Pakistan

Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous country, holds significant economic and human capital potential, with the Government making substantial investments to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). Yet recurrent climate shocks and persistent development challenges continue to affect nutrition, education, and disaster resilience, underscoring the importance of sustained investment. Pakistan ranks 168 of 193 on the Human Development Index.  

Malnutrition in Pakistan remains a critical challenge, with 40 percent of children under five stunted, requiring sustained multi-sectoral action to ensure access to nutritious diets and essential services for women, children, and adolescents. 

Food insecurity also persists across many districts. The latest Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis indicates that 7.5 million people (21 percent of the analysed population) are in Phase 3 (Crisis) or above, including 1.25 million experiencing critical levels of acute food insecurity, IPC Phase 4 (Emergency).

Education indicators also reflect severe challenges. Pakistan has around 25 million out-of-school children, the largest number in the world. Expected years of school is low at 7.9 years, compared to 10.8 years in South Asia. For those that do attend school – around 55 percent – many do not have breakfast.

Pakistan remains one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world, with increasingly frequent and intense floods, droughts and heatwaves. Pakistan is losing close to 1 percent of its gross domestic product every year to climate-related damage from floods, heatwaves and infrastructure destruction, despite contributing less than 1 percent to global emissions.

As a long-standing partner of the Government, WFP’s main focus is to support sustainable, government-led systems that can deliver food security, nutrition, social protection and resilience outcomes at scale. WFP works to strengthen national capacities - from policy design to delivery mechanisms - so that programmes are increasingly effective, shock-responsive and able to reach the most vulnerable communities. At the same time, WFP maintains a strong operational presence: in 2025, WFP reached more than 3.3 million people through nutrition, school meals, resilience building and emergency assistance - delivered both directly and through national systems.