Pakistan, July 24 -- At a time when governments around the world are struggling to convert social welfare into sustainable economic progress, Punjab province is advancing a development model that deserves international attention. Rather than treating women as recipients of charity, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif is investing in them as economic producers, entrepreneurs and agents of rural transformation. It is a policy shift that reflects a broader philosophy: societies overcome poverty not by expanding dependency, but by expanding opportunity.

That philosophy is now taking tangible shape through Punjab's flagship Free Livestock Programme, an initiative that is changing the lives of thousands of vulnerable rural women by providing th...