Pakistan must create up to 30 million jobs over the next decade to turn its youth bulge into an economic dividend or risk instability and outward migration, World Bank President Ajay Banga has stressed. Pakistan is entering the implementation phase of a 10-year Country Partnership Framework (CPF) deal agreed with the World Bank last year, while also working with the International Monetary Fund to stabilise its economy.
But Islamabad is still facing mounting pressure to deliver sustained growth and jobs. “We’re trying to move the bank group as a whole from the idea of projects to the idea of outcomes,” Banga said in an interview with Reuters in Karachi during a visit to Pakistan this week.“Job creation is the North Star.”