Roshaneh Zafar
Pakistan
In Zafar's native Pakistan, it can be hard for women to get loans to start their own businesses or support their families, especially if they are head of the household. Zafar set out to remove such gender-based obstacles and founded the Kashf Foundation, the country's first specialized microfinance institute, in 1996. To date, it has distributed $225 million in loans to over one million low-income families.
