PESHAWAR: Female students sent by the Local Government Elections and Rural Development Department on a fully funded master’s scholarship programme to the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, have completed their master’s programmes. The scholarships were awarded under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Cities Improvement Project (KPCIP) and funded by the Asian Development Bank under its ADF grant 13.

The students were awarded their degrees at a convocation ceremony organised by AIT in their honor. Three out 30 KPCIP scholars were awarded gold medals with distinction from AIT including Zara Khadija who received the Robert C.

Bodden Prize for being the most outstanding woman in the Faculty of Public Policy and Sustainable Development.

Similarly, Alina Dawood received the Mahesh Varma Prize in Construction, Engineering, and Infrastructure Management under the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, while Aiman Khan received the Yoshiro Takasaki Prize in Urban Innovation and Sustainability under the Faculty of Climate Change and Sustainability.

30 women complete master’s courses under ADB programme

The initiative aimed to strengthen women’s participation in technical and leadership sectors linked to urban development, municipal infrastructure, climate resilience and sustainable city planning. The programme reserved 55 fully funded scholarship opportunities for women from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, creating pathways for higher education in fields traditionally underrepresented by women.

In May 2024, KPCIP and AIT signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to operationalise this strategic academic partnership. Subsequently, in August 2024, the first cohort of 30 female scholars commenced their 22-month master’s degree programmes at AIT in Thailand.

“This initiative was in line with the vision of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Imran Khan to promote education and ensure equal opportunities for women,” said LGE&RDD Minister Meena Khan Afridi.

The students were enrolled in different disciplines including construction engineering and infrastructure management (CEIM), water engineering and management (WEM) and data science and artificial intelligence (DSAI), climate change and sustainable development (CCSD) and environmental engineering and management (EEM), development planning, management, and innovation (DPMI), urban innovation and sustainability (UIS). “These disciplines represent critical sectors for sustainable urban transformation, smart city development, environmental resilience and evidence-based governance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the minister said.

Project Director KPCIP Hameedullah Shah said that the achievement represented a historic milestone for KPCIP and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “Among all participating countries, KPCIP scholars stood distinguished as no other country recorded multiple Gold Medal recipients at AIT in the same academic year,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2026