Project: Post COVID-19 recovery of women and youth livelihoods through agricultural enterprise development

Shirakat, with financial support from the Standard Chartered Bank and British Asian Trust and technical support from Pakistan Council of Renewable Technologies, is working with 500 vulnerable young women and men in rural and peri-urban areas of Punjab and Islamabad to grow profitable and sustainable agricultural enterprises. The project is focusing on supporting young entrepreneurs to develop and sell products in agricultural value chains with strong local potential.

The approach combines technical and business skills development, with vital links to markets and support to access or develop financial resources for future growth. Our evidence shows that skills alone are not enough to lift marginalised people out of poverty and that ensuring links to market and wider resources, particularly financial, are vital for sustainable growth.

The project is leveraging a variety of agricultural value chains with opportunities to add value through products with identified market demand in different geographies. We hope that this will generate learning to support scale up of the project across multiple geographies going forward. The value chains include:

• Dried Moringa tree leaves and fruits and vegetables in Muzaffargarh, Punjab
• Dried fruits and vegetables in Rawalpindi, Punjab and Islamabad

Women and men have been supported to develop 100 Business Interest Groups (BIGs), each group consisting of 4 women (age 18-5) and one man. MOUs with BIGs signed; raw material is being provided as are solar dryers. Drying of various agricultural products is underway.

Solar Dryers