Shoaib Sultan Khan

Shoaib Sultan Khan (SSK)
Born 11 July 1933
Moradabad, India
Residence Pakistan, United Kingdom
Education Master of Arts in English, Bachelor of Law degree
Occupation Development practionner
Known for Social development, poverty reduction, participatory development
Notable work Founder of rural support programmes in Pakistan
Spouse(s) Mussarat Rahim (1950– Present)
Children Roohi, Afshan, Falaknaz, and Shelley
Parent(s) Mohammad Nasim Khan and Husna
Relatives Sultan Ahmad Beg (Grandfather)
Awards United Nations Environment Programme Global 500 Award; Sitara-i-Imtiaz; the Ramon Magsaysay Award; World Conservation Medal Sitara Eisaar and Hilal-i-Imtiaz

Shoaib Sultan Khan is one of the pioneers of rural development programmes in Pakistan.[1] As a CSP Officer, he worked with the Government of Pakistan for 25 years, later on he served Geneva-based Aga Khan Foundation for 12 years and UNICEF and UNDP for 14 years. Since his retirement, he has been involved with the Rural Support Programmes (RSPs) of Pakistan full-time, on voluntary basis.[2][3] Today, the Rural Support Programmes have helped form 297,000 community organisations in 110 districts including two Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.[4]

He has received the United Nations Environment Programme Global 500 Award in 1989,[5] the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 1990,[6] the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1992,[7][8][9] the WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Award in 1994,[10] "Man of the Year" Rotary International (Pakistan) Gold Medal in 2005, Sitara-e-Eisaar [11] and Hilal-i-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan in 2007.[12] In 2009 he was elected as Senior Ashoka Fellow.[13][14] He has written numerous research papers and books.[15][16][17][18]

In 2009, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for "Unleashing the power and potential of the poor".[19]

Biography

Shoaib Sultan Khan was born on 11 July 1933 in Moradabad, a town in Uttar Pradesh, India. His grandfather, Sultan Ahmad Beg, had won a coveted position in the state civil service of Uttar Pradesh, known in the days of the British-Indian Raj as the United Provinces. He maintained a large household that embraced his children and grandchildren.[20]

At the time of Graduation from Lucknow University

Shoaib obtained his Master of Arts degree in English from Lucknow University and subsequently completed a Public Administration Course at the University of Cambridge. He has a Bachelor of Laws degree from Peshawar University, in addition to which he has also done academic work at Birmingham University and at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford.[21][22]

Career

He started his career as a lecturer in 1953, but joined the Civil Service of Pakistan in 1955 and remained in it till 1978. Eventually rising through the posts of Deputy Director of Civil Service Academy, Deputy Commissioner Kohat and Peshawar, Commissioner of Karachi Division, Secretary Department of Health, Education and Social Welfare in the Government of North West Frontier Province and Director for the Pakistan Academy of Rural Development.[23][24][25]

His career in rural development started in 1959 when he came in contact with Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan. Hameed Khan asked him to follow three simple principles used in Germany by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen - get the oppressed peasants to organize and identify a leadership and then acquire the capacity to acquire capital, have savings and upgrade human skills. That conceptual package revolutionized Germany. Even the Grameen Bank and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (now Building Resources Across Communities -BRAC) came out of this simple concept.[26] Under Hameed Khan's guidance he established the Daudzai Pilot Project of the Integrated Rural Development Programme in 1972 on the pattern of Comilla Project.[27] In 1978, he was deputed to Nagoya, Japan, as a consultant to the United Nations Center for Regional Development. As the UNICEF consultant, he worked in Sri Lanka during 1979 and 1982 on the Mahaweli Ganga Development Project.

