In Mozambique, AKF’s Entrepreneur Development Initiative takes a market development approach to facilitate micro and small enterprises in agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, including the creation of value chains in handicrafts, horticulture and sesame.

“Economic development -- increasing the production and consumption of goods and services in the economy, and expanding and improving the quality of employment opportunities for a country’s population and its disposable income is certainly critical. I take this as a given, and that is why the Aga Khan Development Network has several agencies whose objectives are the expansion of economic opportunity in selected sectors as a primary objective. However, it is not at all clear that the quality of life has a direct, one-to-one relationship with the level of production or even the breadth of access to what an economy produces. Without doubt growth plays a central role in the increasing of human welfare and the dignity of life. But other dimensions and challenges to development play at least an equally important role.”
His Highness the Aga Khan speaking at the Annual Meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Tashkent, Uzbekistan - 5 May 2003.