Pakistan’s demographic challenge is often framed in terms of scale: a rapidly growing population, a large youth cohort, accelerating urbanization, rising climate vulnerability, and increasing pressure on public services and infrastructure. Yet the challenge facing the state is no longer simply one of counting people, but an increasingly challenging governance question. It is a question of whether Pakistan’s institutions can integrate and use demographic data effectively enough for evidence-based policy, planning, and investment.

When we look at the data system, we find that it is fragmented. Take, for instance, the Health Management Information System (HMIS). This system, by design, can give data on in-patients and out-patients of public hospitals. Private hospitals are regulated by healthcare commissions in the provinces, but these commissions do not have enough outreach to register these healthcare providers. Take schools; again, like hospitals, only public schools are registered. Although every province has private school regulators, questions remain around how current and comprehensive their data is, and whether it is sufficient to effectively regulate the education sector.

The timely provisioning of social services needed by society depends on updated information on demography. Because the provisioning of social services is an ongoing phenomenon, the information on the demand for these services should also be more frequent—unlike a census, which is conducted only once in a decade.

The Limits of Existing Registries

An ideal system to have is Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS). It is supposed to provide updated demographic and vital events data for the populace. For over a decade, there have been efforts to establish it through NADRA, Local Government Depart-ments, and the Health System, but the status has not moved beyond pilots.

Even if CRVS moves beyond the pilot stage and is scaled up at the country level, there will be big disconnects. CRVS can record vital events, but without well-functioning population registers, it cannot inform on migration. It cannot tell if a certain family who has been living in a given location still lives there, or if a certain location having a small dwelling structure now has a high-rise housing hundreds of families. These changes are dynamic, and they affect the composition of social services at administrative levels.

Census 2023 provides the foundation for population registers. However, there are discrete legislative, technical, and coordination measures required to develop population registers from census data. Once developed, these population registers will have to be maintained and updated by provincial departments. The population registers can provide updated demographic information at a granular level, thus enabling social and economic services departments to plan and implement their interventions for inclusive development and growth. However, this transformation is easier said than done and requires a well-thought-out strategy and its ownership at the highest level.

The challenge is further complicated by institutional fragmentation across Pakistan’s broader data ecosystem. Multiple entities now generate data simultaneously: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), provincial statistical bureaus, line ministries, NADRA, SECP, industrial departments, digital authorities, and numerous administrative registries. Each system serves a different mandate, uses different classifications, and operates through different institutional logics. This has created what may be described as “data proliferation”, an expanding universe of disconnected datasets that often do not communicate with one another.

The Integrating Scheme: The Address Library

In order for these disconnected data systems to function cohesively, an integrating scheme is required: The Address Library. Georeferenced data and their addresses provide a common base, first for the development of an address library and later for the development of population registers. The population register will, in turn, provide the foundation for education registers, health registers, and building registers owned and maintained by relevant provincial departments to use for social service provisioning, governance, transparency, and accountability, hence improving the social equity of the country.

The idea is relatively straightforward but potentially transformative. Given that almost every structure in Pakistan is now geotagged and also has an address, a well-planned exercise can be initiated to develop a one-to-one relationship between the geotag and the center of that structure.

Standard Typology: In most urban and rural settings, this exercise will be extensive but straightforward.

Dense Urban Typology: In dense urban settings and high-rises, this exercise will be done in two stages. First, a unique relationship will be developed between the geotag and the polygon of the structure, and then, within that structure, different units will be codified. This is relatively more complex than the baseline model.

Complex Rural Typology: In several rural settings, one structure may comprise non-contiguous elements (e.g., a house, barns, silos, etc.), which will require the consolidation of the structure onto one geotag. The quantum of this typology is relatively smaller and less complex.

PBS is at a very advantageous place to be trusted with this. It geotagged all structures during the 2023 census, and the overwhelming majority of these geotags have addresses. Now, the task is developing a one-to-one mapping between geotags and structures, alongside refining standards for developing a unified and standardized address library. PBS also possesses the necessary management, and analytical and digital capabilities, which have been developed over the last decade as a result of a conscious digital transformation of the organization.