Non-government Programmes

In December 1982, the Aga Khan Foundation asked him to head the newly founded Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP), a citizen sector organisation that targets poverty-stricken villages primarily in northern Pakistan and engages their inhabitants in development programmes.[28][29] This model subverted the conventional model of social development, which assumed that either central government or outside agencies would lift people out of poverty.[30]

Dialogue with the community in the northern areas of Pakistan

The success of the AKRSP model was replicated in many countries and at the request of the United Nations Development Programme, he undertook South Asian Poverty Alleviation programme (SAPAP), setting up demonstration plots on its pattern in India, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Islamabad also started the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) and the provincial programmes replicating the same model.[31]

When Shoaib came to India in 1994 as part of the UNDP project, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao asked him to test the project in Andhra Pradesh, where it took off in three districts — Kurnool, Anantapur and Mehboobnagar. At the end of the U.N pilot, on Shoaibs suggestion, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, agreed to continue it.[32]

In this context, India launched a national programme called National Rural Livelihood Mission based on the SAPAP principles of development to benefit over 300 million poor. At the behest of Rahul Gandhi, Shoaib started a project in Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana (RGMVP) in his constituency in Uttar Pradesh on the same principles which have proven that the model can help marginalised people overcome obstacles even in the most hierarchical social structural settings. Similarly in Andhra Pradesh, the programme was started by the World Bank funding and it reached 50 million people and transformed their lives.[33] In 2011, Sonia Gandhi directed the Indian Ministry of Rural Development to launch the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) on the pattern of the Andhra experience to mobilise 70 million households across the country by 2017.[34] The Federal Government of India has now made it part of their central policy under the National Rural Livelihood Mission and 13 other states are following the Andhra Pradesh model.[35]

India’s Rural Development Ministry, has admitted that in India, the state has internalised that rights-based development was not a charity, but a right. Based on the model advocated by Shoaib, the Government of India annually allocates Indian Rs 270 billion for rural support programmes through community support organisations.[36]

Positions

He is currently honorary chairman, board of directors of the Rural Support Programmes Network,[37][38] National Rural Support Programme,[39][40] Ghazi Barotha Tarqiati Idara (GBTI),[41][42] Sindh Rural Support Organization [43][44] and Director of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme,[45][46] Institute of Rural Management,[47][48] Sarhad Rural Support Programme,[49][50] Punjab Rural Support Programme and Balochistan Rural Support Programme. He also served as the Director of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Member of the Advisory Group of the World Bank sponsored Community Development Carbon Fund, Member of the Government of Pakistan Advisory Committee on Millennium Development Goals and Chairman of the Pakistan Government's Vision 2030 Group on Just Society.

Awards and honours

In recognition of his services, he has been awarded the United Nations Environment Programme Global 500 Award in 1989, Sitara-i-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan in 1990,[51] the Ramon Magsaysay Award by the President of Philippines in 1992 and the World Conservation Medal by the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip in 1994, the Rotary International (Pakistan) awarded Man of the Year 2005 Gold Medal in 2006, Sitara Eisaar for earthquake work and Hilal-i-Imtiaz on Pakistan Day in 2006 by the President of Pakistan. In 2009 he was elected as Senior Ashoka Fellow.[52]

