The Link between Akhtar Hameed Khan's Value system and Orangi Pilot Project.

1. Participatory Development
Orangi Pilot Project
Session Two
Monday, April 09, 2018
Program of Development Studies (DS)
Department of Planning and Architecture (DAP)
NED University of Engineering and Technology(NEDUET)
Karachi
Course Instructor: Mansoor Raza
mansooraza@gmail.com

2. Introduction
• OPP was established in 1980 by Akhtar Hameed
Khan
• The then BCCI Foundation supported it by
providing a seed fund
• The project has attracted international attention
and acclaim since it overcomes the major
financial, technical and social problems related to
the upgrading of low income settlements
• Moreover, OPP placed ‘community’ at the center
of the upgrading process.

3. Important Aspect
• The Project has developed
principles have also been
applied to city level related
infrastructure design and
implementation and have
reduced costs to a fraction
of conventionally designed
and implemented systems

4. The Personality – Organization Connect
• A lot has been said and written on
OPP by activists, academics,
journalists and students of
development but there are certain
miss outs
• The link between the Akhtar Hameed
khan’s upbringing and life long search
for truth and organizational culture of
OPP.
• The thinking behind the methodology
of OPP
• The process of human development

5. The Convergence
• On the success of its five basic
programs of low cost
sanitation, housing, health,
education and credit for micro
enterprise, in 1988 OPP was
upgraded into three
autonomous institutions.

6. OPP-RTI
• OPP-Research and Training Institute
(OPP-RTI) manages the low cost
sanitation, housing/secure housing
support program, education program,
the now evolving water supply and
the women’s savings programs as well
as the related research and training
programs.
• Earthquake and the flood
rehabilitation works are also
undertaken

7. OPP-OCT
• OPP-Orangi Charitable
Trust (OPP-OCT)
manages the micro
enterprise credit
program.

8. OPP-KHASDA
• OPP-Karachi Health and
Social Development
Association (OPP-
KHASDA) manages the
health program.

9. The Method
• Each institution has its separate board of
directors and mobilizes its own funds.
• Development is self financed by the
people.
• OPP institutions provide social and
technical guidance and credit for micro
enterprise. For replication OPP
institutions strengthen the partner Non
Government Organizations (NGOs)/
Community Based Organizations (CBOs)
and Government agencies (instead of
setting up their own offices).

10. The Approach
• The approach is to encourage and strengthen
community initiatives (with social, technical guidance
and credit for micro enterprise) and evolve
partnerships with the government for development
based on local resource.
• The methodology is action research and extension.
That is analyzing outstanding problems of the area,
people’s initiatives, the bottlenecks in the initiatives,
then through a process of action research and
extension education evolving viable solutions
promoting participatory action.
• In short developing low cost package of advice,
guiding and facilitating community organizations for
self help and partnership with the government.

11. The Evolution of AHK
• “My boyhood home, like
innumerable other shareef
homes was the fruit of Syed
Ahmed’s reforms. The
intellectual and moral
texture of these homes were
quite different from the old
shurfa homes; there were no
co-wives, no concubines, no
nautch grils: there were new
aspirations, new ideas, new
manners, new routines”

12. The Thought of AHK
• “I had a profound personal concern,
I wanted to live a life free from fear
and anxiety, a clam and serene life,
without turmoil and conflict. I found
that when I followed Nietzche’s
advice and tried to be a strong
master, a proud superman, my
pride and aggression further
increases my fear and anxiety and
entangled me in endless conflicts.
• On the other hand , when I followed
the advice of old Sufis and sages,
and tried to curb my greed, my
pride and aggression, fears,
anxieties and conflicts diminished”.

13. The Contradiction
• “Enlightened by the sages
when I read history, I can see
that conquest has two faces: It
may be glory for the
supermanish victors, but for
the vanquished it is horrible
misery…I have been taught to
celebrate the victory caused
by the Turks of Mahmud, but
to mourn the havoc caused by
the Mongols of Haluku”.

