. Let us power Pakistan, not through borrowed ideas, but through the untapped genius of our youth.
The writer is a policy analyst and researcher with a Master’s degree in public policy from King’s College London.