Akhter Hameed Khan (Urdu: اختر حمید خان, pronounced [ˈəxt̪ər ɦəˈmiːd̪ xaːn]; 15 July 1914 – 9 October 1999) was a Pakistani-Bangladeshi development practitioner and social scientist.
He also directed many programmes, from microcredit to self-finance and from housing provision to family planning, for rural communities and urban slums.
In his early age, Khan's mother introduced him to the poetry of Maulana Hali and Muhammad Iqbal, the sermons of Abul Kalam Azad, and the Sufist philosophy of Rumi.
[2] Khan attended Government High School at Jalam (Uttar Pradesh), and completed his education in 1930 at Agra College where he studied English literature and history.
[6] During his ICS career, Khan worked as collector of revenue, a position that brought him into regular contact with living conditions in rural areas of East Bengal.
"[10] For the next two years, Khan worked in Mamoola village near Aligarh as a labourer and locksmith, an experience that provided him with firsthand knowledge of the problems and issues of rural communities.
[15] Khan became vice-chairman of the board of Governors of PARD in 1964, and in the same year, was awarded an honorary Doctorate of law by Michigan State University.
[17] Following his move to Pakistan, Khan was asked to implement the Comilla Model in rural settlements of North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Punjab, and Sindh.
[21] The Comilla Model (1959) was Khan's initiative in response to the failure of a Village Agricultural and Industrial Development (V-AID) programme that was launched in 1953 in East and West Pakistan with technical assistance from the US government.
[24] Comilla Model simultaneously addressed the problems that were caused by the inadequacy of both local infrastructure and institutions through a range of integrated programmes.
[26] After Khan's departure from Comilla, the cooperative's model failed in independent Bangladesh[27] because only a few occupational groups managed to achieve the desired success.
[29] This prompted the subsequent scholars and practitioners in microfinance, such as Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank and Fazle Hasan Abed of BRAC, to abandon the cooperative approach in favour of more centralised control and service delivery structures.
[30] However, Khan's leadership skills during the course of his association with the project remained a source of inspiration for these leaders, as well as other participatory development initiatives in the country.
The influx of migrants after the creation of Bangladesh swelled the settlement to about one million people crowded over an area of more than 32 square kilometres (7,907 acres).
[37] The project initially focused on creating a system of underground sewers, using local materials and labour, and succeeded in laying hundreds of kilometres of drainage pipes along with auxiliary facilities.
[38] Within a decade of the initiative, local residents had established schools, health clinics, women's work centres, cooperative stores and a credit organisation to finance enterprise projects.
[43] The success of OPP did come at a cost for Dr Khan as his liberal views and self-help initiatives were questioned and criticised by certain interest groups.
[45] Khan's ideology and leadership skills were a source of inspiration for his students and colleagues, and continue to serve as guiding principles even after his death.
[47] A later study of various rural development experiences from South Asia, edited by Uphoff and Cambell (1983)[48] was jointly dedicated to Khan and Owens.
[42] Later in 2005, the Council of Social Sciences, Pakistan, in collaboration with the National Rural Support Programme and other institutions, announced the Akhter Hameed Khan Memorial Award.
[50] The annual cash award is given on Khan's birthday to a Pakistani author for a book on issues related to rural and urban development, peace, poverty alleviation, or gender discrimination.
[51] The film includes archival footage and interviews with family members, colleagues, and contributors and beneficiaries of the Comilla and OPP projects.