Since the merger of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, government strategies to mainstream the region and drive development have largely failed, leaving the area severely underdeveloped. Instead of stability and progress, the Merged Tribal Districts (MTDs) have seen a resurgence of powerful militant and terrorist groups.

The FATA was merged into KP in May 2018 through the 25th Constitutional Amendment, with broad political consensus except for opposition from Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) and Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), led by Mahmud Khan Achakzai.

The region’s instability and lack of development are evident in two major ways. First, people continue to migrate to more developed KP districts and other parts of the country in search of economic opportunities and security. Second, militant groups such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group dominate North and South Waziristan, while Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) has re-emerged in Khyber District. These groups are carrying out large-scale terrorist attacks across the MTDs. Additionally, sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni factions has led to hundreds of deaths since November 20, 2024, in Kurram district, with government efforts to control the violence proving ineffective.

Economic conditions in the MTDs remain dire, with poor infrastructure in education and healthcare. When the FATA was merged, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government announced a ten-year, Rs1000 billion Tribal Decade Strategy (TDS) to uplift the region, allocating Rs100 billion annually through the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) and the Accelerated Implementation Program (AIP). However, massive developmental challenges, bureaucratic incompetence, and a lack of political will have significantly hindered progress.

Following the merger, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) formed both the federal and provincial governments in August 2018. Prime Minister Imran Khan committed to continuing the PML-N’s ambitious development plan. However, nearly seven years later, only a fraction of the promised Rs1000 billion has been spent, with little tangible improvement, raising concerns over mismanagement and wasted resources.

Over the past two decades, terrorists and militants have wreaked havoc in the tribal districts, causing large-scale death, displacement, and destruction. However, it is misleading to claim that the conflict completely destroyed the region’s infrastructure—because, in reality, there was little to no significant infrastructure even before the war on terror. The real issue has always been the lack of development, which fueled disenchantment and resentment among the population, ultimately leading to the rise and spread of extremism and terrorism. The entire region needed to be built from scratch, but authorities have failed to do so.

The Tribal Decade Strategy (TDS) aimed to generate employment, boost economic growth, increase student enrollment, improve healthcare facilities, and attract investment in the remote and rugged tribal areas. Given the historically weak infrastructure, the strategy focused on bridging development gaps in key sectors such as human resources, socio-economic uplift, and public services. Under the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) and the Accelerated Implementation Program (AIP), federal and provincial governments launched various projects to enhance infrastructure, agricultural productivity, technical education, food security, energy access, sports facilities, water security, and flood protection. However, the overall impact of these initiatives has been minimal.

The government claims to have built over 500 kilometers of new roads, 18 new bridges, and rehabilitated more than 700 kilometers of existing roads across different tribal districts. Additionally, various projects have been launched to improve and expand educational and healthcare facilities. A major initiative, the Khyber Pass Economic Corridor (KPEC), has also been approved to link Peshawar with Torkham in Khyber district.

The KPEC, a 47.5-kilometer-long four-lane expressway, is intended to connect Pakistan with Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) via the Jalalabad-Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif routes. The project, expected to be completed by 2025, has a budget of $385.6 million from the federal government and an additional $75 million from the KP government. However, physical work on it has yet to begin, resulting in significant delays and lost opportunities.

The failure to effectively implement mainstreaming and development plans in the Merged Tribal Districts (MTDs) stems primarily from a lack of political will among key stakeholders. Additionally, the civilian bureaucracy has struggled to understand and address the developmental needs of the region’s inhabitants. Most critically, the authorities have failed to establish lasting peace and stability, largely due to broader policy challenges related to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the local population has been unable to organize a meaningful, educated movement for their rights, as groups like the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) appear more focused on their own agendas rather than genuine development efforts.