Expected Time to Achieve SDG 4.6: A Disaggregated Data Analysis for Pakistan

Achieving the sustainable development goals is a massive task but not an impossible one. Can we achieve these goals during the next 13 years? To answer this question, we need to benchmark where Pakistan is today and to figure out how far we have to travel? We have discussed challenges regarding SDGs with reference to data in general and have figured out expected distance to achieve universal literacy goal under SDG4 in particular. Our results show that it is not possible to achieve SDGs using business as usual. Pakistan will hardly be able to achieve 100% literacy even after 100 years of its birth. There is lot of hetrogeniety among provinces, urban and rural population, and between male and female. Some districts have literacy rate around 85% while there are other which have female literacy rate even below 20%. To address these challenges such that “No One is Left Behind” is a gigantic task. However, we believe that learning lessons from districts with significant improvement in literacy over past two decades, strong commitment, academia technical assistance and making governments accountable at levels, these goals are achievable.