By Sardar Khan Niazi

The deepening fractures in society demand that the state — and not just civil society — step forward to address the myriad vulnerabilities facing citizens across Pakistan. Our institutions can no longer afford to treat social safety nets as afterthoughts or discretionary relief efforts. They must become the foundation of a just, inclusive society. In recent months, we have witnessed crisis after crisis: widows who cannot sustain their children, persons with disabilities unable to access basic services, laborers left without compensation, older persons pushed beyond the margins of dignity. These are not isolated tragedies but signs of a systemic failure — a failure of governance, of policy, and ultimately, of duty. The fact is that vulnerability is not always marked by visible tragedy. It can be silent — an elderly woman unable to visit a clinic, a rural family forced into debt by healthcare costs, a transgender person barred from formal employment. These silent sufferings warrant our attention as much as headline-making disasters. As a society, we are judged not by how we respond when everything is going right but by how we protect the least of us when things go wrong. The first step is recognition. The state needs to map vulnerabilities more comprehensively: where do children live without immunization, which zones are bereft of accessible schools for girls, which regions offer no social-protection cover at all? Without this mapping, efforts remain scattershot. Next, a design of social safety must be universal in ambition if not in detail: a baseline guaranteed income transfer, health cover, and educational support tied to the capacity to work or train. However, these must be accompanied by local outreach — the administration must go where the vulnerable are, rather than waiting for people to navigate bureaucratic corridors. Take for example older persons: many live alone, without pension access, often in rural areas where service centers are decades away. Unless we embed mobile outreach, community-based assistance, and flexible eligibility criteria into the scheme, we will continue to see these seniors slipping through the net. On the other side, children in low-income homes need cradle-to-career protection: early childhood nutrition, schooling, scholarships, and job linking. The moment we fracture the timeline is the moment we lose the child. Crucially, all this requires coherence across government departments: social protection cannot be the preserve of one ministry alone. Labor, health, education, interior, provincial governments — all must coordinate. At present too much duplication, too much offloading of responsibilities and too little accountability. The sum of our parts is lower than the parts themselves. We should also recognize that budgets matter. Financing social safety is not a luxury for the future but a necessary investment. The costs of inaction — increased crime, spiraling healthcare costs, social unrest, lost human capital — are borne by all of us. The country cannot accept rhetoric of “we can’t afford it” when the real message is “we can’t afford not to invest”. Finally, there must be a shift in public discourse: no longer should social protection be framed solely as charity for the few. It is the bedrock of social contract between the state and citizen. When a government fails to protect its vulnerable, it undermines the very idea of citizenship and collective belonging. In sum: This is not about a temporary relief scheme or populist campaign. It is about building a society where vulnerabilities are buffered by structured protection. The government’s role cannot be passive or reactive — it must be proactive, systematic and enduring. The test of our nation is not how well we manage boom times, but how well we shield our most exposed in the storm. Let us start now.