AIIB said that the loan would be co-financed with the  Asian Development Bank (ADB) as the lead co-financier.

The Central Asian nation, which has the largest agricultural industry in the region, has in recent years lost 80,000 hectares of irrigated land.

The need to ensure women are given the tools to fulfil their potential is not just the key to a healthy society, Kozinchenko argues, but to economic success. While most Western countries, however imperfectly, offer women some chance to balance career and family life, it is an area in which emerging economies fall far behind.