In Tajikistan, the Aga Khan’s philanthropy and investment has raised hospitals, hotels, colleges, crops – and in some quarters, suspicion. Fifth in a series.

by Sarvinoz Akram 22 September 2010

This is the fifth story in a series of articles on philanthropy in TOL’s coverage area.

DUSHANBE | On a sunny day in late October 2006, Shah Karim al-Hussayni, better known as the Aga Khan IV, stepped on to the newly built Ishkashim Bridge over the Panj River and made a speech that was heard simultaneously in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the countries on either side.

Bridges are powerful symbols, the imam of the world’s Ismaili Muslims said as he opened the span, the fourth built across the Panj by his Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). “When harmony breaks down and conflicts ensue, destroying bridges is usually among the most urgent targets. But when peace and healing come, then it is the construction and rehabilitation of bridges that marks our progress.”

The Tajik songwriter Lidush Habib has likened the Aga Khan himself to a bridge, connecting the shores of Islam and the West, Asia and Africa, rich and poor. Known in the West not just as a spiritual leader but as a philanthropist, horse breeder, and one-time stepson of 1940s Hollywood star Rita Hayworth, the Aga Khan is revered by many Tajiks for his massive aid to the country during the period of civil conflict, economic collapse, and widespread starvation in the 1990s.

In Badakhshan province, to which the Aga Khan sent hundreds of tons of food, clothes, and medicine to poor locals and refugees during the civil war, grandmothers tell children bedtime stories about angels sent by the imam to carry suffering people from the bloody battlefields into the Pamir Mountains. In Dushanbe and Khorugh, drivers display his picture on their cars. When he comes to Tajikistan, people gather in the streets by the thousands and try to kiss his hand.

The Aga Khan IV (far right) looks over the site of the University
of Central Asia’s main Tajik campus in the Pamir Mountains.

“Tajiks are really grateful to the Aga Khan,” said Marat Mamadshoev, editor-in-chief of the Tajik news agency Asia-Plus. “He saved thousands of lives during the Tajik civil war in 1992-1997, when many, if not all, Tajik Pamiris fled the scenes of the war and found shelter in the mountainous Badakhshan province.”

Through AKDN – one of the world’s largest development networks with some 60,000 employees and turnover of nearly $2 billion in nonprofit and business activities – and the related Aga Khan Foundation, the Aga Khan has remained a major force in this Central Asian republic, and at times a controversial one. Given that ethnic Pamiris from Badakhshan (officially the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, or GBAO) figured heavily in the 1990s revolt and that the region has seen flare-ups of separatist activity since, Tajikistan’s political leaders keep a wary eye on his activities there.

There is distrust, too, on the side of the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, many of whom believe the Aga Khan’s philanthropy heavily favors his own Ismaili sect, a branch of Shiism. “He’s giving one or two bags of rice to the Sunni people in Rasht or Khatlon but spending $10,000 to $15,000 to take a Pamiri student to Oxford, preparing cadres for the long-term future,” said Muhammadazim, a student at the Islamic University of Tajikistan, echoing a widely held sentiment among Sunnis here.

Still, it is a topic on which people publicly tread lightly. Of some two dozen people contacted for this article, only a few agreed to speak on the record. Many were suspicious that the story would focus on AKDN failures, or exacerbate sectarian tension, a sensitive issue given Tajikistan’s proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Officially the government cooperates on a number of projects with Aga Khan institutions, and in October President Imomali Rahmon accompanied the imam to open the AKDN-built Ismaili Center in Dushanbe, praising him for his investment in the country.

BUILDING THROUGH BUSINESS

If the Aga Khan is a sectarian figure, it’s hard to imagine a more multicultural and cosmopolitan one. The son of a Pakistani prince and an English noblewoman, he was born in Geneva, raised in Kenya, educated at Harvard, and now lives in France.

