WHO’S WHO IN MICROFINANCE: Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan

Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan, a prominent figure who helped lay the basic foundations of the microcredit movement, is mostly known for his work on the Comilla Model of rural development in the 1960s and the Orangi Pilot Project in the 1980s. The Comilla Model was originally developed at the Bangladesh (formerly Pakistan) Academy of Rural Development, and focused on the integration of public and private resources in creating a central institutional base and developing around it various development programs. The Orangi Pilot Project was initiated as a grassroots development project that emphasized self-help as the primary means of developing the “katchi abadis” (informal sector).

Dr. Khan was born in Agra, located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India in 1914. When he was 21, he left to study literature in Cambridge. After graduation, he returned to India where he began his career in the prestigious Indian Civil Service (ICS). Over the course of his six-year service, he served mostly in East Bengal. In 1945, disillusioned by the Bengal Famine of 1943, he resigned from ICS to work as a locksmith near Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and later as a teacher at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia (National Islamic University).

In the early 1950s, Dr. Khan returned to East Bengal, which was renamed East Pakistan after the partition of British India in 1947, and which would later became the independent country of Bangladesh. There he worked as the principal of Comilla Victoria College until 1958, when he left to work as a visiting professor at Michigan State University. Upon his return to Comilla in 1959, he became director of the newly formed Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (later renamed the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) in 1971), where he developed the Comilla Model.

The Comilla Model is rural development approach that evolved from a number of pilot projects beginning with the original establishment of the BARD in 1959. One of the objectives of these pilot projects was to devise a development model that could be replicated throughout the country. In sum, the Comilla Model was based upon the principle of cooperatives and people’s participatory role at the grassroots level. Thus, a main feature of model was the two-tiered agricultural cooperative, consisting of voluntary farmer groups, at both the village and central levels. Through these cooperatives, farmers were able to generate capital via deposits, obtain microcredit and basic training, as well as develop a shared knowledge base. Other components of the model included a Rural Works Program (RWP), which helped build infrastructure and generate employment in the process, the Thana Training and Development Centre (TTDC), which unified national-level officials and resources in the rural development effort, and the Thana Irrigation Programme, which facilitated the development of agricultural methods. By employing careful research, exploring agricultural credit, and providing supplies and training, Dr. Khan is widely thought to have pioneered the microcredit movement through the techniques associated with the Comilla Model.

After Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, Dr. Khan served as a research fellow, visiting professor, and advisor at several universities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the United States. In 1980, he returned to Pakistan to continue grassroots development work through the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), which emphasized self-help as the solution to obtaining capital and improving sanitation, health, education, and employment within low-income settlements northwest of Karachi. During the span of twelve years, from 1981 to 1993, OPP assisted residents in family planning, improved building construction, organized immunizations, and helped install low-cost sewers that served 72,000 homes and 600,000 people at one-tenth the cost of conventional sewage systems. According to the magazine Architecture in Development, the key to the success of the program was the adoption of the lane as the basic unit of social organization. Under this system, twenty to thirty houses were built on either side of a road and formed a cooperative that was headed by two elected managers who served as the links between the residents and the OPP. Today, three institutions remain in Orangi to continue Dr. Khan’s work: OPP-Research and Training Institute (RTI), Karachi Health and Social Development Association (KHASDA) and the Orangi Charitable Trust (OCT). All three aim to support local initiatives by following Dr. Khan’s principle of employing local resources and building on the central self-reliance component of poverty alleviation. For more information on these institutions, please click here.

Dr. Khan passed away in October 1999 at age 85, and is survived by his wife, son and four daughters. Throughout the course of his development career, he received many prominent awards, including various civil awards (Nishan-i-Imtiaz, Sitara-i-Pakistan, Hilal-i-Imtiaz and Magsaysay Award) and an honorary doctorate by Michigan State University. Dr. Khan’s written works include Orangi Pilot Project: Reminiscences and Reflections, published by Oxford University Press, and a three-volume work compiled and published by BARD, entitled The Works of Akhtar Hameed Khan.

By Mary Fu

Additional Resources:

Banglapedia: Khan, Akhtar Hameed

Banglapedia: Comilla Model

Attock News: “Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan – The Pioneer of Microcredit”

Daily Times: “Cam Dairy: The Common Man’s Friend”

Architecture in Development: “Profile: Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan”

OPP-OCT: Home