Political parties need to play a more active role to involve youth in electoral affairs, starting by incorporating youth within its power structure and reserving seats for the youth in the National Assembly. These were some of the recommendations proposed by the participants at a dialogue organized by PILDAT and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Pakistan to discuss the ‘Missing Young Voters of Pakistan’ here. Dr. Niels Hegewisch, Country Director, FES Pakistan, reiterated the German organization’s dedication towards creating socially democratic states around the globe. “One of their aims in Pakistan is to promote the role and participation of youth in democratic practices of the country as infusing youth into politics and legislation is the true way of forming a representative democracy in a country.” In her key remarks, Qurat-ul-Ain Fatima, Director Media Coordination and Outreach Wing and Director Protocol, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), shared key statistics on voters of Pakistan and the different methods employed by the Election Commission to improve voter registration and turnout. She said that ECP’s SVEEP and internship programmes were designed to engage young people and educate them on voting and elections. She said ECP has focused on local government elections to encourage youth to vote and even contest as candidates, with KP and Sindh allocating 5% of their seats to youth adding similar strategies need to be devised and implemented on a provincial and national level. Dr. Ali Muhammad Malik, Deputy Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme (PMYP) highlighted the efforts undertaken by the Prime Minister’s Office to engage the youth of the country. Dr. Ali said, “We need a responsive government that prioritizes youth empowerment, employment, education and engagement further adding PMYP has begun the process of soliciting nominations for youth-led groups and organizations in order to enable fruitful participation of young people in the development of national cohesion and inclusion.” Shaheera Jalil AlBasit, Advocate for Pakistan’s Youth Election Quota Campaign, stressed the importance of having youth representation in the legislative bodies and the resulting impact this would have on future policy development. She shared key highlights of the Bill she had introduced in the National Assembly of Pakistan to have reserved seats in the legislature and political bodies for youth. The three main demands included 30% of the total candidates of political parties should be youth and the duty of financing these candidates’ campaigns should be on the parties themselves while 30% of leadership and central positions in political parties be awarded to young candidates. The bill has been referred to the Committee of Parliamentary Affairs for review. Asking the important questions, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President PILDAT, in his opening presentation explained the impact of this low youth participation will have by weakening the democratic governance system of this country.