India - Economic Development
To help youth gain employment, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) has set up youth skills training centres - or Yuva Junctions - where courses in computer skills, retail skills and English language are available.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
To help youth gain employment, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) has set up youth skills training …
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
Vijay Bamniya was an Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) community mobiliser and is now a village entrepreneur managing a resource centre and shop where farmers can procure bio-pesticides and fertilisers as well as seeds and equipment.
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
Vijay Bamniya was an Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) community mobiliser and is now a village …
AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
India | Economic Development
To stimulate long-term economic growth in the country, AKDN operates across the economic spectrum. Our interventions range from facilitating community-based savings groups that enable very poor remote households without access to formal financial services to smooth erratic incomes and cope with emergencies, to helping rural youth develop vocational skills and find jobs beyond agriculture, to commercial banking and corporate financial services.
3.2 million+
As of 2026, DCB Bank serves more than 3.2 million active customers through 480 branches across India.
DCB Bank, India
AKFED
Financial Services
Long-held traditions of self-help gave impetus to small community-based co-operative societies that have evolved, with AKFED’s help, into small co-operative banks. These then merged to form the Development Co-operative Bank, and eventually morphed during the 1990s into what is now known as DCB Bank.
DCB Bank is a new generation private sector bank with 480 branches across India in 2026. It is a scheduled commercial bank regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, with more than 3.2 million customers.
DCB Bank’s business segments are retail, micro-SME, SME, mid-corporate, agriculture, commodities, government, public sector, Indian banks, co-operative banks and non-banking finance companies.
The Bank’s branches are situated across Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Daman, Delhi/ NCR, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Silvassa, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
DCB works in particular with the self employed, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The MSME/SME sector plays an important role in the growth of the Indian economy, with small enterprises creating millions of jobs and maintaining social stability. The MSME sector contributes around 30 percent of India’s GDP.
AKDN / Jean-Luc Ray
Enterprise Development and Employable Skills
India has high levels of rural-urban migration and a large population of young people who are not keen to work in agriculture. In response, AKF and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) are working to develop the capacities of rural youth and match them with job opportunities.
AKRSP runs Yuva Junction, a network of skills and entrepreneurship development centres in rural areas. They provide youth with information about government schemes, agriculture markets and job opportunities. Technical and life skills training includes computing, nursing and retail.
The centres are increasingly linked with employers (including retail chains, call centres and construction companies) and have placed thousands of youth in new jobs.
Women’s Economic Empowerment
AKF enhances the self-reliance and empowerment of women and girls and women’s collectives through employment and life skills training, as well as microenterprise support and access to finance. In urban areas of Patna (Bihar) and Hyderabad (Telangana) as well as in rural Uttar Pradesh, AKF has been helping adolescent girls, who have dropped out of school, access vocational skills training such as sewing and embroidery.
Building Economic Participation
AKF enables women’s and youth collectives, including tribal and marginalised groups, to access government economic support schemes through awareness-raising, documentation assistance and system navigation.