Inspiring Pakistan event was held on Tuesday, January 21st, 2025 at the Pakistan Pavilion during the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos. It focused on promoting Pakistan’s image and investment potential while providing valuable insights into the country’s journey and achievements. The event brought together distinguished speakers and intellectual leaders for thought-provoking dialogue. The event was organized by the Pathfinder Group, in collaboration with the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (KCFR), the Providentia Books Foundation (PBF), and SwissCham Asia.
Dr Huma Baqai Sr. Vice Chairperson KCFR, (Moderator)
Good Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to Pakistan’s Pavilion for this Inspiring Pakistan event. We start the event with the name of Allah followed by Pakistan’s National Anthem. Today, enjoy a delicious meal and engaging discussions with our knowledgeable speakers. The themes for the last two World Economic Forums were focused on polycrisis, which has proliferated globally. In Pakistan, people are actively discussing polycrisis and how we can address it. Currently, it has crystalized into chaos conflict, and climate change. With this backdrop, we invite you to envision an “Inspiring Pakistan.” Why this title? This title because everybody under this roof understands Pakistan’s potential and is committed to Pakistan’s growth. They also understand the existing problems but know for a fact that a turnaround will happen. This is not about changing the narrative about Pakistan.
This is about presenting the facts about its demography, which shows that 70% of the young population is under age 35. We must not ignore its geography, nor overlook the women who are doing miracles and so much more. I have a list of speakers who will talk about it. All of them are not from Pakistan, but they understand Pakistan and follow the developments in Pakistan. They also understand that the turnaround is just around the corner. I also want all of you to put your hands together for Mr Ikram Sehgal, who has kept this torch burning for the last 20 years. My first speaker is Michael Kugelman, the Director of the Wilson Center for South Asian Institute. He also writes on policy affairs, and at least 50% of people in this room follow him on Twitter. Sir, the floor is yours.
Michael Kugelman, Director Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute
First of all, I would like to thank my dear friend Ikram Sehgal for having me here. It’s truly an honour to be at Davos for the first time. Let me say that one cannot ask for a better backdrop for a speaking engagement. In my brief comments, I want to frame this comment as a paradox. I would argue a few countries can match Pakistan’s untapped potential, but few countries have faced as many obstacles in tapping that potential. This is what I find inspiring about Pakistan: its potential and the wider array of resources it holds; and when I talk about resources, I mean that both literally and figuratively.
The first one is territorial resources, which refers to the highly strategic real estate that Pakistan occupies. Anyone who looks at a map, no matter where they are from sees that Pakistan serves as a gateway to the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Asia.
It straddles the Indian Ocean which is known as one of the most strategically significant sea spaces of the 21st century. This positions Pakistan as a potentially critical node for connectivity and trade. The country is blessed with ample sunlight and wind, making it a potentially impactful catalyst for renewable energy. Everyone is aware of the third aspect which is mineral resources. Pakistan is a country that is blessed with significant levels of mineral reserves.
Fourth, we all know about its human resources, which was alluded to before. Pakistan has a large young, increasingly urbanizing and tech-savvy population, with the median age remaining around 21-22 for many years. According to UN projections, this median age is likely to stay quite young, remaining in the 30s over the next few decades. This positions Pakistan potentially very well for what demographers refer to as a demographic dividend. Few countries have youth bulges as large and long-term as Pakistan’s.
Fifth, and finally, one resource that I think many people tend to overlook about Pakistan that it has is historical resources. Here, I am referring to the rich ancient historical legacy that Pakistan carries. I would argue that many people outside Pakistan, and probably many Pakistanis themselves may not know or remember that this country is a cradle of Buddhism. This is a fact that many people don’t realize, it’s quite remarkable and just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of potential exists for tourism in this regard, but so much of this potential has been squandered for several reasons, but I am not going to go into them. The convergence of crises, security issues, economic stress, and so on, along with elite capture. You can talk about all types of structural impediments. I think something poignant exists here—the fact that this country has so much potential that remains unmet in many contexts.
Many of you remember that Pakistan experienced quite a few hopeful moments in past years. At one point, many economists believed that Pakistan could potentially become the next Asian Tiger, and until the early 1990s Pakistan’s growth trajectory looked more favourable than India’s. If we want to look for a microcosm of this trajectory, I would suggest Pakistan International Airlines which is something that many of you have heard of, it’s the state airliner. PIA was once arguably the best airline in the world.
In recent years, however, things have gone in a different direction, some things have happened that have put it in deep trouble. I think this is something that makes this discussion difficult. There is immense potential and hopeful moments, but then there are continued challenges as well. One convincing argument that people often make about Pakistan is its resilience which holds significant importance. When you talk about what is inspiring about Pakistan, this is another key area to highlight.
Pakistan refuses to let all these setbacks bring the country down, which enables the country and its people to bounce back from catastrophic flooding, terrorism campaigns, economic stress, and more. At one point, Time Magazine featured covers after a particularly horrific flood in the country, describing Pakistan as the world’s most resilient state.
