Mainstreaming Climate Change into National Development Planning in Pakistan Policy Integration, Institutional Coordination, and Implementation Gaps A Qualitative Document-Analysis Study

Abstract

This study examines why Pakistan’s official climate policies fail to work properly within the everyday system of national and provincial development planning, despite the country's extreme vulnerability. Using a careful analysis of 24 important government documents and planning manuals published between 2021 and 2025 including the National Climate Change Policy (2021) and the National Adaptation Plan (2023) this paper looks at how decisions are actually made.
The results show a big gap between policy words and real action. For instance, even though the 2022 floods affected 33 million people, killed over 1,730, and caused USD 14.9 billion in damages, and the 2025 monsoon caused over 1,000 deaths with PKR 822 billion in losses, checking for climate risks is still not mandatory. The Planning Commission allocated only 0.22% (PKR 2.78 billion) of the total federal budget directly to the Ministry of Climate Change, and checking for climate risks remains an optional suggestion rather than a strict requirement when designing and approving development projects in the PC-1 form.
The study highlights six main barriers: poor cooperation between different ministries, weak coordination between the federal and provincial governments, a habit of funding traditional projects rather than climate-safe ones in development programs (PSDP and ADPs), a lack of clear climate budgeting rules, limited technical skills in government departments, and poor monitoring. Because of these issues, climate safety remains limited to official speeches, while government funds continue to be spent on projects that ignore climate risks.
The study concludes that Pakistan does not need new departments. Instead, the government must build strict and mandatory climate rules directly into its existing main institutions specifically the Planning Commission and the Finance Division making climate safety a compulsory rule for all public investments.
Keywords: climate mainstreaming; national development planning; policy integration; institutional coordination; implementation gap; climate governance; public investment management; PC-1 appraisal; PSDP; climate budget tagging; Pakistan.