Akhtar Hameed Khan

Akhtar Hameed Khan was a Pakistani social scientist and development practitioner who promoted participatory rural development in Pakistan and other developing countries. He resigned from the Indian Civil Service in 1943 due to the colonial government's mishandling of the Bengal Famine. He then joined the Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi as a lecturer and later moved to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after the partition of India in 1947. He established the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (later renamed as Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development) in Comilla and initiated the Comilla Model, which was a comprehensive project for rural development that involved local cooperatives, credit, education, health, and agriculture. He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1963 for his work in Comilla. In 1979, he moved to Karachi and founded the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), which was a bottom-up community development initiative that aimed to improve the living conditions of the urban poor. He encouraged the residents of Orangi, a large slum area, to build their own low-cost sanitation, housing, health, and education facilities with the help of OPP's social and technical guidance. He also introduced microcredit and self-finance schemes for the poor. He received the Independence Day Award in 1987 and the Nishan-e-Imtiaz in 1992 for his work in Orangi. Khan was also a scholar, poet, and painter. He wrote several books and articles on rural development, social change, and Islamic history. He also published a collection of poems and travelogues in Urdu. He was fluent in several languages, including Urdu, English, Bengali, Sanskrit, and Pali. He died of natural causes in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States on October 9, 1999.