Impact Makers: Maha Sheikh

NAME

Maha Sheikh

TITLE

Founder & Project Lead, Agri-belts

LOCATION

Karachi, Pakistan

ABOUT

Maha Sheikh is a designer, researcher and licensed architect from Karachi, Pakistan. She received the Kausar Bashir Ahmed Award, the highest distinction across all architectural schools in Pakistan for 2023-2024, in recognition of her work on socially sustainable architecture for neglected coastal communities.

Alongside her architectural practice, she has developed case studies for farming communities across vulnerable South Asian regions, driven by the escalating impacts of climate crises in Pakistan. This work led to a multi-year grant from Youth4Climate (Y4C), a global initiative co-led by the Government of Italy and UNDP, awarded in Rome in 2023. She was later invited to present at the ‘Summit of the Future’ during Climate Week in New York in 2024, addressing global leaders and climate advocates.

Most recently, she worked with Ahya Technologies, a leading climate-tech startup in the Middle East, contributing to a sustainability innovation ecosystem report for Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination ahead of COP30.

MOTIVATIONS

“Agri-Belts emerged after the catastrophic floods in Pakistan in August 2022, which submerged one-third of the country, displaced 33 million people and destroyed 2.8 million hectares of cropland. Headlines cast water as an adversary, with rehabilitation efforts and philanthropic initiatives centred on keeping it at bay and channelling monsoon runoff rather than working with its natural course. In response, I, in collaboration with an NGO, mobilized communities in Thatta, Sindh, to pilot a floating raft system that allows continuous farming even when land-based agriculture becomes impossible.

This devastation, along with years of witnessing fractured systems designed to contain water, compelled me to focus on supporting vulnerable riverbed communities in rural Sindh. My undergraduate thesis, An Abode of Safety for the Maalha and Maathi Riverbed Communities, proposed a community-led approach to rethinking disaster management for farmers, peasants and fishermen.”

IMPACT

• Mobilized local communities to adopt climate-smart agricultural techniques for waterlogged land and helped formalize Indigenous knowledge into disaster-management practices.

• Trained 35 farmers, with families from nearby villages attending demonstrations and contributing to a shared co-learning environment.

• Created a space to discuss local materials, refine Indigenous craft and skills, and introduce an alternative year-round livelihood for farming.

• Used agricultural by-products such as rice husk to form soil beds, recycling materials that would otherwise go to waste.

• Piloted soil-less agriculture techniques for floating farms using water hyacinth, despite initial resistance, the first initiative of its kind in Pakistan.

• Conducted research on bamboo as an Indigenous material, documenting harvesting methods, challenges, and soil experiments for use by farmers, architects and rural development initiatives.

• Integrated existing and new resources, capacities and collaborations to develop a proposal for Sindh’s wetlands.

• Combined digitized resources with active field engagement grounded in ethnography, cartographic analysis, design justice and capacity development.

• Established a platform for introducing new ideas and enabling farmers to test innovative practices suited to local conditions.

CHALLENGES

From 2023 to 2025, Maha encountered multiple challenges linked to extreme weather conditions in Pakistan. Communities were still recovering from the 2022 floods, and water remained stagnant for more than eight months, which meant residents prioritized rescue and rehabilitation over adopting new farming methods. Water-based farming was unfamiliar, creating hesitance to invest time and resources that could be directed towards traditional fields. Women were also reluctant to participate in raft-building unless tasks were clearly segregated.

Geopolitical tensions, including the Cholistan Canal Project and ongoing water disputes between India and Pakistan, led to farmer protests and sit-ins that delayed the project and restricted access to the site. Flooding and heatwaves intensified, with delayed monsoon rains and extreme temperatures drying the pilot water ponds during the growing season, disrupting planting cycles and schedules.

Maha also faced resistance when asserting her leadership as a young entrepreneur. As one of the youngest participants in many spaces, and often the only woman, she found herself continually needing to demonstrate her credibility and capability, navigating environments where leadership was frequently associated with age, seniority and established titles.

GOALS

“Pakistan sits on the front line of climate impacts, yet the systems needed to scale transformative ideas remain underdeveloped. The division of geopolitical borders has weakened communal interaction and limited opportunities for regional knowledge sharing. My goal is to develop open-resource data for coastal communities and create an active digital space where researchers, activists and climate experts can engage collectively.

I aim to work with government bodies to formalize climate adaptation strategies, integrate agricultural belts into national disaster-management frameworks, and advance a proposal for Sindh’s wetlands. I am also strengthening my competencies in business management, sustainable development and entrepreneurial innovation so I can expand this initiative globally while bringing Pakistan’s discussions and emerging solutions to the forefront.”

CONTACT

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