Certain Western magazines have also labelled Pakistan as the world’s most dangerous country, so it’s nice to see that Pakistan is known as the world’s most resilient state in the Western media. I worry that overemphasizing resilience can become a crutch. It might lead to a mindset of simply getting by, as seen in Pakistan, and prevent addressing the deeper issues that require action. I do think that, with relatively little effort, Pakistan can tap into the potential in some of those areas that I mentioned earlier, if the security situation were to permit and if visa regimes were sufficiently efficient and liberalized, there’s no reason why Pakistan couldn’t make more inroads in its tourism industry. I think we can all agree that a lot needs to change on very deep levels for that potential to be fully tapped.
I’ll end with just one thought on what I think would better enable Pakistan over the longer term to start capitalizing on all that untapped potential. The country’s leadership, not just the current leadership but any leadership needs to invest in society, they should invest in the masses. Access to health care needs to be increased on mass levels, public education needs so much work. We talk about all the kids who are not in school in Pakistan, but many kids are in school. Unfortunately, they aren’t learning because teachers are missing, or they are being taught in a language that they don’t understand, or their families might not have enough money for the transport needed to get to school. If you invest in your young people, educate them, and keep them healthy, good results will follow you. Thank you very much.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator)
Thank you so much, Michael Kugelman. You were very inspiring indeed and also shared some important facts about the country. As I said earlier, today’s meeting is not about changing the narrative of Pakistan, it is about making an informed decision about Pakistan. That is why we have people like Michael discussing it, he constantly follow developments in Pakistan. His views are very objective. We all keep looking forward to his writings on Pakistan. Now, I’m going to invite Adam Weinstein, Deputy Director of the Middle Eastern Program at Quincy Institute to share his views with us. Again, a view from the US.
Adam Weinstein Research Fellow at Quincy Institute
First of all, I agree with everything that Mr Kugelman said, especially about the visas at the end. It’s a travesty that Pakistan does not attract tourists as a top destination, and I think that can change someday. I would like to thank Mr Ikram Sehgal, the Pathfinder Group, and all the audience who are attending this event. You know it’s a bit of a cliché, but they always say, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” Well, I’m definitely in the right room because there are many qualified, erudite, and knowledgeable people, more qualified than myself. I feel ill-equipped to even be up here, but I’ll share my thoughts. I want to take all of you back for a moment because Mr Sehgal asked me to think about Pakistan’s place in the world after this talk.
There was a man named James A. Michener who won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in the United States for his book “Tales of the South Pacific,” but he also published another book named “The Voice of Asia” in 1950, it was a collection of essays. In that book, he had gone around Asia, to China, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and also to Pakistan. He shared his observations in that book; though he wasn’t a researcher or an expert, he was just a writer. I’m going to share a couple of lines from his essay on Pakistan that was published in 1951. He wrote, “I have never seen a more hardworking government than Pakistan’s; it is picking itself up by its intellectual bootstraps.” He further wrote, “Pakistan defies the law of political gravity; it should have collapsed long ago, but instead it has become one of the most vital nations in Asia.” He also wrote, “Politically, economically, and socially, Pakistan is one of the most hopeful portents in Asia.”
I’ll stop there, but you get the point, and you wouldn’t find this kind of writing about Pakistan today. The problems of today were not always a foregone conclusion, and that’s the point I’m trying to make. I think Mr Kugelman made that point as well, that at one time Pakistan was viewed as a potential Asian Tiger economically, and it could be again; after all, in 2100 it’s projected to be the third most populous country in the world.
In Pakistan, you frequently hear that CPEC is the BRI pilot project and we have connectivity. We should stop talking about Pakistan’s potential for ten years and instead concentrate on what the nation has to offer right now. Future potential is meaningless if the correct choices are not made today. I get to the point where there is a misconception that is too huge to fail. Pakistan is essential in the fight against terrorism and many other global issues. The too-big-to-fail illusion, in my opinion, has hampered Pakistan because it promotes mediocrity, getting by, and relies more on Pakistan’s dependability than its potential, the country needs to get over the myth. It may fail or prosper depending on the decisions made today, even though it is too huge to be trivial.
I believe we should discuss some important questions in the coming days, as I feel unprepared to answer them alone. I’ll share these questions, and we can talk about them together. Will Pakistan remain attached to extracting geopolitical rents, and borrowing liquidity from abroad to temporarily promote consumption at home, or will it invest in real economic and GDP growth that lifts its people?
Will Pakistan take the 2022 floods for the premonition that they were or merely view it as another opportunity to extract rents rather than solve the problem, or will it be investing in real environmental resilience? Is there any policy of investing in education so that the youth bulge is an asset, or will it remain a liability? Since Pakistani politicians often talk about the youth bulge as if it’s just apparently an asset, it could be an asset, but it could be a great liability if certain trends in education, literacy and jobs for young people are not reversed.
Will Pakistan embrace the status of a middle power because it is a middle power, or will it hyphenate itself with India and Afghanistan? I used to be very critical of the United States for hyphenating Pakistan with Afghanistan and hated the term Af-Pak, but I think in recent years it’s actually to some degree Pakistan that’s hyphenating itself with other countries while the world is ready to view it as an important nation.
