Spotlights: Building Accountable Village Institutions

Governance is an integral part of the broad development projects of the Aga Khan Development Network agencies. In Antisohihy, Madagascar, AKDN has conducted training courses to help villagers work together to improve food production.
Photo: AKF/Alain LitsIdentifying leaders, and improving the quality of the leadership, has been an important part of the work of the Aga Khan Foundation. Ultimately, the quality of governance is closely linked to the quality of elected leadership. Therefore, the Foundation works to groom leaders who are part of the village organisation. Over time, leaders who have been elected through the participatory process have gone on to become planners, coordinators and elected representatives of their districts.

“In recent local elections, many of the leaders of these village-based organisations sought and achieved elected positions. The lesson here is that democracy can work even in the most remote rural areas, which is where much of our vital work is concentrated, if one is patient and works to build up indigenous capacity.”
His Highness the Aga Khan speaking on AKDN’s experience in Pakistan at the Annual Conference of German Ambassadors, Berlin, Germany, 6 September 2004Others have led the formation of federations of village organisations - a further step in giving rural communities a greater voice in their development. These federations not only represent their stakeholders’ concerns to the local government, but they actively work with the government on the implementation of government poverty alleviation programmes. They also use their social network to bring best practices into wider use and raise awareness of other issues, such as water resource management and nutrition.

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Civil Society

2008-2009 Brochure (2008)
Language: English
Size: 5 MB