BISP, Akhuwat unite to generate livelihood for women in rural Sindh

A welfare initiative combining public, private and non-profit sectors is set to be scaled up in Sindh after transforming the lives of 3,000 rural women mainly in Punjab.

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), the non-profit Akhuwat Foundation and the Rural Deep Reach Initiative of Nestlé Pakistan joined hands some six years back to support the BISP beneficiaries in the selected districts in three provinces of the country.

The selected BISP beneficiaries were given financial and material support and training to help them set up small retail shops in their native villages.

The programme to support the BISP beneficiaries to attain economic self-reliance in the retail and sales sectors has so far been launched in 26 districts of Punjab, and two districts each of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh.

A key component of the initiative is Akhwat using its interest-free microfinancing loan system to financially support the selected BISP beneficiaries. A revolving fund with Rs2 million seed money was established for the purpose in 2018.

The main success story of this initiative is that over 90 per cent of selected BISP beneficiaries after obtaining the interest-free loans have been paying them back in very easy instalments without any default much like other microfinancing initiatives of Akhuwat.

“In Sindh, we have so far helped the underprivileged rural women in Larkana and Sukkur districts and in the next stage, our focus would be to expand this initiative in the province especially to cover BISP beneficiaries in the rural belt of Hyderabad district,” said Dr Adnan Mushtaq, project manager of Nestle Rural Deep Reach project.

He explained that in the next stage, the Rural Deep Reach Initiative would be launched in Balochistan where poverty alleviation initiatives needed to be implemented at an accelerated pace given the severe lack of development in the province.

Dr Mushtaq said that combining the efforts of the largest poverty alleviation drive of the federal government, the non-profit Akhuwat, and community uplift resolve of the private sector provided the much-needed missing component of the BISP, which was helping its beneficiaries attain economic self-reliance.

The BISP was often criticised for providing too little financial support to the poorest of poor sections of society which was insufficient to meet their regular essential needs, he said, adding that the main purpose of this initiative is to help the BISP beneficiaries economically sustain themselves by allowing them to launch viable small retail businesses.

He said the small retail shops set up by the selected rural women had enabled them to earn several thousands of rupees every month as profit from their business in addition to their BISP stipend.

“In 2017, when this initiative was launched, the number of beneficiary rural women was merely 51 whose numbers have grown to 3,000 this year as we have now the resolve to benefit more BISP beneficiaries mainly in Sindh,” he said.

He stated that the selected rural women involved in retail business had been generating yearly sales of everyday-use grocery items having a combined value of up to Rs169 million.

Another component of this initiative is an awareness drive in the selected villages involving qualified doctors and nutritionists to educate rural women about good hygiene practices and nutritional requirements of their children. Up to 400 rural women in a village were covered in each round of such a drive, said Dr Mushtaq.

“It is part of our creating shared value efforts where we as an organisation want to be a force for good,” said Rahat Hussain, a spokesman for Nestlé Pakistan.

"We are proud to be a helping hand to boost up the flagship poverty alleviation drive of the Pakistani government in order to remarkably improve the lives of underprivileged rural women," said Hussain.