Pakistan has to embrace that status, and it can’t engage in a sort of survivalist mindset when it engages in relations with China, the United States, or Europe; it has to engage from a place of confidence, and of course, the world must also recognize its inherent importance as a nuclear power. I’m going to break my rule about a potential economic powerhouse, and as a country that has a growing population that is going to place it among the third most populous nations by 2100, it’s time for the world to take Pakistan seriously and engage with it one-on-one and not view it merely in the context of whatever is the regional problem of the day. I believe, if countries like the United States, China, and European nations are willing to collaborate with Pakistan, then Pakistan must also embrace its identity as a middle power and regional power, through which a lot can be achieved. Thank you very much.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator)
Thank you, gentlemen, for keeping the time, that’s a huge favour to me. I completely agree with the potential part that you have mentioned. I am a professor, and when my student is not doing so well, I always tell him, “You have a lot of potential,” but I think it’s also about the right kind of stories not getting out of Pakistan. There is so much happening on the ground but unfortunately, the media coverage and the press show only negative. Upcoming speakers will highlight the positive changes in Pakistan and the efforts being made to harness its potential. The story of Pakistan is changing. I am going to invite another friend of Pakistan, Dr Urs Lustenberger, President of the Swiss Chamber Asia.
Dr Urs Lustenberger President, Swiss Cham Asia
First of all, let me thank Ikram Sehgal and the Pathfinder Group for all they have done for Swiss Cham ASIA. We are grateful for you being part of us, and I am grateful for being able to say a few words on this occasion. If it comes to advice, then I would advise every Pakistani not to listen to a Swiss who is trying to advise Pakistan because, as you can imagine, the rest of Switzerland, other than Davos, doesn’t know how to deal with chaos and poly-crisis because we have not faced too many crises. Whereas, Pakistan, over the years, has learned to deal with that. It leads to certain ups and downs and instability, but it also leads to a great amount of creativity in ways to deal with these polycrises. All the people that I know from Pakistan, have a lot of things that I don’t have. They know how to deal with crises, political changes, and geopolitical changes, and they find their way through.
So, one day it will be this Prime Minister, the other day another Prime Minister and the old one goes to jail, and still, you can like them all together. Still, one doesn’t have to be angry at each other; it’s something that would be very difficult to pull off in Switzerland, so don’t listen to me. Do it your way. In my eyes, my predecessors as speakers, Michael and Adam, are very hard to beat because I almost use the potential that Pakistan has; of course, it has great potential, but what, in my eyes, Pakistan has to do is they have to find their way of dealing with it. They should offload the burden of dealing with the superpowers; they should focus on what is their way, and maybe, and now this is something coming from a Swiss, so be careful; don’t listen to it.
The nation that I see from far away that is looking out for its interest in a very hardcore way is India. I haven’t seen in recent times a country that is better able to position its interest; whenever they deal with left or right, or up or down, or west or east, they focus on their interest. Pakistan may have to learn to focus on its clear interest, and maybe that will bring it forward. Do what you have learned to do, but if you learn how to do that, in my eyes, the important things will look rosier, and maybe it is adhering to what Adam said, “Get rid of that too big to fail notion.” Find a place where you feel comfortable, and I think it’ll be the right place.
One thing that I adore in Pakistan is its vibrant journalism. I think it is almost impossible in the West to find opinions that are not either completely mainstream or tell them everything else or are so extremely off the beaten track that you can’t take them seriously. Whereas, in Pakistan, you see vibrant discussions left and right, and up and down, of opinions that are hardly to be seen in the rest of the world. Keep it up; try to emulate the best out of it, and become a great independent Pakistan that leads the region into a peaceful region, as was seen in very recent times in the newly built connection with Bangladesh. Keep going forward with Ikram in his leadership; you can’t fail. Thank you very much.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator)
Thank you so much. Pakistan is now known for its young and fresh thinking, which I call the new face of the country. Pakistan in its new phase includes startups, the entertainment industry, and journalism. Now, I will invite Mr Habib Paracha, founder and CEO of Centurion Entertainment, to say a few words.
Habib Paracha Founder & CEO of Centurion
Good afternoon, and Asalam-o-alaikum, everyone. First of all, I would like to thank Mr Ikram Sehgal for having me here. When we speak about Pakistan, I have spent a fair amount of time in the country, since my background is from a business-owned family stretched across the length and breadth of Pakistan. I have had startups in the US and have been a Hollywood film producer. I have six credits, which probably makes me the largest film producer in South Asia, and I have also created an eleven-and-a-half-minute musical journey through Pakistan called “Waada,” which you will find on YouTube.
Whenever I think about Pakistan and its potential, the word we’re not supposed to say, I see that there is a bright hope, but why is it that we are not reaching it? We have been having conversations with people coming in and telling us what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong, but it doesn’t materialize into growth for some reason. So, where is the problem? Because you have to address the problem, it’s one thing to be an ostrich, but if you want to face the challenge head-on and address it.
The best thing that we have is our population, where the median age is 21, and I was present at an event earlier today where the CEO of Regeneron, a biopharmaceutical company, said something which resonated with me, “You have to challenge dogma, so you have to take it on because if you want to innovate and want that growth, you can’t accept things as they are, you have to move forward and take the challenge, you have to accept that there is something wrong because that’s the only way you are going to move forward, and that’s the only way you’re going to be able to fix things.” I think that is the point where the youth plays a very large role, which sadly at the moment is not represented in most conversations.
