The full record of PIVRA's published work: research reports, policy and issue briefs, discussion papers, commentary, analysis, and opinion pieces covering governance, economy, education, technology, society, and the environment.
Every PIVRA publication starts from a research question grounded in a real policy or governance challenge, is developed using credible sources including government data, peer-reviewed research, and international organizations, and is written to be usable by policymakers, practitioners, and informed citizens alike.
Publications below are organized by format: reports set out an extended, in-depth treatment of a theme, policy briefs build an evidence-based case toward a detailed set of recommendations for identifiable decision-makers, issue briefs offer focused analysis of a single question, discussion papers examine a topic in greater depth, and commentary and analysis track current policy as it develops. Shorter articles and opinion pieces appear at the end.
Younger Pakistanis are better educated and better off than their parents, yet family background still strongly shapes education, employment and digital opportunity. Traces how inequality is transmitted across generations, how digitalization and climate shocks add new channels, and sets out six directions for a life-course, SDG-aligned response.
Read Report →Pakistan has begun building an ESG regulatory architecture: a green taxonomy, sustainability disclosure standards, ESG reporting guidelines and climate-risk rules. This report maps the gap between that architecture and consistent institutional practice across eight areas, and sets out nine recommendations for aligning ESG with the Sustainable Development Goals.
Read Report →Argues that the evidence does not justify treating algorithms as the sole cause of political polarization, but justifies greater scrutiny of how platforms amplify political content. Recommends election-period algorithmic audits, independent researcher access, user control over recommendations, algorithmic literacy, and multi-stakeholder oversight.
Read Brief →Examines food insecurity in Pakistan through the lens of socioeconomic inequality, tracing how income, livelihood security, purchasing power, location and climate shocks shape unequal access to food. Recommends targeted social protection, purchasing-power measures, and stronger policy coordination across food, nutrition and climate response.
Read Brief →Pakistan needs roughly $60 billion a year to stay on track for the SDGs, while debt servicing now consumes more than half the federal budget. Sets out five recommendations, debt-for-development swaps, sovereign green sukuk, ESG disclosure, digital tax enforcement, and SDG-aligned CPEC 2.0 financing, addressed to specific institutional actors.
Read Brief →Examines how generative AI is reshaping communication, education, work, and social trust in Pakistan, and argues that AI's success should be measured by human development rather than productivity alone. Recommends AI social-impact assessments, critical AI literacy, and investment in Urdu-language AI systems.
Read Brief →Examines how disparities in education, digital access, skills, and occupational opportunity may create an emerging AI capability divide among Pakistani workers, and recommends inclusive skills development and digital access to prevent AI from deepening existing labour-market inequality.
Read Brief →Examines how structural disparities in education, income, gender, and digital access create skills shortages, restrict market expansion, and increase operational challenges for Pakistani businesses. Recommends coordinated action by government, business, academia, and development partners.
Read Brief →Traces the structural causes of Pakistan's five-decade economic underperformance, chronic fiscal deficits, energy sector import dependence, and a narrow export base, and sets out priorities for a shift to an export-led model.
Read Paper →Assesses the Pakistan Stock Exchange's new homegrown ESG benchmark index, its methodology, and the self-reported disclosure gap that will decide whether it can be trusted as regulation begins to depend on it.
Read Paper →Examines the bind facing exporters, carbon markets, and commodity supply chains across South Asia, Africa, and Latin America under ESG frameworks (ISSB, CSRD, GRI, TCFD, SASB) written without their participation, and asks whether the answer is regional co-authorship of standards.
Read Paper →Reads the PMDC's 31 July and 1 September 2026 instruction to every medical and dental college to stop admitting Afghan nationals and repatriate those enrolled, with King Edward Medical University giving 20 students 24 hours to begin departure. Argues that routing the decision through an accreditation power, rather than a court or immigration authority, removes the individual non-refoulement assessment Pakistan's ratified treaty obligations require, and falls hardest on women barred from completing medical training in Afghanistan.
Read Commentary →Sets the interior ministry's 1 September 2026 Senate briefing, 5,700 non-prohibited bore licences in 13 months against more than 100,000 a year previously, against the same committee's January directive to cancel licences held by non-filers, which the briefing left unaddressed. Argues the reform is so far measurable only at the point of entry, while the prohibited-bore categories tied to public office are untouched.
Read Commentary →Traces Pakistan's auto policy from the lapse of the 2021-26 framework on 30 June 2026, through a hybrid sales-tax snapback that added more than Rs1.3 million to some prices and a first EV-weighted draft withdrawn after industry appealed to the Prime Minister, to a redraft still stuck on import tariffs. Reads it alongside the battery, solar and electronics policies moving through the same negotiated process.
Read Commentary →Traces Pakistan's 2025-26 wheat cycle from a record 29.61m tonne harvest to Punjab buying its own reserve back at a 19% premium, Sindh approving a five-million-ton import despite beating its production target, and farmers demanding a new support price before the next crop is sown.
Read Commentary →Reads the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26 against its own 1.6% of GDP combined education and health spending figure, finding coverage indicators improving while nutrition indicators lag regional peers, and traces the gap in part to an incomplete devolution under the 18th Amendment.
Read Commentary →Examines the composition behind Pakistan's 22-year-low fiscal deficit, finding it resting substantially on a State Bank profit transfer, the petroleum levy and falling interest payments while the FBR missed its own tax collection target.
Read Commentary →Explains why Europe's 2026 heatwave caused mass mortality and infrastructure failure at temperatures Pakistani cities routinely exceed, tracing the heat dome mechanism, humidity's role in heat mortality, and why road construction standards differ by climate.
Read Commentary →The European Commission's July 2026 GSP+ compliance report found legislative progress but little enforcement on rights and rule of law, and a redesigned scheme from 2027 will judge Pakistan on implementation. Preferential access to the EU market is not guaranteed past the 2028 transition.
Read Analysis →Shorter pieces and commentary from PIVRA researchers and contributors, published in English and Urdu. The full archive is on the Articles & Opinions page.
Imran Bhatti · October 2026
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky · October 2026
Analysis · PIVRA Data & Policy Center · September 2026
Areeba Sajid · September 2026
Aqsa Sarfraz · September 2026
Zahid Maqsood Sheikh · August 2026
Muhammad Arif Khan · August 2026
Muhammad Arif Khan · August 2026
Saima Naeem · August 2026
Saqib Kakar · July 2026
Muhammad Arif Khan · July 2026
For research partnerships, citations, or media inquiries, write to publications@pivra.org.
