For many women in Pakistan, the decision to start a business is rarely hers alone. Whether she can set aside time for her work, step out to run it or keep control of what she earns often depends on the support of her husband, her in-laws and the wider family.
Across ten years, Kashf Foundation and Global Affairs Canada (GAC) have built their partnership around that reality, showing that women’s economic progress is far more likely to last when the household stands behind it.
Reaching more than 1.6 million people in low-income communities across 63 districts in all four provinces, the partnership has paired financial services with training, health education and sustained engagement with families.
Why the Household Matters
Access to a loan can help a woman open a business. It cannot, on its own, determine who manages the money or whether her family wants the business to grow.
Recognising this, the partnership looked beyond the individual borrower to the people whose attitudes shape her choices every day.
Maternal and reproductive health training was delivered to women and men, and extended to mothers-in-law. Gender training was offered to both men and women, while social theatre and public service campaigns on television opened conversations about the roles women and men play at home and at work.
What Changed at Home
An independent third-party impact assessment, drawing on 2,596 households across 14 districts, shows how far that engagement travelled.
Some 94.5% of surveyed clients reported a shift in household decision-making, with women more closely involved in decisions, and 83.4% said their families supported their businesses.
Attitudes among men moved as well. Through social theatre, 88% of men reported a change in their views on gender roles.
These results point to something no loan can secure by itself: a family that sees a woman’s business as worth backing.
Turning Family Support Into Income
With that support in place, financial and business training carried more weight. In all, 1.4 million women received support ranging from basic financial literacy to structured financial education and business development training.
Women who paired a microloan with financial management training increased their incomes by 17% more than clients who had not been trained, and saved 34% more.
Those who completed business acceleration training earned 26% more than women who had taken a loan alone.
Equally significant, after business acceleration training more than one-third of participants said they decided where and how to save, and 33% were running their businesses independently.
Television carried these conversations to an even wider audience, with dramas on family planning, girls’ education and cybercrime each reaching an average of more than 120 million viewers.
Voices From the Partnership
H.E. Tarik Ali Khan, High Commissioner of Canada to Pakistan, pointed to the household as the foundation of the approach.
“Kashf Foundation has always treated women’s economic empowerment as an entire household question. GAC is proud to have supported that approach and to have seen how economic opportunity, skills and changes in social norms can work together.”
Harriet Roos, Head of Cooperation at the High Commission of Canada, underlined the need for long-term commitment to the relationships and systems around women.
“Lasting change for women takes sustained partnership. The evidence from this partnership shows the value of investing not only in women’s access to finance, but also in the skills, relationships and support systems that enable them to use those opportunities.”
“Ten years ago, with the support of Global Affairs Canada, we set out to prove that when women move forward, families prosper, communities strengthen and economies grow,” said Roshaneh Zafar, Founder and Managing Director of Kashf Foundation. “We’ve seen and made the impact. Now it’s time for policymakers and businesses to take these lessons to scale.”
A Model Built Around Families
The partnership’s experience offers a clear lesson for anyone working to expand women’s economic participation in Pakistan. Finance opens the door, but it is the people closest to a woman who decide whether she can walk through it.
By investing in husbands, mothers-in-law and communities alongside women themselves, Kashf Foundation and GAC have shown that household support is not a side issue in women’s economic empowerment. It is central to it.