In every election, I see all parties talking about the importance of youth. When it comes to execution, it is very limited. Sadly, that job creation, that enablement, which comes from creating startups or empowering them, is not happening, and I think that’s a problem because of the mindset, because either its exposure in terms of five-year plans, which we often like to quote, that has been taken by other countries as well and converted into really successful models. Why these models are they not potentially converting Pakistan? It’s not that we don’t have the right ingredients, we have a very talented workforce, a young population, resources, amazing locations, and all the other things. If still that development is not happening, where are we going wrong? This all has to be addressed.
In my opinion, a lot of it can be achieved through exposure. Why is it that we are having this event here in Switzerland? Imagine if an event like this was happening in Chitral where even people from Karachi go unlikely because a lot of people are just not as aware, would people from abroad come? Maybe they’ll come to Islamabad, would they go to a lot of those places for an economic event, not a tourism event? probably not. This is the narrative that we need to change; it’s not going to happen overnight, but that’s where you have to partner up with the government, and the ideas come from the private sector.
I am representing the private sector, but I will say that even the private sector has also not played its part; we accept everything as mediocre, and we say that’s fine. The only way to do it is if we bring in the right expertise, focus on the youth, and address the problems that we have had by first understanding what they are. For example, if I had to write a policy I can make you 50 companies in a month; it could be worth $100 million. Why? Through technology. I know we will have a panel on Digital Pakistan because technology is the game changer. If you notice, for those who saw the US president’s inauguration yesterday, all the top CEOs of technology companies were there. So, why is Pakistan not building out?
If you look at the stock markets in India, the US, or the UK, you will see that technology companies are at the top and in the lead. Where are the tech companies in Pakistan? Why aren’t they present? We may have one or two.
Since every issue Pakistan suffers has been addressed or resolved by the rest of the globe, we can easily accomplish this with a population that nearly equals the fifth largest nation on Earth. Given that our population is young and intelligent, and that they want those advances and improvements, I believe we may grow very quickly. The only thing that is missing in Pakistan is the path, and the path comes through international and local partnerships and creating that ecosystem where people can thrive and live a happy and contended life.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator)
Habib Paracha, I would like to say, is the new face of Pakistan. There are many like him. I meet them every day. He is lucky and has the go-getting attitude of telling people what he is doing. There are so many stories in Pakistan, and I meet these young people every day. The only thing that inspires me about Pakistan is being in the classroom because I know the turnaround will happen there with the population of 70% under the age of 30. How can it not happen?
The government of Pakistan is committed to it. I will invite somebody who doesn’t live in Pakistan but is a Pakistani and does everything he can to help. Dr S. Irfan Ali, MD, President of Pioneer Medical Group, has an interesting story to share. The floor is yours.
Dr. S. Irfan Ali, President Pioneer Medical Group
Thank you so much for having me here. This was back in 1997 when I landed in Chicago and went to my first orientation at a large hospital, during the orientation, one person sitting next to me asked, where are you from? And most of the time, when you say you’re from Pakistan, it is not the right connotation, regardless of that, I said I’m from Pakistan. He enquired, do you have cars over there? I looked at him and replied, this is one of the reasons why all these camels we use to build this new nuclear bomb—you know, it was just very difficult to think that.
My point is, Mr Ikram, what you are doing today is the brand that is creating influence as a strategy to have all of us over here. People can see what potential exists for us in it. So, it all comes down to living in the US; one of the biggest things that I see, especially in the Pakistanis too, is how we are creating influence. Influence is not just done by buying beautiful houses or Lamborghini and all of those things, it is actually what you are doing for the communities in which you live or the communities you come from. I think it all comes down to what difference you are trying to make.
Now, one of the things that I want to share is that when I came to America and started my career as a physician, I got training in Boston, came down to Tampa, and started to think about how to do things differently. We created multiple healthcare companies, but one of the things that we do is teach individuals how to improve their leadership skills and how to improve their influence. One of the things that I’m doing with Indus Hospital in Karachi right now is sending experts from our companies back to Karachi to work with the workforce, including the physicians, and teach them how to improve their influence, how to be better leaders, and how to teach others to be better leaders.
I think this is the best thing that we can do apart from brand recognition by making sure that we teach our young individuals how not to just create ideas and strategies but also educate them about their execution, and I think that is one of the biggest things that I see: everybody has an idea, but everybody doesn’t know how to execute it. I think people in and around the table know that they can do that. There is another thing that I feel very strongly about: I manage a couple of foundations too. Our foundations provide medical missions globally and also locally.
We take care of thousands of homeless individuals in America and also in other countries, I noticed when I was walking down in one of the downtowns, I saw a guy sitting at the side corner of the street looking at me, and all of a sudden, he said, “The Muslims are here the Muslims are here!” And you all know whenever you hear these words it makes you pause, most of the time. You start thinking, Should I run, or what else should I do? I said, why are you saying that? He said, “Because you guys come and help us.”
