NGO Enhance Architecture Economic Dev. The Network brings together a number of agencies, institutions, and programmes that have been built up over the past forty years, and in some cases date back to the early twentieth century. AKDN agencies conduct their programmes without regard to the faith, origin or gender of the people they serve. Their primary focus of activity includes people in some of the poorest parts of Asia and Africa. For a discussion of the ethical basis of the AKDN, see Ismaili Imamat .
AKDN agencies operate in social and economic development as well as in the field of culture.
Its programmes include The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Historic Cities Support Programme, and the Education and Culture Programme. The Trust also provides financial support for the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. While each agency pursues its own mandate, all of them work together within the overarching framework of the Aga Khan Development Network so that their different pursuits can interact and reinforce one another. Their common goal is to help the poor achieve a level of self-reliance whereby they are able to plan their own livelihoods and help those even more needy than themselves. A central feature of the AKDN's approach to development is to design and implement strategies in which its different agencies participate in particular settings.