ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's regulators enjoy sky-high public recognition but almost total public ignorance about accountability, according to a landmark citizen survey released in Islamabad on Wednesday that measures, for the first time, how ordinary Pakistanis actually experience governance rather than how experts rank it.
Mishal Pakistan, the World Economic Forum's country partner institute, built the State of Transparency in Pakistan Report 2026 on responses from 2,000 citizens across all four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan. Researchers scored the results against a new framework they call TARL Transparency, Accountability, Rule of Law and Legitimacy, creating what the organisation describes as the country's first evidence-based governance baseline.
The headline finding cuts against decades of assumptions about how citizens relate to the state. Ninety-five percent of respondents recognise the Federal Board of Revenue, and 90% know the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Higher Education Commission on sight. Yet just 7% of those same citizens know they can formally appeal a regulatory decision. Mishal Pakistan frames this not as a legal failure but as a communication breakdown regulators have built visibility without building the awareness that lets citizens hold them accountable.
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Trust splits sharply by institution. The armed forces top every category measured, with 82% of respondents crediting the military for defending Pakistan's borders and 74% praising its counter-terrorism role. The Higher Judiciary draws a far softer 40% expressing even neutral-to-positive trust, and roughly a third of citizens credit Parliament with progress on fiscal responsibility and anti-corruption legislation.
Business owners deliver the report's bluntest complaint. Seventy-six percent cite excessive paperwork as their biggest regulatory obstacle, 73% report ongoing compliance difficulties, and 70% want clearer, more predictable rules. Mishal Pakistan reads this as a demand for simplification rather than deregulation companies are not asking regulators to disappear, they are asking them to stop wasting time.
Digital governance stands out as the survey's most positive result. Fifty-four percent of respondents believe Pakistan is moving toward a genuine digital future, 52% say e-government services are improving delivery, and 45% think technology is helping cut corruption. The Special Investment Facilitation Council, formed only recently, has already reached 55% public awareness — a recognition curve Mishal Pakistan calls unusually fast for a new institution.
"This report is more than a research publication; it is a national benchmark," said Puruesh Chaudhary, the report's lead author and director of Mishal Pakistan. She said the findings show transparency work strengthens institutions rather than exposing them.
Mishal Pakistan chief executive Amir Jahangir pushed the argument further, calling transparency "a national strategic capability" rather than a governance principle, and linking institutional openness directly to Pakistan's ability to attract investment.
The survey lands beside the Pakistan Reforms Report 2026, which documented more than 600 reforms across 135 federal institutions, over 200 of them digital. Mishal Pakistan now plans to convert this year's findings into the Pakistan Transparency Index, an annual tool that will track whether public trust rises or stalls.
The demographics matter as much as the numbers. Eighty percent of respondents fall between 18 and 35 years old, meaning the report captures how Pakistan's next generation not its policymakers judges the state right now. Social trust among that generation remains strong: 63% trust people they know personally, and 52% extend at least some trust to strangers.
That combination high social trust, high institutional visibility, but almost no awareness of accountability tools defines the report's real finding. Pakistanis are not disengaged from their institutions; they simply lack the information to push back on them. Whether regulators close that awareness gap before next year's index, or let it widen, will decide if this baseline becomes a genuine reform driver or a one-time data point nobody revisits.