Akhuwat

South Asia has one of the largest concentrations of the poor in the world. Nearly a billion people in about 180 million households live in abject poverty. Pakistan is no exception; about 30 % of the population lives below the poverty line of PKR 670 per capita per month.
Goals

  • Improving access of the poor to financial services;
  • Improving the quality of life of the poor;
  • Developing a microfinance institution (MFI) which is in consonance with local needs and which can be replicated elsewhere.

Objectives

  • Organizing people (women in particular) into socially viable community groups called self-help groups (SHGs);
  • Training the organized groups to make them self-reliant;
  • Providing microfinance services to the poor organized through SHGs;
  • Creating avenues for self-employment and broadening the scope of opportunities available to the poor;
  • Linking SHGs with other stakeholders, organizations, and agencies committed to the uplift of the poor;
  • Providing microcredit services to those unable to organize themselves into SHGs.

Programmes
To achieve its vision, Akhuwat is running two types of programmes, a microfinance programme to increase the income levels of the poor, and a social development programme to improve the quality of life of the poor.

  • Microfinance
    • Group-based loans
    • Individual lending
    • Rural credit programme
  • Education
  • Health
  • Legal aid

Currently, Akhuwat’s major focus is on the microfinance programme.