Dawn Editorials 8th September 2025

Digital literacy

LITERACY today is not merely the ability to read and write. It is the ability to function in a digital economy. This year’s International Literacy Day theme — ‘Promoting literacy in the digital era’ — highlights how those without digital fluency risk exclusion not just from knowledge, but from work, services and citizenship itself. Globally, while literacy rates have improved, there remains the challenge of ensuring not just basic education but digital fluency. Just a generation ago, signing one’s name on a form was enough. Now, applying for a job, paying a bill or accessing government schemes may all require navigating digital platforms. For millions in developing countries, the divide is as stark as ever. For Pakistan, the challenge is twofold. For one, almost 40pc of its people remain illiterate, with women lagging far behind men. This alone blunts the country’s prospects. But the digital gap adds another layer of disadvantage. Smartphones are common enough, yet internet penetration remains patchy, rural access weak and digital skills minimal. Most citizens are consumers of online entertainment rather than participants in digital economies. The pandemic highlighted this disparity. While well-off families shifted their children to online classes, millions were locked out of education altogether.

Few lessons have been learnt since. The government likes to announce smart classrooms and digital portals; rarely does it acknowledge that teachers themselves often lack the skills, or that connectivity remains unaffordable for the poor. Bridging the gap requires more than token projects. It demands investment in schools, training for teachers, affordable broadband and genuine gender parity. The returns would be large: a digitally literate population could plug into global markets, lift productivity and strengthen democratic participation. In the absence of such resolve, Pakistan risks being left with the worst of both worlds: low literacy and low digital skills — a population doubly locked out of opportunity.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2025

Mental health crisis

MENTAL agony plagues too many people. New data from the WHO warns of a crisis of staggering proportions: one billion people worldwide live with mental health issues. Anxiety and depression form the second leading reason for long-term debility. Suicide claims one in every 100 lives among the young — some 727,000 people died by suicide in 2021 alone. At this rate, the SDG target of a one-third reduction in suicide rates by 2030 is unattainable. While the WHO’s World Mental Health Today and Mental Health Atlas 2024 reports have highlighted some areas of progress, a vacuum in the global approach to this health calamity is also evident. Additionally, the world economy loses $1tr annually due to psychological disorders as productivity stands drastically impaired. Although mental illness spares no one, the reports says that women are afflicted at a disproportionate rate.

Matters are bound to turn darker on account of the devastation wreaked by climate catastrophes, and at the moment, Pakistan is reliving the 2022 floods, which impacted 33m people and killed hundreds. Since the end of June, cloudbursts and flash floods have battered KP, Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan. Reportedly, more than 5.5m are affected, with more than 2m displaced. As authorities stress on physical remedies — aid, relief camps and relocation — they should remain aware of the silent mental health disaster that grips the country. Every displacement, collapsed home, loss of life and livelihood causes debilitating fear, depression, PTSD, and the dire consequences of these. Flood-affected populations in GB, particularly in Ghizer district, face a severe emotional health emergency, triggering a response from the region’s government to begin psychological rehabilitation initiatives. With fewer than 500 psychiatrists for 240m Pakistanis, the government has little choice but to seek international collaboration. Deeper concerns — insomnia, survivor’s guilt, ‘intrusive memories’ — require specialised support to prevent chronic reactions. Psychological repercussions surface over weeks. Climate blows, unlike socioeconomic distress, are here to stay. We cannot continue without disaster-response policies that assimilate mental care, which includes a vast workforce trained in psychological support, mobile mental aid services as well the political commitment to treat mental turmoil.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2025

Crop devastation

THE devastation unleashed by the floods across Punjab — with Sindh facing a similar situation — is nothing short of catastrophic. The deluge has wiped out crops on thousands of acres across Punjab, the country’s food basket, sparking calls for an agricultural emergency.

While an official assessment of the exact agricultural losses caused by floods and excessive monsoon rains is awaited, a business body has claimed that the flooding has led to staggering losses to crops and rural livelihoods. A preliminary assessment by the Pakistan Business Forum shows that 60pc of the rice crop, 35pc of cotton and 30pc of sugarcane in central and southern Punjab have been damaged, besides widespread losses to rural livelihoods. In a letter to the prime minister, the forum has asked that an agricultural emergency be declared. Stating clearly that “such destruction in Punjab due to flooding has never been witnessed before, with Sindh soon facing a similar devastation if immediate preventive measures are not taken”, the letter cautions the government that the key agricultural targets set for the current fiscal year may be unattainable now.

The forum’s call has not come a moment too soon as the unfolding economic upheaval and humanitarian crisis have exposed the fragility of our farm sector. With food inflation already rising, and large amounts of wheat stored in warehouses or at home by farmers for personal use damaged or swept away by the floodwaters, the devastation risks jeopardising the food security of tens of millions of people in both the rural and urban areas.

More crucially, the recent monthly finance ministry report has predicted that flood-related damage may worsen fiscal pressures as food and industrial crop losses are likely to necessitate imports.

Not just that. The farm sector, which forms nearly a quarter of the economy and employs almost 40pc of the labour force, was in troubled waters even before the rains lashed down and floods inundated vast swathes of farmland. The sector had grown only marginally by 0.56pc — the lowest in almost a decade — in the last fiscal year against the five-year average of 3.38pc, depressing overall GDP growth and affecting both the industrial and services sectors. With agriculture growth falling short of the target, the story will likely repeat itself this year.

While declaring an agricultural emergency is necessary to support rural communities, the government must also use the unfolding crisis to push overdue structural reforms in this neglected sector. As a PBF member stressed, the present crisis should serve as a wake-up call to overhaul agricultural strategies. Without decisive action to mitigate the immediate fallout and avert longer-term decline, the country risks deepening its economic vulnerabilities.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2025