-
Cabo Delgado, the northernmost province in Mozambique, has the highest poverty rate in the country. In rural areas, 95 percent of the households are involved in agricultural production. The Aga Khan Foundation works to catalyse improvements in food security and livelihoods for these rural populations through production-related inputs in agriculture, livestock and handicrafts and through market integration of producers for selected value chains.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
-
In Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, a group of women during electrician training. The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme supports activities like these that promote entrepreneurship amongst women.
AKDN / Danial Shah
-
In Madagascar, school-age girls from rural families meet regularly to manage a community-based savings group that they formed with the support of the Aga Khan Foundation.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
-
In Roshtqala, Tajikistan, the Aga Khan Foundation supports a programme that links "Pamiri Yarn" – a cashgora-producing women's group – to buyers in the USA. The business benefits Tajik and American artisans, as well as cashgora goat producers in the Pamirs.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
-
One of the many pumps AKDN has helped install in northern Côte d'Ivoire providing clean and fresh water to over 25,000 people. Water management committees are established for each pump to ensure they are well maintained and can be used for years to come.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
-
Women make up 50 percent of the University of Central Asia's undergraduate student body at its campuses in Naryn, Kyrgyzstan and Khorog, Tajikistan.
UCA
-
The Aga Khan Foundation’s Reading for Children programme encourages families to tell stories, look at books and read with children at home. It helps establish “mini-libraries” like this one in Coast Province, Kenya, where a librarian is assisting a mother in selecting and checking out simple, illustrated storybooks to read with her children.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
-
In India, women are key drivers of change in their communities and are helping to spread messages on the importance of safe sanitation and hygiene practices.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
-
Since 2017, the Aga Khan Foundation has worked with cacao collector Mrs Safiata Fernand (left) on upgrading the quality of her cacao beans so that she can sell them at a higher price and help improve her family’s revenue. With the increased revenue from her cacao bean sales, she has sent her two daughters to University, which is an exceptional accomplishment in her village.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
-
In northern Pakistan, over 60 Aga Khan health centres provide 750,000 people with quality care and diagnostics. They operate on a “hub-and-spokes” model that consolidates facilities and services into larger centres. Through teleconsultation, smaller sites consult with and refer serious cases to the bigger centres, to ensure top-level expertise and technologies without long travel or time lost.
AKDN / Kamran Beyg
-
In Uganda, Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) student, Faith Kaddu, demonstrating income-generating activities to community members in Kamwokya.
AKDN / Gary Otte
-
The Aga Khan Health Care Centre in Mwanza is one of several primary health service facilities operated by the Aga Khan Health Services in Tanzania. The centre provides a range of services including outpatient care and free maternal and child health services in collaboration with the Government.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
-
In Pakistan, Women Social Enterprise, now renamed CIQAM, trains young women, mainly from poor and marginalised families, in a variety of non-traditional technical skills including masonry and carpentry, providing much-needed services to a number of local and national businesses. The programme engages these trainees in heritage development project activities of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. By transforming their skills into formal business, CIQAM supports young women to overcome social restrictions, gain economic empowerment and provide an income for their families
AKDN / Kamran Beyg
-
In the Kyrgyz Republic, since 2006 the Aga Khan Foundation has worked to strengthen opportunities for women to operate small enterprises.
AKDN
-
In Mehrgon, Tajikistan, female entrepreneurs stand in front of their greenhouse business that was established with the support of the Aga Khan Foundation, through the ESCOMIAD programme with funding from USAID.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
-
A dai (lady health worker) in Chipurson Valley, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan is carrying out a routine check-up with a pregnant woman from a nearby village. The Aga Khan Health Services is training women in remote areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, to ensure safer deliveries where no health facilities are available.
AKDN / Kamran Beyg
-
Over the years, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme has helped tens of thousands of farmers in the Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, by introducing good quality seeds and facilitating the production of local fertilizers that are less expensive and raise crop yields.
AKDN / Kamran Beyg
Related Information
Related Links
15 October 2019 - Investing in agriculture is a way to break the cycle of poverty for some of the world’s poorest women, many of whom rely on farming for their livelihoods. The creation of economic opportunities allows women to educate their children, provide their families with nutritious food, save money and transform their lives and the lives of their communities. The first AKF Rural Support Programme, which was established in northern Pakistan in 1983, has since been replicated in many other contexts. AKF’s rural development interventions now reach over 8 million people living in remote and often marginalised areas in Central and South Asia and East and West Africa. To help celebrate International Day of Rural Women 2019, we have pulled together here a small collection of images to showcase some of these women and their successes.