This year the Rural Support Programmes (RSPs), which are working with 32 million people across the country by organising communities and supporting them in development activities that the people themselves identify and undertake, are celebrating their 30th anniversary. “We feel that 30 years of our movement is an important milestone,” says Shandana Humayoun Khan, currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Support Programmes Network (RSPN), which was registered in 2001 as a non-profit company. The RSPN acts as a strategic think tank and a networking mechanism for all the RSPs in Pakistan.
Today there are several RSPs in Pakistan like the Sarhad Rural Support Programme, Balochistan Rural Support Programme, Punjab Rural Support Programme, Sindh Rural Support Programme, National Rural Support Programme, etc. However, the first-ever RSP is the famous Aga Khan Rural Support Programme that was set up 30 years ago in 1983 by Shoaib Sultan Khan. Shoaib Sultan Khan recalls that back in the early 1980s, “I was most pleasantly surprised when on Dr Akhter Hameed Khan’s recommendation, Aga Khan Foundation Geneva approached me to accept the General Manager-ship of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP)”. Dr Akhter
Hameed Khan was, of course, Pakistan’s most visionary development expert, who believed in harnessing people’s potential.
via Office productivity: Celebrating 30 years of rural support | DAWN.COM.
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