Islamic faith-based development organizations in former Soviet Muslim environments: the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme in the Rasht valley, Tajikistan
2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 27; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/02634930802355113
ISSN1465-3354
Autores Tópico(s)Religion and Society Interactions
ResumoAbstract This article aims to examine the modus operandi of the Aga Khan Foundation and its Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP) in Tajikistan's Rasht valley. As one of the few non-governmental development programmes from the wider Islamic world in an area where the Sunni beneficiary base is of a different Islamic tradition than the Ismaili Shi'ite community the Foundation is connected with, the MSDSP gained importance and legitimacy as a rehabilitator and provider of public services and social infrastructure that were once provided by the state. The article pays particular attention to the ways of transcending the Sunni–Ismaili divide between aid providers and beneficiaries, as well as to more recent social changes which increasingly challenge the MSDSP's use of traditional local institutions for programme implementation. Keywords: faith-based aidAga khan FoundationMSDSPTajikistanthe Rasht valley Acknowledgements The author would like to thank all at MSDSP in Dushanbe and the Rasht valley for their kind cooperation, the Department of Third World Studies of Ghent University for funding the field work, Frederik Coene for drawing the map, as well as all those willing to share their views, impressions and comments. This article is dedicated to Albert Longy, who was ACTED's Programme Manager in Murgab and then UN Strategic Planning Advisor in Dushanbe before moving on to work in East Africa. He passed away in March 2008. Notes This article is based on a presentation by the author at the ULB–CECID conference, Asie centrale et caspienne: enjeux et perspectives, Centre d'Études de la Coopération Internationale et du Développement (CECID), Université Libre de Bruxelles, 22 May 2007. The interviews and discussions with programme staff, beneficiaries, non-involved local people, NGO leaders and local experts, as well as the field observations that are used for this article took place during a trip to Tajikistan in October 2006. More applied studies focusing on Islam done by donor organizations include Alterman et al. 2005 Alterman, J. B., Hunter, S. and Phillips, A. L. 2005. The idea and practice of philanthropy in the Muslim world, Washington, DC: USAID Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination. PPC Issue Paper No 5 [Google Scholar] and Linden et al. 2004 Linden, I., Jawara, F. and Pingle, V. 2004. Islam, DFID and poverty reduction, London: Department for International Development. [Google Scholar]. Interview with Azim Nanji, Director, Institute for Ismaili Studies, London, 14 March 2006. Interview with Olivier Roy at the Egmont Institute, Brussels, 13 February 2006. For a theoretic approach on the ambivalence of the religious factor, see Holenstein (2005 Holenstein, A. M. 2005. Les organismes donateurs gouvernementaux et les organisations confessionelles. Revue internationale de la Croix-rouge, 87(858): 367–373. [Google Scholar], pp. 367–373). For an extensive debate on Islam and society in Tajikistan, see Bitter et al. 2004 Bitter, J. N., Guèrin, F., Rakhmonova-Schwarz, D. and Seifert, A. C. 2004. Potsroyennie doveriya mezhdu islamistami i sekulyaristamy: Tadzhikskii eksperiment, Hamburg: Centre for OSCE Research and HEI-PSIO. [Google Scholar] and Muhammadnazar (2004 Muhammadnazar, S. I. 2004. "Rol i mesto religioznyh organizatsii v natsionalnom gosudarstve". In Podstroyennie doveriya mezhdu islamistami i sekulyaristamy: Tadzhikskii eksperiment, Edited by: Bitter, J. N. 184–202. Hamburg: Centre for OSCE Research and HEI-PSIO. [Google Scholar], pp. 184–202) in particular. In mid-1992, right after the end of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan lapsed into a civil war that left around 80,000 dead, made some 700,000 refugees or internally displaced (UNHCR and the Migration Policy Institute; see www.migrationinformation.org [accessed 9 November 2006]) and ruined the country's economy for years. Often represented as a struggle between a Soviet-Communist compradore elite who wanted to stay in power and Islamic fundamentalists in the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) who wanted to seize it, the reality was more complex and rooted in the social legacy of Soviet colonialism, a power struggle between micro-regional clans and proxy manipulation by outside actors. Although a peace and power-sharing agreement was signed between the regime in Dushanbe and the UTO in 1997, Tajikistan continued to be plagued by armed violence and coup attempts by renegade warlords from both sides until mid-2001. The Ismaili Shi'ites of Tajikistan number approximately 250,000 or less than 3% of the country's population. They primarily live in half a dozen valleys in Gorno