KKH: Please give us some information about AKRSP? When and why it was formed and what are its main objectives?

IH: AKRSP was a new experiment in the long history of His Highness’s attention to this area. Many experts have commented on AKRSP’s innovative design and its approach, but let me give you a personal account, because it doesn’t stop fascinating me even after 17 years of my association with it. Before AKRSP, the Imamat Institutions working in this area were voluntary Boards, delivering basic and useful services. In creating AKRSP, His Highness foresaw a paradigm shift. The traditional systems which created and managed public goods were in decline, the government systems were distant and inadequate, and the isolation of the area was coming to an end with the construction of the KKH. His Highness combined a number of innovations in the newly created AKRSP. First, it was meant to be a professional set up, led by world class experts as management and Board of Directors selected on merit; second, it was registered under the Companies Act, not under the Social Welfare Law, which was a common practice at that time for AK institutions. An amazing decision and one that provided room for innovation and ensured highest management and governance standards. Fourth, it was meant to be an inclusive organization working with all the communities in the Northern Areas and Chitral. Fifth, His Highness gave AKRSP a very specific and clear mandate: a) double the per capita income, b) develop a replicable model and, c) create sustainable local institutional mechanisms.

His Highness then gave the first General Manager of AKRSP full authority, flexible and generous resources, including a helicopter, and the assurance of his long-term support.

So, in my personal view, the success of AKRSP was built into its design, or one can say it was predetermined! Part of this visionary thinking was to look around the world for best ideas and practices. His Highness finally selected Shoaib Sultan Khan (SSK), a disciple of Dr. Akhtar Hamid Khan, the great Pakistani philosopher and practitioner of participatory development, who had given up his prestigious job as an Indian Civil Service officer to become a locksmith, and after independence had initiated a people-centred rural development programme in Comila, the then East Pakistan.

SSK was the right person for the right job at the right time and for the right place. He set out to do something that was never tried before in our area: building people’s capacity and confidence for their own development. He saw people’s potential, challenged their will and revived their resilience, at a time when traditional values of cooperation were threatened by outside influences. SSK had a simple but a very powerful message: a) Organize (social capital), Save (financial capital) and, c) acquire new skills (human capital). It was the most exciting time of my life as I accompanied him to record his dialogues with the communities in the breadth and width of Northern Areas and Chitral. We would start early in the morning and make 7-8 landings on a typical day in the helicopter. In every village that we went, his message and mannerism were the same; removing the chairs that people would bring for him and sitting on the ground, refusing to touch roasted lamb and chicken, and going around to greet and hug everyone around, he would began his Dialogue, explaining that he was not there to solve their problems but if they are willing to change their conditions, he had the most tested and valid idea for them. Sometimes, he would just walk away if there was not enough agreement, promising to return once they had made up their minds. I have learned many things from my teacher and mentor, Shoaib Sultan Khan, but the most important realization that had dawn on me early in my professional life, which I have already alluded to, was the power of belief. SSK was not just doing an outstanding job; he was actually sharing a deeply held belief and conviction about human potential and possibility!

The history and achievements of AKRSP are well known to readers. Let me take this opportunity to share my thoughts on what should be the next evolution of AKRSP idea. As we complete our 25 years, we are challenging ourselves to come up with a vision for the next 10 or more years.

In recent guidance, His Highness has articulated a clear vision for AKDN institutions working in this area. The key elements of this vision are that the population of this area should attain a higher quality of life, as defined and aspired by the people themselves. Improvements in the quality of life should begin in the early stages of human life; therefore, early childhood development (ECD) should be a priority in putting the development and advancement of this area in a higher and sustainable trajectory. The security of life must be another key consideration. This means preparedness and response capacity for natural disasters, but also other risk reduction and mitigation strategies, such as food and energy security, and adaptation to climate change effects.

Conditions of poverty, marginalization and deprivation must be understood in a broader, multifaceted framework, inclusive of material, spiritual and cognitive development needs. Development support systems must be holistic and context specific and they should be built on local capacities, opportunities and aspirations. AKDN units must work back from a common purpose and they should work closely with each other and with local partners, particularly civil society institutions, and state and private sector actors. His Highness is particularly interested in AKDN following a holistic Area Development approach in the Northern Areas and Chitral.

Responding to this challenge, we have proposed a number of new initiatives. The first and foremost is to strengthen the civil society sector in our programme area, which is the core business of AKRSP. Civil society is a broad theme but for our purpose, it includes the Village and Women’s Organizations (V/WOs) and other off shoots of this grassroots organizational effort, including producers’ and trade associations, professional organizations, area development forums, etc. As a practical strategy to strengthen this sector, we have developed detailed plans to formalize and professionalize this sector. One key manifestation of this strategy is to create and foster a second generation of civil society organizations, or Local Support Organizations (LSOs), rooted and accountable to V/WOs. The idea behind LSOs is manifold. Firstly, there is a need to aggregate demand for development services, so that the supply functions can be streamlined and made more cost effective. The cost effectiveness comes from the economies of scale. If the LSOs are properly trained and equipped to receive the services from a multitude of providers, may it be government agencies, private companies or NGOs, and mass market it to households and communities, we would be able to create a ‘market-place’ for development services, thus removing many inefficiencies in the current system.

LSOs are more than service contractors. As they represent organized communities, they bring enormous clout to influence public policy, engage in collective bargaining with bulk buyers of agricultural commodities, undertake partnership projects with development support agencies, and can play a key role in creating public awareness and education about key development choices.
For AKRSP, this approach not only represents a continuation of its previous work to create local institutional capacities for self development, but an opportunity to consolidate and sustain its legacy of participatory development. An interesting aspect of LSO approach is that they are hybrid organizations, taking half of their traits and values from the voluntary spirit of broad-based V/WOs and half from the professional ethics of AKRSP. They can also be described as neo-indigenous organizations as they represent a renewal of traditional systems of cooperative management and collective action.

For the next 5-7 years AKRSP’s main focus will remain on building formal systems of management and governance and professional and technical capacities of LSOs. This will be done through formal trainings and exposure but most importantly through delegation of tasks and responsibilities. Already, many of the mature functions of AKRSP have been successfully taken over by LSOs, including social mobilization, savings, linkages, project identification and implementation of a host of projects, including small infrastructure, agriculture and awareness creation.

In the coming years, AKRSP will reduce itself and create room for LSOs to grow. A smaller AKRSP will then be able to focus on innovations and new ideas. Already some of these ideas are being piloted, including carbon trading, value chain development in promising sectors of the economy, knowledge management.

AKRSP will also work closely with the local government and the private sector players in improving public policy, attracting investment capital and in developing the strategic resource of the area, such as hydropower, tourism, minerals, etc.

I thank you for allowing me to express this new perspective of AKRSP as it is very important to communicate what we are doing. We at AKRSP realize and value the public expectations from AKRSP. But there is feeling out there that AKRSP is reducing its role. I would like to say that AKRSP’s budget in 2008 was PKR 400 million, that means that our capacity to deliver has not diminished but the nature of our work is changing in which we may have fewer staff and vehicles but we are channelling the bulk of our resources through LSOs. In the coming years, this shift will be more visible and clear in which AKRSP will be engaged in the “software” of development while leaving the “hardware” part to LSO.