By Van Nguyen  |  Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Pakistan

Recognition alone does not reshape the social contract. The deeper question is authority: Who controls budgets? Who sets regulatory priorities? Who defines public problems and decides how they are solved?

To be clear, progress has been made.

On January 24, 2022, Justice Ayesha Malik took oath as the first woman judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Nearly seventy-five years after independence and almost five decades after the 1973 Constitution came into force, a woman finally joined the country’s apex court. There had never been a constitutional prohibition. Article 25 guarantees equality before law and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Yet the highest tier of judicial authority remained exclusively male for decades, and the wait for a woman Chief Justice of Pakistan still continues.

Women today hold roughly one-fifth of the seats in Pakistan’s National Assembly through reserved mechanisms. Data from the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) shows that women parliamentarians contribute close to half of the parliamentary agenda, with strong attendance and legislative engagement that exceeds their numerical share.

The civil service tells a similar story. In recent Central Superior Services examinations, women have constituted nearly 30 percent of successful candidates, a marked shift from previous decades.

These are meaningful gains. They reflect recognition. But recognition alone does not reshape the social contract.

The deeper question is authority: Who controls budgets? Who sets regulatory priorities? Who defines public problems and decides how they are solved?

Women remain underrepresented in senior fiscal, secretarial, and regulatory posts where budgetary power is concentrated. In the judiciary, representation improves at lower tiers but narrows at appellate and apex levels, where binding precedent is set. In the 31-member federal cabinet formed in 2024, only one woman serves as a minister. Barely 10 percent of standing committees are chaired by women lawmakers.

Recognition exists. Representation exists. But authority remains uneven. And that gap affects not only fairness, but also performance.

Women experience the state differently. They navigate public health systems as primary caregivers. They work disproportionately in informal sectors beyond labour protections. If these realities are absent from planning, budgeting, and institutional design, services underperform.

When Gender Is Embedded, Governance Works Better
Gender-responsive governance is often framed as a rights issue. Yes, it is that, but it is also a performance issue.

Women experience the state differently. They navigate public health systems as primary caregivers. They work disproportionately in informal sectors beyond labour protections. They approach law enforcement as survivors seeking justice.

If these realities are absent from planning, budgeting, and institutional design, services underperform.

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) shows what happens when gender is embedded rather than appended. By directing cash transfers to women as primary beneficiaries, BISP now reaches over nine million women. The World Bank links the programme to improved household consumption stability, stronger financial agency, and greater intra-household decision-making power.

Its impact was not incidental. It resulted from deliberate institutional design, targeting systems, registry mechanisms, payment architecture, and regulatory integration that placed gender at the program’s core. CNIC registration expanded women’s formal identity, and digital payments deepened financial inclusion. Recognition translated into operational impact.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, gender-responsive policing reforms and Gender Responsive Desks have similarly improved reporting of violence and specialized response mechanisms. When recruitment, investigative procedures, and service protocols adapt to gender realities, trust increases. And when trust increases, cooperation and compliance follow.

Embedding equality strengthens state capacity.

Lessons from the Philippines and Vietnam: Architecture Matters
The experience of the Philippines illustrates how gender equality can be institutionalized at scale. Through its Gender and Development (GAD) budget framework, national agencies and local governments are required to integrate gender analysis directly into planning and expenditure decisions. Gender considerations are built into fiscal processes rather than added after the fact.

The results are tangible: parity in basic education, expanded access to healthcare, and locally funded initiatives addressing livelihoods and gender-based violence. While reform is ongoing, the institutional architecture linking gender to budgeting and administration is firmly embedded.

A different but equally instructive model comes from Vietnam. Through its Law on Gender Equality and successive national development strategies, Vietnam integrated gender targets into sectoral planning, from rural development and poverty reduction to enterprise policy and public administration. Ministries report against measurable indicators, linking equality commitments to performance monitoring and budget execution.

This structural integration has supported consistently high female labour force participation, near parity in education, and sustained representation of women in the National Assembly.

The lesson for Pakistan is not replication. It is integration.

 © UNDP Pakistan 

When equality is embedded, governance does not simply become more just. It becomes more effective, more credible, and more trusted by the people it serves.

From Reform to Permanence
Pakistan has introduced gender-responsive budgeting and gender tagging within the Public Sector Development Programme. These reforms improve visibility. They show where resources are directed.

But visibility is not transformation.

Embedding equality would mean influencing expenditure ceilings, medium-term fiscal frameworks, and sectoral allocations from the outset, not as afterthoughts, but as design principles.

Raising female labour force participation requires childcare infrastructure, safe public transport, access to formal credit, and effective labour inspections. These are not symbolic gestures but fiscal and administrative decisions.

In courts, equality jurisprudence must consistently shape precedent. In civil services, performance benchmarks must measure inclusion outcomes.

These are governance choices.

The oath of Ayesha Malik showed what is possible when barriers fall within existing law. But one appointment, however historic, cannot substitute for structural reform.

The social contract is not sustained by recognition alone. It is sustained when citizens experience fairness, in how budgets are allocated, how services are delivered, and how institutions respond to their realities.

Recognition establishes principle. Embedding determines whether development ambitions become lived experience.

And when equality is embedded, governance does not simply become more just. It becomes more effective, more credible, and more trusted by the people it serves.