His imamate stems from a lineage Ismailis believe goes directly back to Mohammed. Ismailism separated from what is now mainstream Shia in the seventh century, and its practice is less ritualistic than that of most Shiites.

Ismailis make up a small fraction of Tajikistan’s population of about 7.6 million – some 230,000 in the GBAO and several thousand scattered elsewhere in the country, which is about 85 percent Sunni. But many of the world’s 20 million Ismailis, including large communities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, consider Badakhshan the spiritual nerve center of the faith. Ancient legend posits the Pamir Mountains as the place Ismailis found shelter after fleeing persecution in Mesopotamia.

The region was the focus of the Aga Khan’s humanitarian efforts during the civil war. Since the 1997 peace agreement between the government and the mainly Islamist opposition, his institutions in the country and across Central Asia (AKDN is also active in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) have increasingly focused on the emerging private sector, aiming to strengthen free-market values and fill the gaps left by the collapse of the Soviet system.

The vehicles have been varied – urban and rural development programs, microfinance, health care and social services, large-scale construction, civil society projects, and education (including the three-nation University of Central Asia, the world’s first internationally chartered institution of higher learning).

“Philanthropy to me is not an endless distribution of money,” the Aga Khan said in 2002 in Moscow, where he met with Vladimir Putin to discuss opening institutions in Muslim regions of Russia. The goal of most AKDN initiatives is to develop self-reliant commercial businesses.

According to the AKDN website, private firms founded by the network generate $1.5 billion in revenues a year (the organization says the money is plowed back into further development work). Munir Merali, head of the network in Tajikistan, notes that it has “built several hotels in GBAO and the largest one in Dushanbe” to boost tourism, and launched a telecom that introduced 3G technology to the country.

The Aga Khan meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon
during a tour of Central Asia last year.

The network also spent $26.8 million to modernize the Pamir-1 hydroelectric plant and the GBAO’s power grid. While much of Tajikistan suffers winter power shortages, Badakhshan is the only region in the country with uninterrupted electricity supplies year-round.

The potential knock-on effect of both aid and investment is key to AKDN’s work in the area. For example, the Panj River bridges, built with cooperation from the Tajik and Afghan governments, spawned lively markets on both sides, helping reduce food prices in the remote region. Hailing such developments, the Tajik-Afghan interstate economic commission eased cross-border trade restrictions. Last month, visa rules were loosened to allow seriously ill people from Afghanistan to go to AKDN-funded hospitals and clinics for treatment.

Merali boasts that “practically every project” of the Aga Khan foundation and development network in the country has been successful.

Such a claim is unsurprising coming from the network’s Tajik chief, but noted economist Hojimuhammad Umarov also praises the its effectiveness.

“There are two factors that distinguish these institutions from other international NGOs that are active in Tajikistan,” Umarov said. “First, it is the wise combination of business and philanthropy, and second, the [organization] is built on religious unity.”

A CALLING TO GIVE

While AKDN is secular by its own statutes and takes promoting cultural tolerance as part of its mission, the Aga Khan has explicitly affirmed the organization’s roots in faith. “I am fascinated and somewhat frustrated when representatives of the western world – especially the western media – try to describe the work of our Aga Khan Development Network in fields like education, health, the economy, media, and the building of social infrastructure,” he said in a 2006 speech at a German evangelical academy:

“Reflecting a certain historical tendency of the West to separate the secular from the religious, they often describe it either as philanthropy or entrepreneurship. What is not understood is that this work is for us a part of our institutional responsibility – it flows from the mandate of the office of Imam to improve the quality of worldly life for the concerned communities.”

Those roots can be seen in some AKDN activities. In Tajikistan, the network works most directly with Ismaili villages and towns, and its volunteers on the ground are primarily drawn from the faithful. The health committees AKDN has established in recent years are structured similarly to Ismaili religious organizations.

The network’s close bond with Ismaili communities gives it a measure of independence from central and local governments and allows it to implement its plans more effectively than other international agencies. It has also fostered fears that AKDN has a specifically Ismaili and Pamiri agenda, a perception that touches a nerve among Sunnis.

