What Pakistan stopped counting

The DHS is the backbone of child- and maternal-health statistics. On a roughly five-year cadence a new round would have landed years ago; the most recent published survey is still 2017–18. Every immunization, child-marriage and birth-registration figure on this dashboard is therefore reading a country that has changed since — including through COVID, record inflation and two flood emergencies.

Now relies on: Eight-year-old survey values, plus modelled UN estimates for mortality

Pakistan last published an official national-poverty-line headcount for 2018–19. Since then the headline poverty figures quoted everywhere — including on this dashboard — are World Bank modelled estimates against an international line, not a new household survey. A country cannot target relief precisely on a poverty map drawn before the worst cost-of-living shock in a generation.

Now relies on: World Bank modelled international-line estimates (the 47.9% figure), not a fresh government survey

The MMR 186/100k that anchors the SDG 3.1 tracker comes from the 2019 Maternal Mortality Survey — Pakistan's first standalone one. Without a refresh, there is no measured read on whether the wide provincial gap (Balochistan 298 vs Punjab 157) has widened or narrowed through the recent shocks.

Now relies on: The 2019 survey figure (MMR 186), now several years old

The 40.2% stunting figure — one of the most-cited numbers about Pakistan's children, and the centre of this dashboard's stunting network — is from the 2018 National Nutrition Survey. Even on the NNS's own ~7-year rhythm it is now due for replacement. Two of every five children being stunted is either improving or worsening right now, and the country is not currently measuring which.

Now relies on: The 2018 survey values (40.2% stunting), now past their own cadence