That is not the kind of recognition that we see; that is the influence strategy, not just for yourself but also for the rest of the people living in Pakistan or abroad. I think that is how we can create influence and can talk about the brain drain. People who are significantly smarter than me over here when we leave Pakistan, how are we connecting back with the things that we are learning, and how can we teach back? It all comes down to the human factor, and I always think that we are keeping the human factor in our minds in business, medicine, science, and technology, so this is my short message for all of you. Thank you so much.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator)
I appreciate that Dr Irfan finally mentioned Indus Hospital. It is going to become one of the largest hospitals in Sindh and perhaps in Pakistan, but I also want you to work as a paperless entity and not have traditional billing counters, and the system should cater to everyone; it should not even ask if you can pay the bill; you’re just taken in, and you’re taken care of. It largely happens through philanthropy. I introduce to you, Ms Nadira Panjwani, the chairperson of the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, but this woman is also known for her philanthropic work as well. Pakistan is ranked amongst the top 10 countries where maximum philanthropy is conducted.
Nadira Panjwani, Chairperson Karachi Council on Foreign Relations
Ladies and gentlemen, Asalam-o-Alikum, and good afternoon. I’m truly delighted to be in this beautiful place and grateful for the opportunity to address this august gathering. As we all know, Mr Sehgal has been sponsoring the Pakistan Pavilion gatherings at Davos for the past two decades, and this is his way of showcasing all that is sanguine and encouraging. Due to a combination of internal and external factors, the international media’s portrayal of Pakistan remains generally dismal.
Problems such as terrorism, the Afghan conflict, and regional hostilities tend to always overshadow many positive aspects. Under such unfavourable circumstances, it is critically important for all of us to keep highlighting Pakistan’s strengths and attractions. Events such as this are helpful for sharing facts for accuracy and constructive dialogue leading to meaningful progress. The theme of today’s gathering is Inspiring Pakistan, and in this context, one of the many good and promising things in Pakistan is the immensely generous nature of our people.
I would like to talk briefly about the role of philanthropy in the development of Pakistan. The story of philanthropy is as old as the history of human civilization and is not confined to any specific region or race. Around 2,500 years ago, the term philanthropy appeared in Greek mythology, celebrating values of love for humans, all major religions of the world direct their followers to do what is right and just for those in need. The Torah requires that “10% of a Jew’s wealth be allotted to a righteous deed.”
In Christianity, charity is considered the highest form of love, as recorded in St. Paul’s New Testament, and for Muslims, “Zakat,” a mandatory charitable contribution, is a pillar of faith. What is commonly known in the West as a foundation has its origin in the Islamic institution of waqf. This is the endowment of private wealth for a specified activity of public benefit. In most Muslim countries, waqfs are still a vehicle of choice for the establishment and perpetuation of charitable deeds.
In terms of its GDP, Pakistan ranks high in the international philanthropy context, considering that we are a developing economy with limited resources, our per capita share is phenomenal. In 2019 the Charities Aid Foundation ranked Pakistan at number one in the global giving index, with 82% of Pakistanis doing charity.
This index looks at the frequency of giving, another report in 2020 by the Stanford Social Innovation Review found that Pakistan ranks among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of charitable donations as a percentage of its GDP.
Family values, a sense of responsibility, and religious obligations are strong drivers of philanthropy in our country. People are increasingly supporting good causes, with donations rising significantly over the past decade. However, many focus on instant gratification, like free meals at shrines or handouts to the poor. While these provide temporary relief, they fail to address long-term solutions to our persistent problems.
Therefore, we need to consider the concept of strategy building and take the more challenging and demanding paths of developing institutions that will empower our people and help them liberate their families and communities from the clutches of poverty and dependence. We now have many social development institutions established by individuals using their resources for public benefits, although the work of various foundations differs according to the legacy of the founder and the context in which they operate. They are all the result of visionaries who want to make this world better.
This network of welfare institutions is involved in setting up hospitals, educational institutions, relief centres, cottage industries, scholarship programs, orphanages, vocational training centers, etc. These organizations provide much-needed basic social services to millions of people, according to the Pakistan Center for Philanthropy, we have over 15,000 non-profit organizations. The volume of individual do nations annually runs into several hundred billion rupees; this is how our civil society addresses the many gaps and cracks left by the government in our social safety.
It is very encouraging to note that over the past two decades, the trend of public-private partnerships has emerged as a vital strategy for promoting social welfare. We are facing numerous challenges like poverty, inequality, inadequate health care, and limited access to education, and our governments are hampered by resource constraints and systemic inefficiencies. In this scenario, the private sector, through its dynamism and innovative strategies, has demonstrated its potential for promoting social welfare and development. By combining resources and expertise, such collaborations results into positive changes with greater efficiency.
We have many examples of this, like the Citizens Foundation, the Sindh Education Foundation, the Punjab Education Foundation, the National Commission for Human Development, the Agha Khan Development Network, the Indus Hospital Network, and many others.
With over 30 years in public service, I believe that partnership governance significantly enhances private initiatives to improve governance and align with global best practices. Pakistan has taken important steps to regulate the nonprofit organization (NPO) sector in line with international standards.
