Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), under its NRF (Non-Resident Fellowship) program, hosted a webinar titled ‘Status and Statistics of Sustainable Development Goals in Pakistan: Policy Way Forward’ on September 3, 2021, where Khawar Hassan, a Ph.D. scholar from Pir Meher Ali Shah (PMAS) Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, delivered a presentation on his study and its findings on the given topic.
The speaker presented some statistical insights debating on Pakistan’s current status regarding multi-dimensional slats of sustainable development. The indicators he used for analysis included ecological footprint, sustainable economic welfare index, environmental performance index, sustainable human development index, pollution sensitive human development index, green net national product and genuine saving. The speaker stressed the need of policy reforms at the national level to address pressing issues like population control and CO2 emission, while suggesting that forming a holistic basket of policies backed by a workable implementation plan might be a better approach than having isolated policies across various sectors of the economy.
The presentation was followed by a panel discussion in which Dr Abdul Saboor, IPS non-resident fellow and dean of Social Sciences at PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Dr Kanwar Javed, senior research fellow, National Institute of Maritime Affairs (NIMA), Bahria University, and Zafar ul Hassan Almas, chief macroeconomics, Planning Commission of Pakistan, shared their views on Hassan’s work.
The session was moderated by M. Wali Farooqi, research officer (Pakistan Affairs) at IPS, whereas Naufil Shahrukh, IPS’ GM operations, Shafaq Sarfraz, manager outreach, Hafiz Inam, deputy manager outreach, and Arif Jamshaid, senior editor, were also present on the occasion.
