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Roundtable sessions at the Imagining Futures Conference were structured as focused, participatory conversations that brought together a diverse mix of stakeholders to address well-defined challenges related to social equity. Designed to foster active exchange, these sessions emphasized collaboration, critical thinking, and the development of context-specific solutions. Unlike larger plenaries or panels, roundtables were intentionally kept small to encourage deeper engagement and sustained dialogue. Each session was hosted by a relevant organization or facilitator and anchored in a central question or theme—drawing on lived experience, on-ground knowledge, and sectoral expertise.
The goal was to move beyond broad reflection and toward practical next steps. Participants were invited to share insights from their respective fields, explore opportunities for alignment, and identify concrete actions that could inform future research, policy engagement, or community-based practice. Through these conversations, the roundtables generated momentum around key issues, surfaced collaborative ideas, and initiated pathways for continued engagement beyond the conference—whether through working groups, joint projects, or localized interventions.
Moderator: Farhan Anwar (Assistant Professor of Practice, Social Development and Policy, Habib University)
Speakers:
Home to over 20 million people, Karachi is Pakistan’s economic powerhouse and one of the world’s largest megacities. Yet, despite contributing up to 20% of the country’s GDP and hosting vibrant industrial, commercial, and service sectors, the city faces mounting urban crises. Chronic challenges—such as inadequate waste management, water scarcity, housing insecurity, transport breakdowns, and environmental degradation—are compounded by civic fragmentation, social unrest, and political contestation. These have led to deteriorating service delivery and placed Karachi among the bottom 10 cities in the Global Livability Index.
This roundtable gathered researchers, planners, civil society actors, youth leaders, and policymakers to critically examine Karachi’s urban future. Through an interdisciplinary and citizen-centered lens, it explored strategies for more inclusive urban governance, highlighted grassroots and youth-led interventions, and identified actionable pathways toward livable, equitable, and sustainable city-making. Emphasizing civic participation, localized knowledge, and institutional accountability, the discussion aimed to center those most affected—Karachi’s citizens—in driving long-term, transformative change.
Moderator: Hadia Majid (Associate Professor, Chair, Dept. of Economics, LUMS)
Speakers:
Social norms, expectations about gender roles, and appropriate practices or choices remain a key challenge to progress in women’s agency and participation in economic and social spheres. This roundtable featured insights from recent empirical economic and sociological work that unpacked women’s navigation of prescribed gender roles and demand for agency. These insights yielded important takeaways for ways to improve women’s well-being, life outcomes, and contribution to socio-economic development. This roundtable featured a discussion on the following topics: women’s productive and reproductive work, intra-household dynamics of decision-making and demands for agency, investments in education and inter-generational shifts in social norms, and measurement and conceptualization of gendered social norms in the context of South Asian labor markets.
Moderator: Syed Uzair Junaid (Director, Research Development at Centre of Economic Research in Pakistan)
Speakers:
This session looked at how norms, policies, and institutional systems shaped women’s access to work in Pakistan. It focused on the structural barriers that limited entry and mobility, and the role of public systems, digital tools, and service delivery in either reinforcing or shifting those constraints. The discussion brought together perspectives from research and practice to consider what meaningful change could look like, and what it would take to make systems more responsive to women’s needs and realities.
Submissions for the IFC-2026 will be opening very soon. Until then, please make sure to review the Submission Guidelines .
