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AKDN a Balanced Sheet
Through this letter I would also like to voice my concerns on the
summary report of Mr. Islamuddin’s evaluation report which he
kindly shared with wider audience through online News which is
extensively accessed by thousands of people across the world. At
the outset, let me request the responsible officials of AKDN
institutions to be thankful to Mr. Islamuddin for these free of
cost analysis and review which he conducted for AKDN and its
stakeholders on his own. Usually, evaluation of such an integrated
programme requires a huge amount of resources and analytical
skills. As far as the reliability and accuracy of these findings
are concerned, I have some reservations and comments to share with
the audience. For any assessment particularly for those programmes
and projects that have multiple objectives with large portfolios
and complex implementation mechanism, evaluation becomes more
difficult. With my little experience in monitoring and evaluation
and strategic planning, I always feel it difficult to be judgmental
and pass comments without substantiating the arguments with
credible evidences. My first concern is that the learned writer has
not mentioned the methodology of his review report; however, the
objective of his endeavor is clear that he wanted to review AKDN’s
performance on his own and provide the decision makers and
stakeholders with policy lessons on the eve of His highness Prince
Karim Aga Khan’s Golden Jubilee so that the institutions can
drastically change their policy direction and implementation
strategies.
One can conclude from his summary analysis of evaluation published
in the form of an article that AKDN institutions in Chitral with
the AKRSP in the forefront, have faced huge policy and
implementation failure and so-called development mafia including
decision makers of AKDN institutions and community leaders (at
grassroots level) managed to deceive the investors/donors for more
than two and half decades. This conclusion may be indigestible for
many Chitralis including the people who have consistent stance
against AKDN institutions with the blame of religious based
discriminatory interventions. I also disagree with one of his
concluding remarks “AKDN performance has been a mixed one”, because
the finings of his assessment are not consistent with this
statement. The writer should be honest in concluding his opinions
based on what he mentioned in the contents. The letter is basically
a charge sheet against AKDN institutions instead of a Balance
Sheet. I have also found the arguments made in this summary odd to
each other. If the governing people and senior management of AKDN
were responsible for ill strategic planning (a planning which
foresees results of the investment at the time of resource
allocation), then how can the writer blame the beneficiaries of the
programmes which he did by saying “had the hard liners in both
sects not thrown spanners in the works, the results would have been
much better”. The development vision of His Highness Prince Karim
Aga Khan is always open to the world and small development
initiatives such as AKRSP cannot dare to hide this vision and
manipulate the goal of certain development project co-funded by
AKDN and donors (in case of AKRSP donor contribution is more than
90 % of the programme cost) who are answerable to their governments
and taxpayers and always look for results to justify their
investments in the third world countries like Pakistan. For one
phase of a programme facts can be masked with manipulated figures
but for a long term partnership, it is not possible to avoid
accountability. The writer must understand that any participatory
implementation mechanism which includes the beneficiaries in the
project cycle at all level tends to tailor the implementation
arrangements to make them responsive to the changing needs of the
communities. This process, however, is not an excuse for not
following agreed business processes. The weakness may be the trust
which AKDN institutions embrace with regard to transfer of money to
the grassroots organizations with the belief that communities
better understand their development issues and with limited
external financial and technical assistance could overcome the
problems. The replication of AKRSP’s development model by
government of Pakistan through establishment of rural support
programmes in all provinces and AJK exemplifies the success of
community led development model. For non-participatory
identification and implementation of small projects, one can look
at government procedures that are under severe attack of criticism
not only by non-governmental organizations but also by government
institutions and civil society. Mr. Islamuddin’s argument on
selection of professionals for AKDN institutions also needs further
elaboration. The writer would agree that due to incompatible salary
structure AKDN has been facing the problem of high staff turnover
since long and staff retention has been one of the major challenges
for AKDN agencies in Chitral. During the last five years, not only
national professionals left AKDN institutions but a number of local
professionals were unable to continue their jobs with AKDN
institutions due to limited remuneration and issue of job security.
The writer would also agree that the people who work with AKDN
institutions have high demand in national and international
markets. To prove that those organizations who hire people with
AKDN experience are also inefficient, and belong to development
mafia, the concerned investing institutions may request the learned
write to kindly arrange for worldwide or at least country wide
evaluation and prepare balance sheet so that the investors in
development sector could benefit from such a free of cost studies.
The argument of the writer that in AKDN management, the people
belonged to strong class benefited the most needs to be interpreted
with example that what he exactly means by strong class. Currently
all heads of AKDN’s local offices belonged to local area (mostly
Lotkoh area) and how can one determine whether they belong to
strong class or otherwise.
Addressing the point of sustainability of programmes and projects
mentioned in the letter, the learned writer has not been able to
distinguish between sustainability of programmes and projects and
he referred to cost-benefit analysis techniques metaphorically. For
instance the feasibility of Microhydel projects (The writer has
access to the project proposals of microhydels or any other
projects assisted by AKRSP) demonstrates that the life of these
projects has been assumed eight years over which the benefits are
calculated and compared with the total cost of the project
including in-kind contribution and environmental cost. It is worth
mentioning here that three of the international universities in
Europe and North America use the model of AKRSP for social cost
benefit analysis of development projects for academic purposes.
Since the writer lives in a small village with all his exposures
and experience in development sector and government bureaucracy
thus many local factors including his personal differences with
local people particularly the management of LSO have pushed him to
reflect on the performance of AKDN institutions relying on very
limited source of information such as village based small
grassroots organization and local community leadership. One cannot
disagree with the writer that some local community organizations in
Garum Chahsma area bad examples of loan default and mismanagement
of community led development project. But based on this one
example, generalizing the arguments does not suit to an informed
person like Mr. Islamuddin. Quantitative analysis related to the
demand and supply of potatoes also creates many questions including
the volatile nature of vegetable market in down country and huge
transportation cost. One cannot determine the impact of AKRSP’s
enterprise efforts with one instance of price difference of one
product in two markets. I am also surprised that in his evaluation
the writer has appreciated the efforts of WASEP and BACIP. Why did
the writer not pick on the point of persistent complaint of the
people about higher community contribution in the project which has
also impeded the extension of the programme in southern Chitral.
While BACIP never moved to any extension from its pilot phase in
Chitral district. I doubt, with the current mode and mindset of
evaluation and judgment, the evaluator is giving undue credit to
WASEP’s management. However, this is the only message of hope
coming out of the analysis and AKDN must appreciate the existing
management of WASEP (The Former Housing Board is disappeared in the
report) for satisfying the evaluator. I believe that to neutralize
this affect, the writer also appreciated the efforts of Aga Khan
Culture service even though this organization does not have its
presence in Chitral.
As a conclusion I would say that such a judgment of performance
requires an effort of substantiating the arguments with facts
otherwise it is always considered the opinion of an individual.
There is no question that AKDN institutions in Chitral may have
many gaps in programme planning, execution and evaluation but it
does not mean that there is no accountability. The writer himself
has been struggling to manage one institution using his skills and
experience (with some new experience) but with all sincere efforts,
he has not been able to satisfy all stakeholders. This is one
example of seeing things from different angle and appreciation of
relativity in the judgment.
The opinions mentioned in this letter are those of personal and I
fully appreciate the time consumed by the writer in conducting the
evaluation but reducing biasness (no body can be totally unbiased),
the writer can serve the Chitral to a great extent in providing
feedbacks from user’s perspective.
Sherzad Ali Hyder
Raghodok Booni
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