Thriving Futures
Why this is important
Pakistan is currently experiencing one of the worst economic crises of its history, disproportionately affecting low-income households and their ability to survive. A challenging economic landscape and rising prices are declining household incomes and increasing poverty rates.
Both Punjab and Sindh provinces have high rates of multidimensional poverty, 30% in Punjab and 45% in Sindh. Pakistan has one of the highest proportions of young people in the world, where youth make up 39% of its labour force. Each year, around four million youth reach working age, and yet only one million jobs are added per year, severely limiting opportunities for the remaining youth to secure a livelihood.
Gender inequality in the labour market remains persistent, with only 24% of women of actively employed and only 1% engaged in entrepreneurship compared to 21% of men. Access to education, employment, skills-based training, technology, and finance are not easily accessed by women from low-income communities.
Similarly, the disabled community in Pakistan face significant attitudinal and physical barriers, including prejudice, labelling, lack of family support, lack of financial independence and inaccessible services, restricting their opportunities, choices, and inclusion in all aspects of life.
Global evidence, including the British Asian Trust's programmes, have shown that enterprise development can provide an effective and sustainable route out of poverty for women. Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are central to inclusive and sustainable economic growth in Pakistan, but significant barriers exist for women and youth from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds to access the skills and resources required to established and grow an enterprise. In addition, women entrepreneurs earn a livelihood and can create job opportunities for other women, motivating them to change their living standards (OECD, 2004).
Donor: Standard Chartered Foundation
Project Partners: Shirakat-Partnership for Development, Kaarvan Crafts Foundation
Duration: January 2025 - December 2027 (3 years)
Project goals
The results of the British Asian Trust and Standard Chartered Foundation’s Agripreneurs project (Phase I and II) demonstrated the potential microenterprise has for providing women and youth with a significant and sustainable income.
Building on the learnings from this partnership, the goal of this project is to promote the growth and sustainability of 900 microenterprise groups (90% women) and, in doing so, create a stronger, more inclusive microenterprise ecosystem in Sindh and Punjab.
This project aims to address the high levels of poverty, inequality and deprivation that disproportionately affect women, youth and persons with disabilities in Pakistan. These will be addressed through intensive business growth training and support them to create business plans that are sustainable. In addition, we aim to build inclusive programme and capacity-building implementing partners to successfully reach and train persons with disabilities, by engaging with the Standard Chartered Foundation’s strategic partner Sightsavers.
Trainings provided will be gender-sensitised, focusing on high demand and potential sectors and include networking opportunities and exposure visits to establish market linkages. Access to finance will be improved by providing means and guidance to obtaining external finance and financial advice. Moreover, promoting collaboration among the women through enterprise groups and providing broader training and mentoring support through these groups will grow their confidence, encourage leadership and build resilience.
The project and its activities have sustainability embedded at its core to ensure young microbusinesses can develop a long-term vision for their enterprises. Sector strengthening and stakeholder engagement through promoting collaboration, sharing best practice and a comprehensive knowledge and learning agenda is a key part of our sustainability approach.
What we are doing
The British Asian Trust has been collaborating with partners across civil society, academia, the private sector, and government to improve the livelihood resilience of women in South Asia. We have been driving scalable solutions by delivering programmes and creating a robust evidence base in Pakistan over the past 10 years and we have collected data from over 9,000 participants which is enabling us to focus our efforts to the needs of the population we serve. We have developed a wealth of learning which, alongside global evidence, has shown that skills alone are not sufficient to graduate vulnerable and marginalised women out of poverty.
As well as generating income growth and creating decent jobs, we hope to support microenterprises help build a diverse and thriving microenterprise ecosystem in target communities. This fits in with our overall organisational goal to ensure women and young people in Pakistan enjoy safe, sustainable, and resilient livelihoods.
Our livelihoods approach in Pakistan focuses on addressing the real and systemic barriers that limit youth and women’s access to skills, markets, networks, and services. Our expertise lies in the learnings gathered and analysed throughout our programmes, including through beneficiary feedback mechanisms, local stakeholder engagement activities, as well as external evaluations on completion. This has meant that this project has been designed because we have evidenced the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of our approach.
Key outcomes of the project include:
- Achieving a sustained increase in monthly revenue of at least PKR 20,000 (USD 72) or 25% from baseline, whichever is higher
- Mobilising additional financing from external sources to the value of PKR 50,000 (USD 179)
- Creating and sustaining 3,660 jobs (2,160 jobs sustained* and 1,500 jobs created)
*Of the jobs sustained, the figure is calculated based on 720 microbusiness owners and a conservative estimate they will be employing 2 additional people.