Badakhshan (Darvaz and the town of Qala-i-Kum, Vanch, Bartang, the town of Khorog and the Gunt valley, Shugnan and Iskashim) and the capital Dushanbe, while there are Tajik Ismaili labour migrants in Moscow and Riga too. It is often thought that there was no economic initiative among farmers in the Soviet Union. In fact, there was. Most farmers were de facto salaried employees on state and collective farms and also benefited from markets guaranteed by the state, heavily subsidized basic commodities and social services. That created structural dependency and undermined the capacity of independent farming, which made farmers vulnerable after the fast disappearance of these social-economic securities. On the other hand, under the collective farm system, families could also cultivate small plots of private land and sell the produce in farmers' markets often as far as Russia and Belarus once that became possible in the late 1980s. This generated substantive supplementary income in Garm and other parts of the Rasht valley, for example. For detailed accounts of post-Soviet coping mechanisms in Tajikistan, see Harris (1998) Harris, C. 1998. Coping with daily life in post-Soviet Tajikistan: the Garmi villages of Khatlon Province. Central Asian Survey, 17(4): 655–671. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] and Herbers (2001) Herbers, H. 2001. Transformation in the Tajik Pamirs: Gorno Badakhshan, an example of successful restructuring?. Central Asian Survey, 20(3): 367–382. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]. Interview with Muhamadi Sharipov, MSDSP Regional Manager for the Rasht valley, Garm, 16 October 2006. Operating under the Aga Khan Agency for Micro-Finance since 2002, the First Micro-Finance Bank (FMFB) now operates in 15 countries. The FMFB was established in Tajikistan in 2003 and, according to AKDN information, provides 'various forms of credit and deposit services, (to be) broadened to include transfers, payment services, micro-insurance, low-income housing finance and micro-leasing'. The FMFB's main shareholders in Tajikistan are the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED), the International Finance Corporation (IFC, a World Bank subsidiary) and the KfW Development Bank, while management support and training are provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The FMFB currently has four branches in Tajikistan, including one in Garm town. As of mid-2006, its Micro-Loan Fund disbursed 1850 loans for a total value of US$637,000. It charges interest ranging from 10–16% (See 'The Aga Khan Agency for Micro-Finance' chapter, Aga Khan Development Network Portal at www.akdn.org/microfinance; and the 'Pressroom' chapter, International Finance Corporation website, www.ifc.org, both accessed 21 November 2006). The MSDSP is not the only community development programme in Tajikistan that involves communal civil society. The Swiss development cooperation DEZA-DDC, to name but one example, uses, or supports programmes with, similar community approaches in Muminabad in southern Tajikistan and in Murgab in Gorno Badakhshan. For a critical examination of the incorporation of Central Asian traditions into community development projects, see Earle (2005) Earle, L. 2005. Community development, 'tradition' and the civil society strengthening agenda in Central Asia. Central Asian Survey, 24(3): 245–260. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] and Freizer (2005 Freizer, S. 2005. Neo-liberal and communal civil society in tajikistan: merging or dividing in the post-war period?. Central Asian Survey, 24(3): 225–243. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], pp. 237–241). For more on the Ismaili in Tajikistan, see note 7. Ismailism is an eighth-century offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Today it is widely perceived to be a more 'worldly' and 'liberal' form of Islam. It is also a de-territorialized form of Islam in the sense that Ismaili form minorities everywhere they live, have no homeland or state and primarily identify their community with the person of their Imam, the Aga Khan. Ismaili form a diaspora in some 25 countries, with concentrations in Central Asia, the Middle East and East Africa. Estimates about the number of Ismaili in the world vary from 3 to 20 million, with the actual number likely in between. See Richard (1991) Richard, Y. 1991. Shi'ite Islam, Cambridge: Blackwell. [Google Scholar] and Daftary (1990 Daftary, F. 1990. The Ismailis: their history and doctrines, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. xv–xvi). The Aga Khan Development Network Portal outlines that 'the agencies of the AKDN are private, international, non-denominational, organizations' but that '… the purpose is to institutionalize and modernize a philanthropic tradition to realize the social conscience of Islam through institutional action. The mandate of the … agencies is to improve living conditions and opportunities, and to help relieve society of the burdens of ignorance, disease and deprivation' (AKDN Portal, 'The Imamate and the the Aga Khan Development Network', at: www.akdn.org/imamat, accessed 5 July 2006). Jonathan Benthall, presentation 'Islamic Charities and International Aid' and discussion with the speaker, ISIM Conference Islamic Charitable NGOs: Between Patronage and Empowerment, Utrecht University, 14 June 2007. Azim Nanji of the Institute for Ismaili Studies qualified the Aga Khan Foundation as 'faith-inspired rather than faith-based' (interview of 14 March 2006). Aga Khan Foundation (2004 Aga Khan Foundation. 