This includes oversight by provincial charity commissions and federal laws governing registration, audits, and compliance.The country monitors foreign funding for charities closely and is developing a national database to improve coordination among regulatory bodies. These measures demonstrate Pakistan’s commitment to transparency in the charity sector. No discussion of philanthropy in Pakistan is complete without Abdul Sattar Edhi, a remarkable humanitarian known for his dedication to the downtrodden and marginalized. He helped anyone in need, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity, by establishing free clinics, orphanages, shelters, and rehabilitation centers for the have not’s. Edhi’s ambulance service, which started with one man, has grown into the world’s largest volunteer-based service, featuring thousands of ambulances, air ambulances, and rescue boats.
His work transcended religion and politics, encapsulated in his belief that “No religion is higher than humanity.” In a world filled with inequality and injustice, his legacy as a symbol of hope and service to humanity continues to inspire. Ladies and gentlemen, philanthropy is not about the size of our wealth; it is about the size of our hearts. Let us all find ways, big and small, to ensure that no one is left behind. Thank you very much.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator)
That’s exactly what people like Nadira Panjwani are doing to ensure that no one is left behind. The government and the private sector are working in partnership for the same goal. I now have the pleasure of inviting Mr. Hassan Sharif Khan. He’s in the IT sector in the USA, and he’s promoting generative artificial intelligence.
Hassan Sharif Khan IT Entrepreneur & AI Expert
Thank you, I will update you a little bit about what I do. I have worked at Amazon Web Services for the last two years, and we have been working largely with generative AI, specifically, I’ve been working with financial service institutions. Since it’s a growing trend, I’m walking up and down the promenade. We see AI pretty much pasted all over the place, like ChatGPT, which is an open AI, and there is a kind of excitement and buzz around it.
Most of you have interacted with it through some kind of chat interface to ask questions and get answers, and you’re a little bit fascinated about what’s going on. In terms of a computer being able to answer something like that, we want to take a step back and talk a little bit about what it is and what kind of impact it will be creating. There is still quite a bit of confusion around it, so for that, I want to tie it back to what opportunity it presents for us in Pakistan. Nine languages die every year globally; they disappear because the speakers are no longer associated with them, or there could be many other reasons, to include accelerating technology.
Every language has some morality or a culture type tied to it; some cultures can exist even without the language, and that is a very important part of this. I will give you a couple of examples, if I sell you a calculator and I say this is a very honest calculator in the English language, that doesn’t make sense, it has to be an accurate calculator.
Why? Because inherently the word has a possibility of the word honest being used for something that has free will and can potentially do the opposite and tell a lie. So, an honest calculator is not something you end up buying, you want an accurate calculator. Now imagine I build an artificial intelligence on the English language; behind the scenes, they are called LLMs. You’ll hear that term quite a bit as you go around the conferences. Large Language Model is what LLMs stands for.
If I take ChatGPT and build it in English, even though I’m interacting with it in Arabic, Pashto, or German, it is behind the scenes just translating it back to English, getting an answer from the brains, i.e., the large language model, and then translating it back to you, and you are excited because you are getting an answer in English. There’s a lot lost in there because it translated it to English, used the morality culture behind that language, and gave you the answer based on that.
This difference is essentially because we had artificial intelligence before as well we used to say traditional artificial intelligence with machine learning, and it was more mathematical and statistics-based. Now, with the new foundation models and GPT, the G and the T, and their being part of that large language model, they are based on math plus language.
So this is an important part of it, since language is everything, and you can see how quickly innovation is happening in that space. Anybody not building foundation models, anybody not building large language models, is going to lose an inherent part of this. Tying it back to Pakistan, there are more than 16 languages, and there are more dialects. For those of you who might not be familiar, I speak Pashto, which itself has about four or five different unique dialects, but each one, in terms of how the words are used and the sort of culture and the cultural hospitality tied to it, has its inherent interpretation. When examining hygiene, it’s interesting to consider how perspectives differ between cultures, such as Pakistan and various foreign cultures. If someone is interacting with a chatbot, asking questions about hygiene, there are inherent cultural things in the language and the response coming out of it. Pakistan must develop not just one, but at least 16 large language models that accurately represent and preserve its diverse languages. Let me now tie back to what it would take to build this. You may have heard about OpenAI’s significant fundraising efforts and the increasing investment in China, where existing models are being repurposed to create new ones.
These large investments rely on essential infrastructure, particularly in power and water supply, which are crucial for building hardware to host models and support ongoing training. We are in the early stages of generative AI, similar to web and mobile app development in the 1990s. Even the most experienced practitioners have only a few years in the field.
The impact is significant, as many of your employees’ tasks are now 80% automated, leaving them to focus primarily on exceptional scenarios that require quick decision-making. That’s where generative AI plays that role, so it is going to be pervasive; it is going to change a lot of how you do things, and as it changes that remaining 20% that IT a couple of years ago was not able to tackle, that has a massive impact on employment and how you measure GDP.
Pakistan has this excellent opportunity for having IT consulting houses in a position where we are developing and offering a cheaper alternative in an English-speaking country to what India was doing in the ‘90s. It is an excellent opportunity to step in and double down on some of the education we were talking about earlier, from producing data scientists, the hardware, and the infrastructure associated with it, and then the power supply is going to be huge.
