HYDERABAD: Dr Muhammad Suleman G. Abro, founder and chief executive of SAFCO, has been named first runner-up in the leadership category of UN Women’s first national Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Awards in Pakistan. He is the only individual from a Sindh-based microfinance lender on the list of 17 honourees.
The leadership award went to Angel Imdad of Irverde Gogreen Pvt Ltd, with Abro in second place and Zunaira Omar Saqib of The Square Peg third, according to the list of recipients published after the ceremony at Karachi’s Mohatta Palace Museum on November 3.
UN Women Pakistan organised the awards with Derien and Soorty, choosing 17 winners and runners-up in seven categories from 52 applications. Applicants ranged from large companies to small and medium enterprises. The Women’s Empowerment Principles were developed by UN Women and the UN Global Compact as a framework for companies to advance gender equality in the workplace, the marketplace and the community.
SAFCO Managing Director Syed Sajjad Ali Shah told staff at a reception at the Hyderabad head office that UN Women called for applications in March. SAFCO submitted a case study covering its policies, a gender action plan, leadership training for female staff, women-only branches and its Women Incubation Centre.
UN Women then asked for more documents and evidence, Shah said, and in October a five-member jury interviewed Abro in depth about his leadership. He described the result as recognition of Abro’s personal vision and the organisation’s collective work.
Sindh Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, the chief guest, presented the award, SAFCO said. At the ceremony, UN Women Pakistan Country Representative Jamshed M Kazi said business success should be measured by the lives companies transform as well as by what they produce.
SAFCO grew out of a development organisation founded in 1986, and its microfinance arm is a non-deposit-taking lender regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. In August, the company said it had about 165,420 active borrowers, roughly 72 percent of them women, or more than 119,000 female clients. That month it received the WOMANi Championship Award for Financial Inclusion 2026 in Kuala Lumpur.
The company opened its first women-only branch in Qasimabad, Hyderabad, in September 2023, staffed entirely by women from branch manager to field officer, and promised a Women Incubation Centre to train home-based women entrepreneurs. A 2024 case study for Dutch development bank FMO, which invested $5 million in SAFCO with half earmarked for on-lending to women, says the centre now runs training in market linkages, livestock management and financial literacy.
SAFCO is also a signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles, according to the WEPs online register.
Microfinance and banking dominated this year’s honours. Pakistan Microfinance Investment Company won the Gender-Responsive Marketplace category, with Walee Financial Services and Lahore’s Bank of Punjab as runners-up. Mobilink Bank won Community Engagement and Partnerships, and HBL took the Technology and AI for Gender Equality award. Fatima Fertilizer was named the most gender-inclusive workplace.
Pakistani lenders have done well at these awards before. At UN Women’s first Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards in 2020, Lahore-based Kashf Foundation was regional first runner-up for a programme helping women micro-entrepreneurs rebuild their businesses after the pandemic. This year’s national category winners will be considered for the 2026 Asia-Pacific awards, to be broadcast on December 1, subject to eligibility.
Competition for women borrowers is growing as larger players restructure, with Khushhali Microfinance Bank winning a turnaround award as parent UBL readies a Rs22bn capital injection.
Pakistan’s own statistics show how far the country has to go. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ Labour Force Survey 2024-25 put female labour force participation at 24.4 percent under the older definition and 22.7 percent under current international labour standards, compared with nearly 70 percent for men. Gallup Pakistan’s analysis of the survey found that women’s work remains shaped by domestic responsibilities, restricted mobility, safety concerns and social norms.
Access to credit is only part of the answer. Randomised studies of microcredit elsewhere in South Asia, including a well-known evaluation in Hyderabad, India, found mixed effects on business activity and little or no measurable effect on women’s empowerment, and development economists have urged lenders to pair loans with training, savings and market access. SAFCO says its incubation centre and leadership programmes are designed to do that. The jury’s verdict suggests UN Women found that case persuasive, though it did not publish its scoring.
Women in rural Sindh are finding other routes to market, as shown when rural Sindh women artisans drew crowds at the Sartyoon Sang exhibition in Karachi, and in Punjab, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has said protecting rural women is her government’s red line.
Abro dedicated the award to working and underprivileged women. He said many women in rural areas and informal settlements still lacked education, healthcare and basic services but kept striving for better lives.
The award, he told the reception, was not the achievement of one individual but the result of four decades of collective struggle and teamwork. He added that SAFCO’s work on women’s rights, human rights, education, health and economic independence had extended to several other South Asian countries. Leadership, he said, meant creating opportunities for others and preparing a new generation of leaders, not personal advancement.
Speakers including Bashir Ahmed Abro, Jai Prakash, Harish Kumar, Arsala Anjum, Falak Ali and Maliha Khaskheli praised SAFCO’s work on women’s financial independence, leadership and participation in business. Staff presented Abro with Sindhi ajraks, lungis and bouquets before he cut a cake.
The reception came weeks after SAFCO sent a driver and a field officer on its first staff Umrah, part of what the organisation describes as a wider push on employee welfare.
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