The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday in its released report “Asian Water Development Outlook (AWDO)- 2025,”acknowledged Pakistan’s “notable progress” in strengthening its water governance over the past decade, owing to renewed political commitment, targeted investments and institutional reforms.
Since 2013, the report said, successive governments have taken “deliberate steps” to improve national water planning, upgrade service delivery frameworks and introduce policies aligned with standard international practices.
It highlighted the National Water Policy (2018) as a “major milestone” that mainstreamed Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) principles and reinforced the country’s climate and disaster response frameworks.
“These reforms have provided Pakistan with a strong policy foundation,” the report said, mentioning that the country’s water security architecture now covered allocation, resilience, disaster risk reduction and ecosystem protection.
However, AWDO 2025 stressed that despite these advancements, Pakistan continued to face systemic constraints across all five dimensions of water security, primarily due to uneven implementation and fragmented responsibilities at federal, provincial and municipal levels.
The report noted that key institutions “often operate in isolation,” especially in rural water service delivery (KD1) and urban water management (KD3), resulting in low security scores despite improvements in recent years.
It recommended establishing a fully functional coordination mechanism under the National Water Council with empowered provincial authorities to “accelerate reform and strengthen integration.” On financing, the ADB report acknowledged increased public investment, particularly in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), but warned that funding “remains far below the scale required.” Urban utilities continue to struggle with low cost recovery, high non-revenue water and limited maintenance capacity, leaving informal settlements underserved.
Economic water security (KD2) and urban water management (KD3) remained especially constrained. The report suggested introducing volumetric water pricing to improve agricultural efficiency, boost revenue generation and support sustainability across the sector.
Environmental water security is identified as an area of growing concern. Despite Pakistan’s strong policy recognition of ecological needs, freshwater and marine ecosystems “remain under severe pressure” due to pollution, degraded flows and habitat loss.