2004. Annual report 2004, Geneva: Aga Khan Foundation. [Google Scholar], pp. 45 and 48) and telephone contact with the AKDN Information Office of 14 July 2006. Such connection between a social development and relief organization on the one hand, and a commercial-financial group on the other, is a characteristic of the AKDN but not limited to the AKDN only. Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, for example, began as a micro-credit provider – which it still is – but gradually expanded its activities to the extent that it is now a major player on the mobile communications market in Bangladesh. Informal discussion with local male inhabitants in their 30s in Garm, 19 October 2006. Similar opinions were noted in Darband on 17 October 2006. For similar observations and opinions in Afghanistan, see Donini (2008 Donini, A. 2008. Humanitarian agenda 2015: Afghanistan country study, Medford: Feinstein International Centre. [Google Scholar], p. 8). Until 2002, the Rasht valley was known as the Garm or the Karategin region. Note that some international organizations such as UNDP define the region as smaller, i.e. without the districts of Faizabad and Rogun. Focus Humanitarian Assistance is the autonomous relief arm of the Aga Khan Foundation. More specifically until the capture of the former UTO commander Mullo Abdullo around Darband in September 2000 and the killing of Rakhman 'Hitler' Sanginov in the same area in August 2001. Among the organizations who already worked in the area in the period 1997–1999 are the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, Médecins Sans Frontières (who closed its programme in 2003) and the Iranian semi-governmental charity Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation (although the latter keeps a low profile). The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) also has a field office in Garm. Interview with a local cadre of an international organization who requested anonymity, Garm, 16 October 2006. For a detailed district-wise overview, see the Tajikistan Disaster Vulnerability Map of 2002, UN Coordination Unit and Ministry of Emergencies of Tajikistan (2002), and Reliefweb, at: www.reliefweb.int. These figures apply to the region as it is defined by UNDP (that is only the districts of Garm, Jirgital, Nurabad, Tajikabad and Tavildara). Similar situations exist in other parts of Tajikistan. For more on the background of the 1997 peace and power-sharing agreement between the government and the UTO, see note 6. One of the agreement's terms was a 30% UTO share in government posts. However, this quota was never realized. Indeed, since then by far most former UTO personalities have, in one way or another, been pushed out of republican-level government functions. For a more in-depth overview and analysis of labour migration and its social impact in Tajikistan and Central Asia, see Olimova (2005) Olimova, S. 2005. Strategiya dlya razvitiya i prodovolstvennoi bezopasnosti v gornyh regionah Tsentralnoi Azii – Dokument No. 3: Vliyanie vneshnei migratsii na razvitie gornyh regionov: Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Dushanbe: InWent, Aga Khan Foundation and GTZ. [Google Scholar]. Spreadsheet print of the Garm branch of the State Migration Agency obtained through a member of staff of an international organization on 16 October 2006, as well as an interview with this respondent who wished to remain anonymous. Informal conversations with labour migrants who returned to Garm and Darband on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, 14 October 2006, and Olimova (2005 Olimova, S. 2005. Strategiya dlya razvitiya i prodovolstvennoi bezopasnosti v gornyh regionah Tsentralnoi Azii – Dokument No. 3: Vliyanie vneshnei migratsii na razvitie gornyh regionov: Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Dushanbe: InWent, Aga Khan Foundation and GTZ. [Google Scholar], p. 10). Another example of AKF expansion into non-Ismaili areas is Pakistan, where the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme and Focus Humanitarian Assistance work in Sunni areas such as South Chitral and Jaglot near Gilgit. For more on Ismaili-Sunni dynamics in Chitral, see Mardsen (2005) Mardsen, M. 2005. Living Islam: Muslim religious experience in Pakistan's North-West Frontier, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar] and Wood and Malik (2003 Wood, G. and Malik, A. 2003. Lessons in development: the AKRSP experience. Poverty and livelihoods, Islamabad: AKRSP, DFID and