VIRTUAL RSP

Many people who are familiar with the work of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP), will know that one of the goals of its founder, His Highness the Aga Khan, was to create a replicable model of rural and community development. This is now a reality: there are at least 12 RSPs in Pakistan modeled on the first RSP created in Gilgit, which are further organized into an active network http://www.rspsn.org/ and another 12 exist globally. In addition, this replication is evident in many other forms, such as concepts (social mobilization), projects (community based infrastructure), products (micro finance), effective aid delivery (PPAF), community based institutions (VOs, COs, WO, and LSOs and their networks).

When AKRSP was created about 25 years ago, we literally lived in a closed world, particularly in the remote northern parts of Pakistan, such as Gilgit-BAltistan and Chitral (GBC). And in the rest of the world too, the internet did not exist, mobile phone was not yet invented, and the twitter remained a domain limited to birds only.

Today, a large particle collider near Geneva, is able to accelerate electrons near the speed of light and smash them together to create even smaller particles. Why? Because, among many other ideas the scientists are testing, the quest is to confirm existence of a particle called Gibbs Bosson, a subatomic particle presumed to lend physicality to an otherwise virtual existence! What? Yes matter and all physical existence, including ourselves, may be an illusion and just a tiny part of a much larger reality, which is all virtual! Muslim theosophers have called this state la zamaan and la makaan, meaning beyond time-space! Others have also also recognized this form of metaphysial reality, but somehow it was considered as outside of our reality.

Today, imagination and technologies are converging to a point where the line between physical and virtual existence is increasingly becoming blured. This is not the advent of a new era of spirituality in a traditional sense (as many people, including my own father seem to assume), and if we approach the emerging reality on that assumption, we risk excluding ourselves from this unfolding knowledge revolution. What is even more interesting is that we are now experiencing this new reality in our daily lives. There are many things happening in technologically more advanced societies, from waging real wars (drone operators) to creating value and wealth, without ever facing the adversaries or handling a product, but even in the remote villages of GBC, people are beginning to communicate and transact business over mobile phones, access resources and information on the web, such as finding job opportunities, attending on-line courses, getting university admissions, applying for scholarships, etc.

There is now a new initiative called E-mandi, between Telenor, AKRSP and 20 LSOs that is building the basic blocks of an virtual platform for trading agricultural commodities and services, much like the KArachi Cotton Exchange, but at a micro scale and online. The E-paisa service of Telenor and Tamir BAnk is already in the market, and global trends in technology and business development indicate that much of trade and commerce will shift to hand held devices in the next few years. This means a young person can choose to live in Madakhlasht, Chitral, but work for AKF office in Toronto, CAnada, or a heart specialist at AKU, supervise a complex surgery in Gilgit, or an IT company in Khuplu negitiate a contract with Google HQ to digitize local cultural resources for its Tag the Earth project. These possibilities and transactions are becoming as real as anything but carried out in a virtual world or cyber space.

Just as this emerging virtual world offers new opportunities for individuals, businesses and communities, it creates new possibilities and new ways of providing development support to organizations like AKRSP, other RSPs and local CSOs, including LSOs. The idea of a virtual RSP, which is what the theme of this blog is to engage with all our partners for transacting the business of development at a much bigger scale, in a virtual but user friendly manner, and for wider participation and ownership.

The virtual RSP will act like a real hub for all stakeholders, for providing services, for using those services, for sharing ideas and creating new projects, products and services, for outsourcing and crowd sourcing, for leveraging and accessing resources, knowledge and services from larger systems. For instance, the virtual RSP will make it possible for former AKRSP professionals and staff of all RSPs to contribute ideas, work on assignments and provide consulting or training services, without leaving their present workplaces or homes. The virtual RSP will also promote large cadres of knowledge workers or resources persons in GBC region, who will be contracted for a variety of relevant services. For instance, young people with a given educational level will be invited to bid for micro projects, such as conducting socioeconomic surveys in their village, documenting bio-diversity and cultural heritage, conducting polls and collecting voices of people on public interest issues, etc. After assessing the bids, the top ten proposals in every theme or subject will be selected and funded as micro contracts. These contracts will have to be very very low cost by necessity but greater in numbers, so that a critical mass effect can be created. If the average cost of the micro contract is Rs 10,000 and if each contract engages 10 individuals for a week or more per month, it will benefit 5,000 people each month, and 60,000 people per annum.

Although the details will be worked out in a few months time and the program can be ready for roll out by September this year, the idea is to create Knowledge Bases on every village in GBC, engaging local talent, and involving LSOs as the implementing partners. The contracts will be very simple, with TORs, deliverables and contract obligations written on one page. All bids will be on-line and their management will be decentralized to LSO level after one year.

Interface with public sector and other support agencies will be an important part of this program. For instance, AKRSP will design a project and activities in agriculture sector in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, and it may include things like survey of landholdings, data on main crops, productivity benchmarks, data on local consumption and income from agricultural marketing. This will extablish a baseline and the next project will be designed to increase productivity, use of technology, profitability, etc.

Once a uniform project is designed for outsourcing to village based knowledge workers, it will be posted on the web, together with guidelines and technical resources on how to go about doing this research. If prior training is required to undertake a specific task, that too will be put out as a micro contract, and gradually data directories and secondary markets will emerge on training resources. This kind of joint programming and outsourcing can be done potentially with all public sector agencies and private support organizations in every sector. Imagine a decentralized micro contract from NCHD, inviting Knowledge Workers in a village to increase literacy rate in that village, from 50% to 70% in one year for Rs. 50,000 plus initial training and materials!

The program will also solicit creative ideas from young knowldge workers themselves. For instance, participants will be challenged to come up ideas to lower school drop out rate in their village; increase finanace assets through savings and micro equity funds, and develop projects to reduce gender discrimination, create public awreness about childrens rights, etc.

What this programme will deliver is a number of closely related outcomes: immediate and productive short-term employment and future employability for youth through hands on training; increasing the outreach of support agencies for knowledge and technology transfer; creating local knowledge bases for micro planning by communities and local officials; increasing the use of ICT in local economy and much more.

The differene between current AKRSP and virtual RSP that we want to create is that stakeholders, particularly the young generation of GBC, must have a greater say in designing various projects and programs and for their delivery.

This blog is therefore an attempt to get your input and ideas, so that we can refine this idea.