“The religious violence between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq and Pakistan is awful. We pray to keep Tajikistan far from these kinds of hatred, but the Shia Ismailis are trying to expose their views more openly, challenging the Sunnis,” said Domullo Mirzo, a Sunni worshiper who teaches at the Mavlono Yaqubi Charkhi Mosque in Dushanbe. “For the majority of the Tajik population Ismailis are from a different cultural and historical dimension.”

Over the years the network has sought to address those concerns. In 1998, after several years in which the Aga Khan’s work in Tajikistan consisted primarily of humanitarian aid to Pamiris, opposition and Islamic leaders met with him in Geneva and asked him to broaden his focus beyond Badakhshan. The meeting produced results: the Aga Khan widened the map of his activities to include the Rasht Valley and Khatlon province, two regions also devastated by the civil war. The Aga Khan Microfinance Bank, which opened in 2003 and has given $20 million in loans to thousands of small businesses, has branches in the north of Tajikistan as well as the south, where most of the country’s Ismailis live.

Ashratsho Haqdadshaev, an Ismaili pastor in Khorugh, quotes a fatwa issued by the Aga Khan calling on his followers to practice religious tolerance. “He asks us to be close to our Sunni brothers, to make our rituals similar to theirs. We decided to pray five times [a day] as Sunnis do, instead of three, as Ismaili belief prescribes,” Haqdadshaev said.

He adds, “There haven’t been any incidents between us, at least so far.”

The hope remains in Tajikistan that, like the bridges he and his organization have built between their country and Afghanistan, between philanthropy and profit, the Aga Khan can build a bridge that links different Muslim communities – and benefits both sides.

Sarvinoz Akram is a pseudonym for a journalist in Dushanbe. Photos by Gary Otte, courtesy of the Aga Khan Development Network.
Source: http://www.tol.org/client/article/21817-a-bridge-over-troubled-waters.html

Aly Alibhai’s job as a lawyer helps keep a roof over his family’s head, but his volunteer work pays a different kind of bill.

“I really view this work as the rent I pay for living on this planet,” Alibhai says. “I’m a really big believer in a concept that has existed for a long time, which is the notion of the citizenship role of a lawyer.”

Alibhai, a 45-year-old senior lawyer with the Department of Justice’s international program, has been named the recipient of this year’s Lincoln Alexander Award by the Law Society of Upper Canada. The award, which honours an Ontario lawyer committed to community service, recognizes Alibhai’s volunteer work with more than a dozen organizations.

There’s another reason why Alibhai’s achievement is notable: he is the first non-Torontonian to receive the Lincoln Alexander since the award was created in 2002.

Born in Kenya, raised in Vancouver and a resident of Ottawa since 1993, Alibhai says he’s particularly happy to help the legal community in Canada’s capital get some recognition.

“I’m not one of those people who hate Toronto. I love it,” he says. “But I think, like a lot of other things, the legal profession can be a little too Toronto-centric.”

Alibhai speaks from experience — he began his legal career in Toronto as a civil litigator with a major Bay Street law firm. But he quickly realized private practice wasn’t his calling and moved to Ottawa to take his first public-sector position as a senior policy advisor to Herb Gray, who was solicitor general at the time.

Gray, who was the longest serving MP in Canada’s history, says he remembers Alibhai as a bright and promising employee.

“I found him a very efficient and effective assistant,” he says. “I’m not surprised that he’s earned this award.”

Alibhai’s zeal for public service has always extended beyond his job.

One summer while he was in law school, he worked for a camp in Haliburton for children with learning disabilities. He enjoyed it so much that he was inspired to do more community service.

Today, the list of organizations he has volunteered, fundraised or served on boards of directors for includes Legal Aid Ontario, the Aga Khan Foundation of Canada and the John Howard Society of Ottawa.

