..::BLSO::..

BACKGROUND

To sustain growth and development in Chitral ─ the most isolated and remotest district of Pakistan, a need for a sustainable institutional base representing the grassroots communities always existed in the rural society. The efforts of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) for organizing and supporting the grassroots communities for self-initiatives in social and economic development have been remarkable. The trust of AKRSP’s development model in the capabilities of mountain communities of changing their destiny motivated them to play a vital role in the process of community development.

Underpinning AKRSP’s approach is the understanding that all humans, including those who are poor, are capable of their own development. In the case of rural poor, their main handicaps can be understood in terms of low endowment in natural resources and high social fragmentation, resulting in subsistence conditions, characterized by low productivity, poverty, vulnerability, and powerlessness. After conducting its initial ‘Diagnostic Process’ (AKRSP term) in 1982, AKRSP came up with its own understanding of the primary causes of poverty in its project area: lack of human, financial and physical capital. The design of the initial response strategy was remarkably simple: Organization, Savings and Skills. The beauty of this simple message is that these three simple conceptual principles in Urdu language (tanzeem, bachat, afradi qoowat) entered the local vocabulary very quickly and everyone readily understood and accepted AKRSP’s message for overcoming the primary impediments to development.

In this development model, the communities identified and prioritized their development needs in a democratic way under the platform of Village Based Institutions (VBIs) such as Village and Women Organization. Due to cultural sensitivities, Women Organizations are separate forum particularly addressing the women issues at village level, however, women are equally benefiting from VOs’ developmental activities. The VOs were designed to create organizational capital for achieving economies of scale in every productive endeavor identified by the community through consensus. AKRSP was there to guide them and assist them technically and financially where they lacked specific resources, essentially playing a catalyst rather than a development role. The VO was an innovation on the traditional system of cooperative management in at least three respects: (i) broad participation and equity by insisting on not less than 80% coverage of all households in a community), (ii) good governance (meticulous record keeping and discloser of all decisions and transactions in open VO meetings) and, (iii) planning for and consensus over development priorities.

This innovative response of AKRSP to the extreme poverty in an isolated and landlocked area remained successful and through a range of developmental activities including participatory development, natural resource management, women specific programme, enterprise initiatives, microfinance and capacity building programme, the communities created a visible positive change in their lives. Increased per capita income and reduced level of poverty indicated the success of this community led development endeavor.

After two decades of this partnership of communities with AKRSP, Aga Khan Development Network institutions, and other Government and Non-Governmental agencies, it was felt that all developmental needs cannot be responded by individual Village Based Institutions (VBIs) such as Village and Women Organizations (V/WOs). For instance, in construction of a valley road or medium sized microhydel, a need for valley based institution emerged. In addition, to any integrated development, more broad and multi-stakeholders based institutions were required to take over the role of community development and sustainable service delivery to their clients (households). This need motivated the community and the AKRSP to think about the generation of second layer of community organizations. The community responded to the problem quickly and came up with the idea of federating the V/WOs and other active Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in to an umbrella organization called Local Support Organization. The Beyar Local Support Organization (BLSO) is one of the LSOs formed by the communities of Beyar area (from village Green Lasht to Sarghooz).

2. BEYAR LOCAL SUPPORT ORGANIZATION (BLSO)

2.1 INTRODUCTION

In the context of Beyar, with the changing socio-economic environment, the century old tradition of reciprocal help, mutual respect, collectivism, pluralism, shared vision of managing natural resources and effective institutional arrangement for ensuring human rights to provide the helpless with justice have now become alien concepts. These values helped the inhabitants of Beyar valley to leverage financial and technical assistance from external supporting agencies such as AKRSP, Aga Khan Development Network(AKDN) agencies, Chitral Area Development Project (CADP) and other Government and No-Governmental Organization to undertake developmental initiatives both in social and economic sectors.

Table: 1 BLSO Area - Basic Information

Area (Sq. Km)
975

No. of Villages

24

Population

26000

No. of Households

3,224

No of Union Councils Covered

1.5

No. of Registered Village/Women Organizations/ Other Civil Society Organization

124

Literacy Rate (5)

65

Fund Available (Rs.)

300,000

VO Savings (Rs. mill)

2.5

WO Savings (Rs. mill)

2.0

Poverty Level (%)

28

Established in April 2005, Beyar Local Support Organization (BLSO) is a Civil Society Organization formed by the local communities of Biryar[1] area represented by 57 Village Organizations (VOs) and 39 Women Organizations (WOs) and 3 other village based community institutions in the area. This organization was conceptualized in early 2004 and it was named as Local Support Organization in November 2004. After the inception of this organization, frequent meetings are held with AKRSP Area Office for professional guidance with the understanding that as part of AKRSP’s new strategy, LSOs are strengthened through regular capacity building activities and provision of technical and financial support. Looking at the achievements of Village Based Institutions in BLSO area in terms of social and economic development, it can be concluded that these community institutions have shown a great capacity to undertake the developmental activities in a sustained way with more cost-effective and efficient manner. These institutions not only provided their members with the opportunity to develop their capacities in project planning and management but nurtured them as community leaders. The result of this nurturing has been reflected in the Local Government where more than 70 % of the representatives come from Village Based Institutions (worked as activists).

Table: 2 shows the community constructed infrastructure projects (with financial and technical assistance from AKDN and other institutions) in Beyar Area during the period from 1983-2005. In most of these projects the beneficiary households are more than 300 (such as pipe irrigation village Reshun, Parak, Dumadumi, WASIP funded water supply project Koragh and AKHS funded Booni Medical Centre) and community shared more than 30 % of the total project cost.