'Valleys in Transition' with Experience in Northern Pakistan Launched
'Pakistan Times' National News Desk

ISLAMABAD: The launch ceremony of a book ‘Valleys in Transition: Twenty Years of AKRSP’s Experience in Northern Pakistan’ was held in Islamabad on Monday.

The ceremony was hosted by the Aga Khan Foundation in collaboration with the Department for International Development (DFID), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Oxford University Press (OUP).

The book pays tribute to the two decades of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP)’s development services in the remote valleys of Northern Areas and Chitral.

Published by the Oxford University Press, the publication is a collection of reflective studies that critique the impact of AKRSP on the lives of communities of Northern Pakistan.

Authored by a group of international scholars, academicians and development practitioners the book symbolizes a milestone in the history of rural development by capturing synthesis of the profound changes brought about in the lives of the people of Northern Pakistan.

Addressing a group of academicians, donors and representatives of development community who attended the ceremony, the key note speaker, Geof Wood, the Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Bath appreciated the book’s unique contribution to the international development discourse.

He said that the book has rarity value as few development programmes across the world have been so open and transparent to critique and paradigm challenge as AKRSP. According to Prof. Wood the book offers a ‘model for creative development worldwide’.

The book owes its origins to an international conference, which was held in Islamabad in December 2003. AKRSP had commissioned a series of analytical studies, which were presented and discussed in the conference by several international scholars and academics.

The book brings together those studies into a series of critical analyses of selected successes and shortcomings of the AKRSP experience.

By doing so, it captures the intricate nuances of the AKRSP model of rural development which is now well-established in the form of the Rural Support Programmes movement all over Pakistan and beyond.

Until today, AKRSP remains an integral part and a proactive participant in this dynamic environment in NAC. After devoting two decades to providing missing basic services in a subsistence-oriented agrarian economy, AKRSP is now shifting its focus to creating a ‘market-place’ for development services.

It has done this by aggregating demand through creating capacities at the community level, and streamlining and adding value to services available from the public and private sector providers.

The managing director of the Oxford University Press, Ms Ameena Saiyid was also present at the occasion along with other notable representatives of academic and higher education community.

The book is expected to provide a key resource for students, scholars, academic researchers, practitioners of rural development as well as for international donor agencies and governments.

According to Prof Wood, it ‘represents a case study – that is a model for other development practitioners and thinkers when trying to put policy, strategy and people’s aspirations and dreams together’.●