Melanie Adams, executive director of the Queensway Carleton Hospital Foundation, has worked with Alibhai during his term on the institution’s board of directors. She says he’s especially good at using his contacts to find and organize support.

“He brings a level of professionalism and expertise from his own profession,” she says. “He’ll have different insights from what other people would have when we’re having discussions.”

Alibhai’s volunteer interests are broad, spanning from libraries and children’s choirs to prisoner’s rights. He says the only common thread is a desire to focus his attention where he can make the most difference.

“If there is a connection, I think it’s really helping where I can help those who need it most,” he says.

But balancing a legal career with a heavy load of community service comes at a price. His workday can go late into the evening and his volunteer work can go even later — sometimes as late as 2 a.m. especially when preparing for a board meeting.

Alibhai’s wife also has a busy professional career as a family doctor and they have daughters in Grades 2 and 6.

“You make sacrifices,” he says. “My family doesn’t necessarily see me as often as they’d like and I’d like.”

But family, tradition and faith are major reasons why Alibhai endures the long hours. He was raised an Ismaili Muslim and the importance of volunteerism is one of the major teachings of the religion’s spiritual leader, the Aga Khan.

Alibhai says his parents, who immigrated to Canada when he was 61?2, are proud of how he’s worked their traditional values into his life.

“I think they’re genuinely proud that I’ve chosen a career where I’ve found happiness, where I feel like I’m fulfilled and self-actualized and making a meaningful contribution.”

Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/
Helping+those+need+most/3133879/story.html#ixzz0v4JVx5cA

(Delivered by Prince Amyn Aga Khan
on behalf of His Highness the Aga Khan)

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Mr. Chairman, Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of the Aga Khan Development Network, I should like to join the previous speakers in expressing our gratitude and congratulations to the Government of Afghanistan for hosting this impressive gathering in Kabul. We welcome and support the Government’s efforts to bring about real change to the lives of the Afghan people, perceptible change, a tangible improvement in the quality of their daily existences.

The Aga Khan Development Network welcomes a strong continued support for the development of a stable, progressive and pluralistic Afghanistan. Pluralism-ethnic, linguistic, cultural and confessional- is critical for this country: mutual trust and respect amongst ethnic groups are essential if peace, stability and equitable development are to be achieved. In diversity lies strength.

It is also vital for local government and development actors to work closely with local communities to identify and to meet pressing needs. Low execution of the development budget must be a cause for concern. The Government’s ability fruitfully to absorb outside funding is dependent on the creation of Afghan-driven mechanisms to address security, justice and socio-economic growth. Not only should Community Councils be responsible for the stability of their respective communities, but communities themselves need to be engaged in the process of prioritization of programmes as well as in the delivery of those programmes.

Initiatives such as the National Solidarity Programme, which promotes the direct involvement of communities, has demonstrated tangible progress in improving the quality of life of the Afghan people, arousing their strong spirit and their entrepreneurial instincts. Results change minds, not rhetoric. We must avoid that there be to the Afghan citizen a visible gap between the promise of services and their actual delivery on the ground. The philosophy, the policy must be to under-promise and to over-deliver.

The Community Development Councils, which are elected by the communities themselves, are part of a civil society that must make an essential contribution to human development, to nation building and to ensuring that an insurmountable gap does not develop between Government on the one side and the business sector and private enterprise on the other. AKDN is of the view that investing in the institutions of civil society and in their capacity to deliver services deserves far greater priority, attention, support and resources than has hitherto been the case, even as investments in rebuilding the State’s institutions continue. Civil society institutions are best able to take into consideration, to reflect, specific provincial or local political situations and socio-economic needs and opportunities. They are well placed to ensure that progress is both public and transparent, that good governance is observed as the norm, just as they are the best tools for ensuring better impact and for hastening visible socio-economic development. There is need for a sub-national governance structure that is clear, efficient and transparent. There is no reason why planning or programming at the provincial or local level need either contradict or undermine central authority. On the contrary, bankable programmes need to be evolved and implemented that are synchronized with sub-national governance and policy and with the reintegration programme.

