Population Challenges in a Changing World: An Overview of the 22nd Annual Research Conference of the Population Association of Pakistan

Abstract

The Population Association of Pakistan (PAP), established in 2000,continues to emphasize the crucial relationship between population anddevelopment. The population and development programs in Pakistan have notprogressed as steadily as in most of the countries in the region or other Muslimmajoritycountries such as Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, and Turkey. PAP provides aplatform that offers an opportunity to bridge the various social sciencesdisciplines including economics, public and social policy, statistics,demography, public health, sociology, geography, and anthropology todeliberate upon solutions for pressing population and development relatedissues of Pakistan in this changing world.
 The 22nd Annual Population Research Conference of PAP was held atthe National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad from7th to 9th December 2021 in a hybrid mode encompassing both virtual and inpersonparticipation at the NUST. The theme of the Conference was“Population Challenges in a Changing World” with three specific sub-themes:I. Population, Universal Health Coverage, and Family Planning, in thecontext of COVID 19.II. Social, Economic, and Demographic Implications of High PopulationGrowth; andIII. Opportunities and Challenges for Resilience to Climate Change.
 Spanning these three sub-themes, divided across technical and plenarysessions, 18 research papers were presented and discussed in the technicalsessions, while in the four plenary sessions key population challenges inPakistan were discussed by the experts. Findings of 13 additional researchstudies were displayed on posters, which provided the respective authors anopportunity to interact directly with conference participants.2 All these sessions