A programme of eradication of poverty through entrepreneurship has been launched in the country.
The project has been initiated by the Bank Alfalah in collaboration with the Acumen Fund.
This was stated by founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Acumen, Jacqueline Novogratz and CEO of Bank Alfalah, Atif Bajwai, on Monday.
They said that Bank Alfalah and Acumen have partnered to launch the programme based on a USD 40,000 grant as part of the Bank’s CSR programme.
With a view to impacting sustainable development, this may become a multi-year programme based on impact assessment at the end of the first year of the project, it was further stated.
As part of this programme, Bank Alfalah will be providing multi-pronged support to Acumen’s investee companies with the aim of positively impacting poverty alleviation.
They further stated that Bank Alfalah’s leadership team will be providing real time technical volunteer support in their respective areas of expertise by conducting a needs-gap analysis for Acumen’s investee companies to address key business challenges.
The investee companies selected for this project include Pharmegen, a company which provides access to safe drinking water in urban areas; MicroDrip, a company that distributes low-cost drip irrigation technology to small-holder farmers and SRE Solutions which installs off-grid solar energy systems in rural communities.
It was further pointed out that some of the potential areas of intervention in supporting these growing social enterprises include sales, marketing, technology, finance, customer relationship management and human resource management.
As these social enterprises expand, the selected investee companies will be able to increase their impact on poverty alleviation by providing essential goods and services for low-income communities.
The programme will conclude with a joint conference to share results, success stories and lessons from the collaboration.
Founder and CEO of Acumen, Jacqueline Novogratz, said “We are excited to partner with Bank Alfalah to support some of the most promising social enterprises in the region. The collaboration is an opportunity for shared learning around what is needed to build local business that serve low income customers and we are hopeful this work will translate into substantial impact for communities across Pakistan”.
Atif Bajwa said “Bank Alfalah through its ‘Beyond Philanthropy’ approach has continuously attempted to strike a balance between its business objectives and its responsibility towards the communities where we live and operate.
Given Acumen’s demonstrated expertise in the fields of entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation, we are confident that this programme will help us play a small part in creating an ecosystem which seeks to address chronic socio-economic issues in the country”.