In Pakistan, we have struggled with electricity a lot, but now if you’re going to host those foundation models in the data centers then power supply and water supply consistently are critical because otherwise you’re going to incur downtime. I’m going to violate the word ‘potential’ again, but essentially there is a huge potential in this space to kind of leapfrog some of the competition because everybody’s starting. That is my inspiring message for the coming years, and hopefully, we’ll do things in that space. Thank you.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator)
Thank you so much, that was very interesting. How can you not have the government respond to all the questions that have been raised? And, aptly, because it’s a public-private partnership, investment etc. and the list goes on. We have with us, Syed Qassim Naveed Qamar, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister for Investment and Public-Private Partnership, Sindh Investment Department. Over to you, sir.
Syed Qassim Naveed Qamar Special Assistant, CM Sindh Investment Department
Thank you very much. I would like to start by thanking Mr Ikram Sehgal, his family, and Pathfinder Group. You people have always been a beacon of hope for us, and I remember last time coming here, I got inspired by everything that you were doing. I not only wanted the investment department, but I wanted a Pakistan show. I wanted corporates to be involved, get everyone together, and project Pakistan in the way that it deserves and should be projected. There are a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. When we are talking about Inspiring Pakistan, like Michael said, “Pakistan has all the right ingredients, it’s just a matter of putting everything together.”
For some reason I feel like we went wrong somewhere, whether it was consistency in our policies at the government level, whether it was that lack of focus or positioning ourselves like we talked about, and what should that position be and what is it that we are trying to achieve? I think sometimes we also at the government level lack that focus, and that is something that we as Pakistanis and as the government should focus on and try to give ourselves a direction so we can take that trajectory.
No doubt Pakistan is a resilient country, whether it’s our geopolitical situation, wars, floods, or climate change that is creating a huge impact in the form of floods that we faced just a couple of years back. Pakistan doesn’t create those sorts of emissions that would create so much of an impact, but we have to face the consequences of those impacts.
The floods a couple of years ago taught us a lesson, and it brought us together as a nation. Federal and provincial governments were all working together, and we had a lot of collaborators and partners from around the world. I feel like that is an inspirational story because we have learned a lot from it and where we are standing today. I have got the CEO of the Sindh People Housing Foundation (SPHF) with us here today. It is the largest project of its kind, building 2.1 million houses in the province. All of them are flood-resilient houses that cost under 1000 dollars for people across the province, people who only had the agricultural land that they sat on for their sustainability, food, and income, which was all underwater for months.
This is hundreds and thousands of acres of land; we had to learn from it fast and had to bounce back. I feel like SPHF has been that example for us with partners like the World Bank, ADB, and many other global partners coming together to celebrate this victory and supporting us through it.
On the other side, we’re talking about public-private partnerships (PPP), my favourite subject of discussion. PPP has been a huge success, our unit in Sindh has been ranked by The Economist Magazine as the sixth best in the entire region. We work with the best partners with a very transparent mechanism like the World Bank, ADB, ENY, KPMG, and PWC. I’m glad you talked about Indus Hospital because it is also a partner of the government of Sindh – gives them over 8 billion rupees annually.
That is just one example we have SIUT, NICBD, and another flagship project, THARKOL, which is not very popular. It is a huge project for the government and the people of Pakistan. We hope to use these skills on PPPs that we have developed for the projects of agriculture, food security, education, technology, and EV infrastructure, which is something that we’re developing right now.
Again, I want to say that there is so much potential, but I think we just need to channel everything and bring it together. I appreciate that forums like this provide an opportunity for us to discuss various cases and learn from individuals like you who offer an outsider’s perspective. This insight is incredibly helpful and motivates us to move in the right direction. Thank you so much for having me; it’s an honour being here.
Dr Huma Baqai, (Moderator) Thank you Syed Qassim Naveed Qamar. Now I will invite the Co-Chairman of Pathfinder Group, Mr Ikram Sehgal for a vote of thanks. But I’m going to warn you his vote of thanks carries a lot more.
Ikram Sehgal Co-Chairman, Pathfinder Group
Bismillah-ir-Rehman-ur-Raheem. First of all, let me thank everyone for being here. We have been doing this for more than two decades, and the first thing I would say is thank you, Klaus Schwab, for being a wonderful partner to us. Even though we know that in this room many people, and I will not name the countries, offered much more money for this time and slot, they never gave it. They said, it’s your slot, and it will remain there, so thank you once again.
I will go with speaker-by-speaker, Michael. Thank you very much. I mean, you have an objective voice that tells us the real things, and we are always grateful for it. I remember both you and Adam asked me what you want us to say, and I said I’m not going to tell you what to say you can say much more than I can, even if it comes to giving an analysis. Thank you; both of you are experts in your areas and also experts from an outside point of view to look at Pakistan. When we look at Pakistan, we can look at it differently, it’s always best to get an outside view because that view gives us a reality check, which sometimes we lack. For example, if I talk about Habib, I know he can be very critical, but he held his horses today to Pakistan only, and he did it in a very nice way.
So, thank you. Of course, it was refreshing to hear you, Irfan, and we look forward to something more in Pakistan in the health sector, which maybe we can get a group together to cooperate on. I know my friend Dr Munir is sitting right there with my family because he’s part of the family, so we should look forward to cooperation.
