PTI lays claim to youth policy launched by ANP

Re-launched policy differs from the original by few textual changes and re-ordering of chapters

PESHAWAR: The PTI-led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has re-launched the Youth Policy, claiming the credit for its formulation which was originally launched in 2012 by the ANP government.

The re-launched policy differs with the original one by minor textual changes and re-ordering of chapters.

The youth policy, which was actually unveiled by the ANP-led coalition government on June 26 in 2012 was again unveiled by the PTI government on November 28 this year at a mega event in Peshawar.



The event was presided over by Chief Minister Pervez Khatak as the chief guest, sources privy to the development said.

Former minister for sports, tourism and culture Syed Aqil Shah said that the drafts of both ‘youth policies’ were almost similar with “a few lines added here and a few deleted there”.



He contended that the 2016 policy was entirely copied by the incumbent government without giving proper credit to the former government.

Interestingly, ‘Bargad’, the organisation which claimed formulating the PTI’s ‘youth policy, had also formulated ANP’s policy in 2012.

Sources privy to the development said that ANP’s policy was funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and PTI and UNFPA representatives claimed funding the ‘first-ever youth policy’ in collaboration with the provincial directorate of sports, culture and youth affairs.

Bargad’s Programme Manager Saiqa Rani, who helped formulate the 2012 policy, said that the policy was almost identical to the one drafted during the previous government’s tenure.

When asked about funding details, she said ‘Bargad’ was funded in 2012 for the policy making and in 2016, government just provided funds for the launching ceremony.

“The draft of the 2012 policy was prepared, but it was not launched … Only consultation meetings were held while it has been officially launched in 2016,” she insisted.

Comparison of the two

In the introductory chapter, the first line stated that the “K-P Youth policy is the central tool to systematically integrate, implement and evaluate all youth development work in the province.” The phrasing of the 2016 policy is exactly the same.

After this, “based on three pillars, integrated youth development, economic, social and political empowerment,” the 2012 policy’s introduction has been added to it.

Sifting through the pages of 2012 policy, one encounters “250 representative youth from 24 districts and more than 100 organizations and bodies contributed to the consultative process across the province to formulate the policy” only the figure ‘250’ has been replaced by ‘380’ and ‘100’ has been replaced by ‘250’ in the 2016 policy. There are no further changes in other paragraphs of the introductory chapter.

Important suggestions given in the 2016 Youth Policy such as the one calling for the establishment of a Youth Affairs directorate and also a Youth Development Commission had also been suggested in the 2012 policy. The only difference in this section is about the establishment of Youth Centers, initially at divisional, and later at district level across the province.



Chapters on ‘policy context’, ‘rationale’ and devolution of youth affairs from the Centre to provinces in 2016 policy matches word for word what was written in the 2012 policy with only minor changes in vocabulary. Even the order of the chapters is the same in both policies.

Despite repeated attempts, PTI’s Minister for Sports, Tourism, Culture and Youth Affairs Mehmood Khan was unavailable for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2016.