The list of nominees for the annual Nobel Peace Prize has always been a closely guarded secret over the last 50 years, with just a few names leaked to the public. One such nominee whose name slipped the net is Shoaib Sultan Khan.[53][54] He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for "unleashing the power and potential of the poor".[55] The Prize eventually went to President Obama,[56] which raised more than a few eyebrows, considering the nomination came just 12 days after he took office. The New York Times called the decision a "stunning surprise", while less generous spectators accused the Nobel Committee of having political motivations.[57]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Citation for the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership
  2. ↑ "Oxford launches book on rural development in South Asia". Oxford University Press. 14 October 2009.
  3. ↑ "The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme: A Journey Through Grassroots Development". Amazon.
  4. ↑ "Office productivity: Celebrating 30 years of rural support". DAWN. 30 June 2013.
  5. ↑ "The Global 500 Roll of Honour for Enviromental Achievement GLOBAL 500" (PDF). United Nations Environment Programme. 2003.
  6. ↑ "Hats off". The Friday Times. 5 July 2013.
  7. ↑ "Ramon Magsaysay Award" (PDF). Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.
  8. ↑ "Noble Pakistan: 10 Pakistanis honoured with Ramon Magsaysay Award". The Express Tribune. 7 September 2014.
  9. ↑ "SHGs impress Pakistan team". The Hindu. 28 March 2007.
  10. ↑ "The Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Award". WWF Global.
  11. ↑ "List of recipients of Sitara-i-Eisaar and Tamgha-i-Eisaar". Daily Times. 1 July 2006.
  12. ↑ "President confers 93 awards". DAWN. 24 March 2007.
  13. ↑ "Ashoka’s new fellows announced".
  14. ↑ "Potential lies with the poor". The News on Sunday. 26 April 2012.
  15. ↑ "Rural Change in the Third World". Better World Books.
  16. ↑ "The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme: A Journey through Grassroots Development". Amazon. 21 October 2009.
  17. ↑ "Man in the Hat". Vanguard Books.
  18. ↑ "The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme". Amazon.
  19. ↑ "30 years of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme: Working with Shoaib Sultan Khan". Youlin Magazine. 23 August 2013.
  20. ↑ "Khan, Shoaib Sultan: Biography". Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. August 1992.
  21. ↑ "Mr Shoaib Sultan Khan". Lodhran Pilot Project.
  22. ↑ "Board of Directors". AKH Resource Center.
  23. ↑ "Community-Driven Development (CDD) and Social Funds Programs". World Bank Archives.
  24. ↑ "20 years of leadership". Lead Pakistan. November 2014.
  25. ↑ "The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme: A Journey through Grassroots Development". Oxford University Press.
  26. ↑ "A Man named Khan". The Hindu. 16 October 2013.
  27. ↑ "A must-read on rural uplift". DAWN. 11 August 2009.
  28. ↑ "Noble Pakistan: 10 Pakistanis honoured with Ramon Magsaysay Award". The Express Tribune. 2 July 2013.
  29. ↑ "The Aga Khan Rural Support Program". World Bank Group.
  30. ↑ "Escaping Pakistan's poverty trap". The Telegraph. 4 March 2013.
  31. ↑ "Pioneering development partnership". DAWN. 6 October 2012.
  32. ↑ "No line of control here". The Hindu. 4 October 2013.
  33. ↑ "Pioneering development partnership". DAWN. 6 October 2012.
  34. ↑ "RSPs have not deviated". DAWN. 14 July 2013.
  35. ↑ "Earthly matters: Harnessing people’s potential". DAWN. 26 January 2013.
  36. ↑ "Participatory development: With little govt support, people can do wonders". The Express Tribune. 2 July 2013.
  37. ↑ "Moot on community-driven development starts today". The Nation. 7 December 2015.
  38. ↑ "Experts call for people’s role in policymaking". Daily Times. 9 December 2015.
  39. ↑ "Aziz for coordination in social sector". DAWN. 6 August 2004.
  40. ↑ "EU, Sindh govt launch poverty reduction programme". Daily Times. 26 November 2015.
  41. ↑ "Head of GBTI resigns". DAWN. 1 November 2010.
  42. ↑ "Reducing Poverty and Sustaining the Environment". Earthscan Publications Limited.
  43. ↑ "Positive change: Empowering women, transforming lives". The Express Tribune. 3 October 2015.
  44. ↑ "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif committed to bringing a positive change in the living standard of women". The News International. 28 September 2015.
  45. ↑ "Provision of social services stressed". DAWN. 16 May 2004.
  46. ↑ "Forgotten heroes of Pakistan". DAWN. 28 December 2011.
  47. ↑ "IRM Board of Directors". Institute of Rural Management.
  48. ↑ "Rural Support Programs at Sub National Level: A Case Study from Pakistan" (PDF). The Heinz Journal. Spring 2015.
  49. ↑ "History". SRSP.
  50. ↑ "Night sky lit up for the first time in Swat village". The Express Tribune. 31 August 2012.
  51. ↑ "Man in the Hat book on Shoaib Sultan Khan by Noel Cossins released by CM Kiran Kumar Reddy". The Hyderabad-Deccan English Daily. 15 July 2013.
  52. ↑ "Ashoka innovators for the public". Ashoka.
  53. ↑ "International School of Nice welcomes 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Shoaib Sultan Khan". Ismaili Mail. 13 October 2009.
  54. ↑ "Nice: International School of Nice welcomes 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee". Invest in cote d'azur. 14 October 2009.
  55. ↑ "Rural support programmes can double people’s incomes". DAWN. 29 November 2014.
  56. ↑ "Why the Prize Is Premature". TIME. 9 October 2009.
  57. ↑ "Top 10 Nobel Prize Controversies". TIME. 7 October 2011.

External links

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