QUETTA: Media professionals issued a powerful call for the government to prioritise the protection and preservation of the country`s future potential through child-focused interventions. These include improving child survival, enhancing cognitive development through nutritional support, ensuring equal educational opportunities, and promoting child-responsive budgeting.

A key strategy for achieving these outcomes is enabling parents to plan their families in line with their resources and aspirations avoiding unwanted, mistimed, and closely spaced pregnancies through enhanced access to family planning services. This unified stance emerged from the Media Coalition Meeting organised by the Population Council in collaboration with UNFPA.

Population Council Senior Director Dr. Ali Mir, in his speech, emphasised the media`s indispensable role as shapers of public narrative and combatants of misinformation, stating, `media professionals are today`s frontline defenders in the battle for sustainable development`. Highlighting the transformative potential of strategic investment, Dr Mir stated, `Population planning is fundamentally about ensuring that every child not only survives but thrives.

Our planning must begin with child survival and extendto equity, dignity, and opportunity for all,` adding that `accurate data and strategic investment in people, particularly women and children, are our strongest tools`. He stated that the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, and its reaffirmation at ICPD+25, emphasised the importance of reproductive health through a life-cycle approach that prioritises individual well-being from womb to tomb. Child survival is a critical component of reproductive health.

The meeting discussed Pakistan`s severe human capital crisis with data and evidence, presented by Ikram ul Ahad, deputy manager, Population Council. The data showed how Pakistan`s future was being compromised through high child mortality and low investment in education. Mr Ahad said that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) nearly two plane-loads (approximately 675) of newborns die every day alongside 26 million children out of school. Chronic malnutrition plagues the young, with 40 per cent of children under five stunted, severely limiting their cognitive potential Pakistani children achieve only 41pc of their potential compared to 78pc in the UK.

Dr. Ghulam Farid Khan, representing UNFPA, highlighted the role of media in driving social change. He urged media professionals to emphasise the importance of family planning as essential for achieving sustainable population growth.