Afghans must take increasing responsibility for their affairs. In this regard, strengthening the police force and equipping it are vital if civil society is to function effectively and civilian order is to be ensured. It is my personal view that military withdrawal and meaningful reintegration can only take place when Afghanistan has a sufficient and sufficiently equipped police force.

In areas of the country which have remained relatively stable, we hear concern from the local residents that resources are increasingly being directed away from them towards the less secure parts of the country. We believe that ensuring equity of investment across the country is essential. The Afghan Constitution itself requires this. Accelerating development where conditions are most propitious creates beacons of success for the other parts of the country and can catalyse progress in those more challenging districts and provinces by showing that progress, stability and security are possible.

The Government should also give priority focus to creating an enabling environment for private sector development. The Enabling Environment Conference held in Kabul back in June 2007, co-hosted by the Government of Afghanistan, the AKDN, the World Bank, UNDP and ADB, defined a Roadmap of specific, practical actions for private sector and economic and social development, which Roadmap has, I believe, largely been adopted in the Afghan National Development Strategy.

The Roadmap was intended to provide a preliminary framework for engaging the private sector more in impact oriented and effective programmes and for providing concrete regulatory and other conditions to attract and support private investment. Due to constraints within the banking and land registration regulatory frameworks entrepreneurs still have difficulty accessing credit to enable them to transform from micro-enterprises into small and medium-sized enterprises, although it is generally acknowledged that the creation of a solid structure of SME’s underpins most healthy economies. We believe that implementing the priority issues identified in the Roadmap will accelerate existing and unleash new socio-economic growth and development in Afghanistan.

Another concept that our Network is coming to resort to more and more is what we call Multi-Input Area Development (MIAD). Our experience has illustrated to us that when we work simultaneously and synergistically on several fronts (economic, social and cultural), progress on one front spurs progress on the other fronts. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. An example has emerged from our work on restoration and reutilization of historic monuments: while undertaking the restoration work of, say, a monument or an historical building, one can create nearby a minor medical facility, launch educational programmes for adult education, literacy and early childhood education, undertake to improve the infrastructure around that monument, provide microfinance to the local citizens, help them maintain or upgrade their dwelling, and their shops, etc. Such MIADS repeated elsewhere by others, in urban areas as in rural areas, can play a part in overcoming long-standing problems and can have an immediate impact on the quality of life of the citizens benefitting from these MIADS, thus generating greater public confidence in the future and in the inputs which have generated positive change.

Afghanistan is recognised as a regional land bridge, east to west, north to south. However, few tangible projects as yet speak to the realisation of this regional potential. The AKDN, in partnership with the Governments of Afghanistan and Tajikistan and the provincial governments of the Badakhshans of the two countries, has taken a regional approach to health, education, tourism, trade, energy and infrastructure, which has begun to yield tangible improvements in the lives of the local communities. Surely connecting Kabul to China through Tajikistan should open new trade corridors and multiply social and economic fallout benefits for the communities of those areas and thereby for the country as a whole.

How can we link the poor to growth and growth to the poor? There needs to be a willingness to support small-scale and medium-level investments in the short term that may not immediately be considered financially sustainable by conventional measures, but which experience demonstrates are necessary to achieve medium to long-term returns and benefit.

It is our hope that the forthcoming parliamentary elections will be carried out in a climate of peace and with the security and supervisory agencies indeed satisfied that these elections can be carried out peacefully. It is of the utmost importance that in the post-election Afghanistan development should be stimulated and accelerated rather than delayed.

The Aga Khan Development Network remains committed to the stability and growth of this important country and its people and we strongly support a significant acceleration of socio-economic development process. We stand ready to do whatever we can with that objective.

Source: http://www.akdn.org/Content/1003/
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