The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) is a private, non profit organization, established by the Aga Khan Foundation in 1982 to help improve the quality of life of the villagers of

Gilgit-Baltistan Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative units of Pakistan, administrative territory and consists of the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has b ...

and

Chitral Chitral () is a city situated on the Kunar River, Chitral River in northern area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It serves as the capital of the Lower Chitral District, and was previously the capital of Chitral District, and before ...

. It is a

Non Governmental Organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

which is part of the Rural Support Programmes Network in

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

Philosophy

AKRSP’s development approach gives primacy to the people and their abilities. It is based on the belief that

local communities A local community has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location. The word is often used to refer to a group that is organized around common values and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical l ...

have tremendous potential to plan and manage their own social development, once they are organized and provided access to necessary skills and capital. The organisations proclivity for a participatory approach found much support in Shoaib Sultan, the founding

General Manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of AKRSP.

Achievements

AKRSP’s past efforts have led to many notable achievements in social and economic domains. Key achievements include manifold increase in incomes, construction/rehabilitation of more than 4000 small infrastructure projects (bridges, roads, irrigation channels, hydropower units and other small projects). The planting of tens of millions of trees and the development of hundreds of acres of marginal lands, developing a cadre of more than 50,000 community activists, mobilization of nearly $5 million village savings, and the establishment of more than 4,993 community organisations. AKRSP supported community organisations, which have established patterns of local governance that are

participatory Citizen participation or public participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions—and ideally exert influence—regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participato ...

, democratic, transparent and accountable to their members, are now federating at the union council level to establish Local Support Organization (LSOs). Currently, there 67 LSOs across

and

that are forging direct partnerships with government departments, local development partners, donors and the private sector actors to increase the scope and outreach of services for their member communities. It has since won a number of awards, including the 2005 Global Development Awards for Most Innovative Development Project and an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2004.

References

12. Darjat, Muhammad (2023). Institutional Model Of Rural Development. Medium. https://medium.com/@darjatmd/institutional-model-of-rural-development-7f81d629286b

External links

* {{official website, http://www.akrsp.org.pk/ Aga Khan Development Network Rural development in Pakistan Rural economics

Philosophy

Achievements

See also

References

External links