Karachi: Pakistan is estimated to see massive urbanization as its half of the population will settle in cities by 2025, a new global UNICEF report said that Pakistan’s 37 percent population living in urban areas while nine cities already have population more than a million people.
The transition to a largely urban population and the emergence of mega-urban regions is viewed as an engine of growth in the Government’s Framework for Economic Growth.
However, it is challenge for the country and its population for having equitable access to quality basic social services, including health, nutrition, water, sanitation, education and protection is constrained by multiple levels of deprivation and exclusion.
The UNICEF report, “State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in the Urban World”, notes that children from disadvantaged backgrounds who live in urban areas face a host of challenges that reduce their chance to reach full potential in a productive adult work force.
A large number of children will face challenges including low levels of birth registration, inadequate access to sanitation and safe water services, education and health services.
As an example, in 2009, the average number of years of schooling for children was 5.7 years, however the disparity between the poorest 15 per cent of the population and the highest 15 per cent was between 2.41 and 8.95 years across different provinces. Girls living in urban areas in the highest income group received an average of 9.39 years of schooling compared with 1.01 years for rural girls in the lowest income group.
“The challenge is to proactively address the many dimensions of deprivation and exclusion by ensuring equity in the provision of basic social services and social protection,” said UNICEF Pakistan Representative Dan Rohrmann. “While continuing to serve poor rural children, UNICEF Pakistan also is planning to greatly increase its programming for children in the poorest urban neighbourhoods.”
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