ISLAMABAD - Ambassador Jauhar Saleem visited School of Social Sciences & Humanities at National University of Sciences & Technology on 1st Oct, 2024. He delivered a talk on “Pakistan’s Geo-economics Pivot: Strategies, Opportunities, and Challenges in a Changing Global Landscape”.
The event was organized by Department of Humanities under the auspices of Dr. Zafar Mehmood, a renowned economist of Pakistan, who is currently the Principal and Dean of School of Social Sciences and Humanities. More than a hundred students attended the event.
Mr. Saleem highlighted the salient features of Pakistan’s first ever National Security Policy which was propounded in 2021. He presented a thorough analysis of the said policy and emphasized upon the need for Pakistan to shift its focus from geo-strategic to geo-economics.
He was of the view that Pakistan’s biggest resource is its youth and that she needs to incorporate this resource in the mainstream for boosting the economy of the country.
This paradigm shift must be undertaken considering the fact that Pakistan’s median age is 20.4 years whereas it is 47 in Germany.
Comparatively Speaking, Germany is a very strong economy but Pakistan has been performing poorly on all economic, and social indicators resulting in very low numbers on Human Index for Pakistanis.
As a corollary to the afore-mentioned situation, Mr. Saleem has called for a “whole government approach” which will procure better coordination between federal government and its provincial counterparts. He also accentuated the need for Pakistan to become a functioning democracy.
In the end, he reiterated the requisite for a people-centered approach in all dimensions of state polices, primarily the security policy.
The session ended with a vote of thanks from Ms. Afshan Hanif, HoD, Humanities, NUST.