CIDA. [Google Scholar], pp. 8–9). Interview with Mirzo Gulamov, MSDSP Deputy General Manager, Dushanbe 13 October 2006 and MSDSP Project Statistics spreadsheet provided by Faisal Sharif, MSDSP EDU Coordinator, Dushanbe. According to the respondent, not more than 120 (26.5%) of the MSDSP's 452 employees in Tajikistan were of Ismaili origin at the time of research in late 2006. Interview with Faridun Hodizoda, Operational Coordinator, DEZA-DDC Tajikistan Dialogue Project, Dushanbe, 26 October 2006. A similar opinion was expressed by Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group when we discussed the expansion of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme to non-Ismaili communities in Pakistan (interview in Islamabad on 25 May 2006). Interviews with Mirzo Gulamov, MSDSP Deputy General Manager, Dushanbe, 13 October 2006, and with Hurinisso Gaffurzoda, Director, Centre for Civil Society Development, Matlyuba Rajabalieva, Director of the OSCE-supported Women's Resource Centre and Mustafo Mirzam, Lawyer and Chairman of the NGO Nihol, all in Garm on 16 October 2006. AKDN Press Release, 28 September 1998, www.akdn.org/news and discussion with Abdullo Rakhnamo Hakim, Institute for Strategic Research, Dushanbe, 14 October 2006. This factor was mentioned by Tariq Nasir, Project & Development Manager of the Islamic NGO Muslim Hands, when he was asked why so few Islamic development and relief organizations work in formerly Soviet Muslim contexts (interview in Nottingham, 19 January 2006). Interview with Faisal Sharif, MSDSP EDU Coordinator, Aga Khan Foundation, Dushanbe, 14 October 2006, and MSDSP project statistics spreadsheet provided by the respondent. Interviews on 18 and 19 October 2006 with VO Chairpersons Bahriddin Muhammad Zabirov and Qalambek Kaliev in Bagh-i-Zia hamlet, Garm district (the VO started in 2005, number of members 68), Abdurahim Sharopo in Tajikabad settlement, Tajikabad district (VO since 2002, number of members 23, which is a smaller mahalla or neighbourhood VO), Sultan Mahmad in Kapali village, Tajikabad district (his VO started in early 2003, number of members 250) and Satibaldy Rasulov in Sayran, Jirgital district (the VO started in early 2000, number of members 238). Interview with Mahmadkuja Ismailov, MSDSP Village Organization Coordinator for Tajikabad, Tajikabad, 18 October 2006. Interviews with Imam-Hatib Sharifo Haji Qurban, Garm, 20 October 2006 and with Abdurahim Sharopo in Tajikabad and Sultan Mahmad in Kapali (see note 35) on 18 and 19 October 2006. Interview with Muhamadi Sharipov, MSDSP Regional Manager for the Rasht Valley, Garm, 16 October 2006 and Mahmadkuja Ismailov, MSDSP Village Organization Coordinator, MSDSP Field Office Tajikabad, 18 October 2006. A similar view was expressed by Abdullo Rakhnamo Hakim, Institute for Strategic Research, Dushanbe, 14 October 2006. It is not clear to what extent the quoted figures for Tajikabad district are representative of the Rasht valley area in general, yet according to the respondents, migrant participation is stronger where the VOs are most active and established. Interview with Mahmadkuja Ismailov, MSDSP Village Organization Coordinator in Tajikabad (see note 36), and copy of the letter of the migrant worker made available for perusal by the respondent. Interview with Abdullo Rakhnamo Hakim, Institute for Strategic Research and Muhabat Pirnazarova, Director, Centre for Civil Society Support, Dushanbe, 14 October 2006. This was also confirmed by several VO respondents (see note 35). Interviews with Hurinisso Gaffurzoda, Director, Centre for Civil Society Development, Matlyuba Rajabalieva, Director of the OSCE-supported Women's Resource Centre and Mustafo Mirzam, lawyer and Chairman of the NGO Nihol, all in Garm on 16 October 2006. Figures provided by Ghulomsho Lutfaliev, MSDSP Community Development Programme Coordinator (conversation in Dushanbe on 25 October 2006 and email exchanges on 20 November and again 6 December 2006). Interview with Muhamadi Sharipov, MSDSP Regional Manager for the Rasht Valley, Garm, 16 October 2006, and Aga Khan Development Network Tajikistan (2003) Aga Khan Development Network Tajikistan. 2003. Programma podderzhki razvitya gornyh regionov (PPRGR-MSDSP): sel'skoe razvitie, Information Sheet, Dushanbe: AKDN. [Google Scholar]. Interview with Idrissa Kargbo, MSDSP Programme Manager for Community Development, Dushanbe, 25 October 2006. Interviews on 18 and 19 October 2006 with VO Chairpersons in Bagh-i-Zia hamlet, Garm district; Tajikabad settlement and Kapali village, Tajikabad district; and Sayran village, Jirgital district (see note 35); interviews with Muhamadi Sharipov, MSDSP Regional Manager for the Rasht Valley, Garm, 16 October 2006 and with Idrissa Kargbo, MSDSP Programme Manager for Community Development, Dushanbe, 25 October 2006. Indigo was founded in late 2001 by the US-based MCT Corporation and AKFED, which owns 51% of the company. Another shareholder is Telia Sonera. MCT Corporation is also involved with AKFED in Afghanistan.
Referência(s)