The Punjab Youth Policy, scheduled to be launched by the end of March, is coming at a time when the province is pressurised by increasing population and the youth are facing serious economic challenges. Poverty continues to suppress the Punjab population despite relatively high availability of health and education facilities in the province. While the Punjab Youth Policy adopts holistic approach catering to all key needs of the youth, its key test is to amicably equip youth with social, political and economic empowerment and contribute to the Punjab-Poverty Reduction Strategy (2003). This policy caters to the contextual needs and situation of the Punjab’s youth. It has been prepared after thorough literature review and consultation with multiple public and policy stakeholders including youth belonging to different backgrounds across the province. It is also informed by relevant national policy documents and has benefited from previous consultative process over the formulation of now defunct National Youth Policy of Pakistan. Punjab Youth Policy offers suggestions to be implemented for youth between the ages of 15 to 29 years. The biggest challenge which youth are facing in the Punjab is economic empowerment. The most visible youth-specific trend in Pakistan is that the possibility of unemployment rate is much higher for better-educated youth and the initial earnings of better educated youth are not much different from those of less-educated youth (compared with wages for adults with similar education levels). Similarly the transition from school to the labour market in Pakistan is not smooth. According to national statistics, over half of youth (between 15-24 years of age) were economically inactive (55.8 percent) in 2006-07 in Pakistan. Young male inactivity in the above age bracket was 30.8 percent, while the young female inactivity was 81.6 percent. The young male inactivity has not really changed over time (99-07) but the young female inactivity has decreased (8.2 percent) over time (1999-2007). About 7 percent of the population aged 15 years or older in the Punjab is unemployed, with 6 percent unemployed in rural areas and 8 percent in urban areas. Most unemployed adults are in the 15–24 age-group (20 percent).
Reining in the wasted potential
