Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship Programme alumni during a visit to Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Photo: AKDN
AFGHANISTAN | Cultural Development Overview
AKDN’s cultural development activities aim to conserve and restore Afghanistan’s cultural heritage. They stimulate local economic development and improve the quality of life for people living in surrounding neighbourhoods.
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KABUL
In 2002, we began the rehabilitation of Bagh-e Babur. This is a walled and terraced garden containing the tomb of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire. Improvements include restoring walls and the Queen’s Palace, re-laying water channels, reconstructing a caravanserai to provide space for a visitor’s centre, shops and offices, and replanting trees favoured by the Mughals. A range of community upgrading activities has also been carried out. This has improved the water and sanitation facilities for 10,000 inhabitants of the surrounding residential area, which has been the focus of joint area-planning initiatives with Kabul Municipality.
Primary School in Mukuru, Kenya.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
AKDN has restored an imposing 19th-century mausoleum in central Kabul over the grave of Timur Shah, the king who made Kabul the Afghan capital in place of Kandahar. The surrounding open space has been reclaimed and landscaped to create a green park in the heart of the city.
Since 2003, AKTC has been conserving key historic buildings, including houses, mosques, shrines and public facilities, in the war-damaged quarters of the old city of Kabul. Upgrading works have also improved living conditions for some 15,000 residents of the old city in the neighbourhoods of Asheqan wa Arefan, Chindawol and Kuche Kharabat.
As of 2021, we had:
- rehabilitated five public open spaces (including the ongoing Kabul River Front Transformation and the Bala Hissar citadel projects);
- paved more than 22,000m² of pedestrian alleyways, walkways and streets;
- improved 134 houses through grants and technical advice;
- trained more than 6,000 youth in carpentry, wood carving, masonry, traditional plastering, tailoring, embroidery, carpet and kilim weaving, rubab making, electricity, tinsmith, horticulture and literacy; and generated more than 915,000 workdays for skilled and unskilled labour.