14. Conventional Philanthropy
• In Pakistan philanthropic intentions
have usually flowed in two channels:
either the erection of subsidized superb
institutions, or the distribution of doles.
• While the utility of superb institutes and
charitable doles cannot be denied, their
limitations are quite obvious.
• For instance, elitist schools or clinics can
serve only a small clientele, and
similarly the clientele of doles, although
different, is not really large, in both
cases, the main majority the common
people, are let out

15. Scope for a Wider Perspective
• For a newcomer to the field of
philanthropy, it is easy and tempting
to climb on this two-wheeled
bandwagon.
• However, it may be worthwhile to
acquire, after an attentive look, a
wider perspective of those common
needs which can be appropriately
fulfilled by benevolent assistance.
• The nature and scope of such
assistance also requires close
attention

16. No instant blueprint
• It must be admitted that a
blueprint is not available for
immediate implementation,
although many instructive
models do exist in other
countries.
• Those who want to go beyond
the conventional ways should
patiently go through the
process of investigation, local
consultation, experiment and
evaluation.

17. General Direction: Institutional Organization
• Before starting, let us say, in Orangi, we may reasonably assume that a
primary, and probably the most neglected, aspect of the local situation would
be the need for institutional organization.
• We are living through a period of social dislocation, but for the Biharis in
Orangi, or for that matter the Pathans in Orangi, both uprooted from their old
familiar environments, the dislocation is especially acute.
• They have to re-establish the sense of belonging, the community feeling, the
conventions of mutual help and co-operative action. That can be done chiefly
through the creation of many kinds of organizations, social and economic.
• Without such organizations, chaos and confusion will prevail. On the other
hand, if social and economic organizations grow and become strong, services
and material conditions, sanitation, schools, clinics, training, and employment
will also all began to improve.

18. Guidelines: Core workers and Autonomous
Units
• The promotion, guidance, and
evaluation of social and economic
organizations could be the chief task
of a trust or foundation. For that
purpose, gradually, a core of full-time
workers should be put together.
• However, each individual organization
should be designed to be
autonomous, and ultimately self-
supporting. Of course, in the initial
stage, it will be helped by training of
its staff and evaluation of its work.

19. Collaboration with Established Agencies
• To provide specialized
training or evaluation, or, in
the case of economic
organizations, financial
assistance, the trust would
secure the collaboration of
established agencies,
government departments,
universities, and banks.

20. Avoidance of Haste: A Timetable
• The development of social and economic
organization cannot be done quickly.
• Undue haste in this case will surely result in
waste.
• Enough time should be spent on careful
investigation of the and acquaintance with the
local people, their conditions and institutions,
• A rough timetable may be suggested: several
months’ preliminary investigation (three to six
months) followed by a tentative plan for the first
year, followed by an evaluation based on the
analysis of detailed documentation.
• The process should be repeated, till the
emergence of a successful pattern.

21. Main types of Organizations
• Tentatively it may be pointed out that
the main organizations selected for
promotion would be local councils,
various kinds of co-operatives and
associations, schools and clinics.
• As already indicated, the emphasis
would be on community action and
autonomy. The aim would be to
promote, not the exclusive
development of one special school or
hospital, but institutions who may be
willing to upgrade themselves by staff
training and community organization.

22. Two Fundamental Principles
• Two fundamental principles
should be scrupulously followed:
• (a) the avoidance of any political or
sectarian bias, and
• (b) the observance of a populist
point of view, the preference for the
needs of the common people.

23. A Model for Subsequent Expansion
• Let us hope that, not immediate
but in a few years, this
approach of social and
economic institution-building
may begin to produce some
good results.
• Then we may also hope that it
may serve as a model for other
similar areas of Karachi, and
without much difficulty be
projected into those areas.

24. Avoidance of Publicity
and Fanfare
• In the beginning all publicity must
be strictly avoided, The
consequence of premature
publicity or any kind of early
fanfare are likely to be as
unfortunate as the consequences
of hasty and grandiose planning.
• As a project grows, the intelligent
public will be informed by means
of accurate and well-documented
reports by impartial evaluators

25. Conclusion – Importance of Model
• The demand and supply gap of housing in formal sector results in squatter settlements
• The growth of informal and squatter settlements is estimated over 10 percent a year
against a total urban growth of 4.8 percent.
• Successive government have failed miserably over the management of Katchi Abadis
• On the other hand OPP housing and sanitation project has brought major qualitative
changes and that too at no cost to the government.
• In the absence of government meeting the employment demands, the OPP’s credit
program is a model for employment creation in in-formal sector.