Furthermore, Nadira and I go back to when I was a predecessor to the chair of the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, and I must say what a wonderful job she has done, not only exceeding our expectations but also eclipsing many great things I have been doing. People don’t know the amount of effort she puts in, particularly among other charitable venues, and it’s a treat to see them when they come for occasions and sing for us and play music for us. What she was talking about was philanthropy, we are one of the most philanthropic people in the world, except it’s not channelled properly.
I say a lot of it is wasted going to these madrasas, and then some of that money ends up in the form of weapons, ammunition, and bombs, and I think it needs to be regulated. Each government that has come has tried in its way to fix that. We have a long association with the Swiss chamber; they have been a great partner for us all this time, and even in our work. I must mention your wife Dr Urs Lustenberger because sometimes, I don’t know how she doesn’t drive you crazy she comes up with such ideas from time to time. I’m privileged to have Qassim here, the minister.
In 1972, I was in the army; that was about 52 years ago, and at that point, I met his father, who was at that time studying there, and of course his mother. It’s a treat to hear you speak eloquently, and I think one of the great things Sindh has done is to keep you there because you make the sales pitch credible, and that is what matters, I think you created a very good team that is sitting there. He’s got 2.1 million houses to build and has got a long way to go, I wish you luck. I also want to thank my Pathfinder Group team for setting up this thing here.
Now let me tell you a secret, and I am not going to cast a comment on anyone, but just to put up this whole setup, if I had given it to the hotel and the hotel would have said no, they can only use my vendor, it would cost me 15,000 Swiss Francs for this one event. So, I’m not talking about the panels that you’re going to have tomorrow and the day after, so you multiply 15,000 and it will cost us 75,000 Swiss Francs.
I thought that was good enough to bring 20 of my people here, who set this up, and this includes the Chief Operating Officers like Salman and Samad, present here. These people set it up themselves with their own hands. That is what counts: that you have COOs working with their hands to project not only Pathfinder Group but also Pakistan. That is what Pakistan is and what Pakistani youth is. I think it’s always good to have a son like Zarrar. I wish in the next life I will be more like him. I think my wife can tell you all the other things that are wrong with me.
I’m grateful to Shehnaz also, she’s been supporting me in the World Economic Forum since 1994, that is, 31 years ago. We have attended 30 of them, and only one year we didn’t, but it’s always good to have homegrown support for your work. We have a lot of young people here from Pakistan, and I’d like to mention Junaid, sitting here with me, and Fareed Alam, to whom I always look forward to finding out what’s going wrong with the economy, and he then tells me what’s going right with the economy because he always says buy stocks, and I never indulge in stocks and shares, unfortunately.
I would like to thank a special friend of mine, Paul Burchi, the owner of Panorama for over 50 years right in the centre of Davos. He sold it two years ago, and one of the clauses he kept there was that the Sehgal family would keep occupying this 11th floor during the Davos week. I fear that things will not stay anymore because I think they are now contracting subcontractors but anyway, live and let live. What about Pakistan? I want to tell you two things, ladies and gentlemen: one, we must decouple ourselves from India if India wants to do business with us; good but we don’t have to do business with them. India is a great country with a tremendous economy. They have a lot of resources, and we would love to do business with India, but not at the cost of our sovereignty. They don’t want to play cricket with us in Pakistan; they don’t want to give us access to South Asia. Let’s decouple then. Do we need India to come through Central Asia to go through to Europe by land access? We don’t need them, so let’s decouple.
I’m not going to talk about China-Pakistan. I am talking about the northsouth corridor, I’m talking about the old RCD, I’m talking about the new corridor that is opening up to Africa through Saudi Arabia, and we are the centre of it. I shocked Michael a little bit in Washington recently when I told him about the fact that why are these Chinese making so many aircraft carriers and submarines. Do you think they want to control the Pacific Ocean or do they want to name it the Chinese Ocean? No, they want to change the name of the Indian Ocean to the Chinese Ocean, and the only way they can get there is through land bases based in Pakistan. We don’t want to go into the Chinese block but don’t push us into that.
Look at us as what we are, a country having the second largest copper and gold reserves in the world, the third largest coal reserves in the world, the fourth largest cotton and cotton industry in the world, the fifth largest milk-producing, the sixth largest rice-producing country, and the seventh largest wheat-producing state. We have developed nuclear weapons; we have developed nuclear missiles, the only Islamic country, and only that is an India-specific measure. I think now people may raise their voices that it is India-specific; we won’t do that. My point is, look at us for what we are and look at our youth that has come up. We have a product here that we’ll talk about the day after tomorrow, in which the World Economic Forum is sending the head of the Edison Alliance to talk about this product, which is something that reaches out to the poor and gives them financial inclusion and empowerment. This is given by the World Bank and regulated by the State Bank of Pakistan, but the youth of Pakistan developed it.
In the end, I would like to thank my partners at Continuity Global Solutions, we’ve got here, John DeBlasio, Tauqeer Khalid, and Vinshield, who lost my overcoat many years ago in this place, but I can forgive him for that because he remains a good friend and he brought a new one for me. Thank you everyone for being here. We look forward to God willing, my wife keeps telling me not to tell my age, but I will probably be 79 this year, and hopefully next year I will do this again.
Contributed by:
Sammak Shafat
