Human resource development is a process of love, care, humility and

unlimited belief in the creative potential of ordinary and average people.”

Dr. Quratulain Bakhteari

BRINGING HUMANITY INTO DEVELOPMENT: THE STORY OF IDSP

More than 60 percent of Pakistan’s population is between 15-35 years in age, and almost
80% of this huge majority is excluded from meaningful education and livelihood
processes and opportunities.

Frustrated with a lack of efficacy in internationally sponsored development projects, Dr.

Quratul Ain Bakhteari wrote a concept paper that became the blueprint for the research-
and practice-based Institute for Development Studies and Practices (IDSP). After
formulating the curriculum and recruiting and training faculty, she formally launched
IDSP in 1999 in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, Pakistan’s poorest, largest, yet least
populated province.

Including the excluded

IDSP’s mission statement
speaks for itself: “To create and
develop human resources that
will change the power structure
by demystifying the
development process and
establish sustainable
partnership with
communities.”

The organization’s purpose is to

reduce and eventually end the
exclusion of the majority of
young people from mainstream
education and livelihood
opportunities in the country,
especially those who have been
discarded, neglected, or
excluded from formal education systems. The Institute is people-centered, need-based,
and dedicated to providing just development in Pakistan; it is a place where
marginalized youth can come for deep reflection, studies, research and action. IDSP
achieves its purpose by providing learning opportunities to under-privileged youth who
are directly or indirectly denied their right to earn a livelihood.

After attending a two-year course, including residency at the Institute, the young men
and women students design and implement innovative programs on education policy
and planning, gender mainstreaming, participatory poverty assessment, girl child
nutrition, and numerous advisory services. Government and development agencies
have adopted many of these programs for implementation throughout the country.

In last fourteen years, IDSP has graduated

6,000 learners, and each graduate has
impacted more than 2,000 people from their
families, communities and districts, while total
learners impacted more than 120,000,000
individuals across the country. A good number
of learners have established their own social
organizations or generated rights based
movements across the country.

As of 2013, 1,200 graduates from six 6 different

types of practice-based courses are directly or
indirectly impacting the lives and livelihoods of
approximately one million people in Pakistan.
Twelve IDSP Senior Fellows (six of whom are
women), who had no prior education or
Quratul Ain talks with elders experience in development, have designed,
implemented and managed development
projects ranging in size from $30,000 to $1.3 million. And early 100 graduates have
been selected through competitive processes for key national and international
positions.

IDSP’s recent third party evaluation’s analysis concludes that 90 percent of total IDSP
graduates are engaged in livelihood activities with dignity and meaningfulness. Read
Impact Study

What IDSP teaches

IDSP is built on the belief that development interventions need to be brought to the
same level of the people participating in the programs. Development needs build off
what exists on the ground, in the government, and in the NGOs. At the same time, the
people need knowledge and skills to channel their energy and talents. IDSP focuses on:
 Applying and synthesizing research
 Advocacy on social and educational issues
 Innovations in the field of Learning and Livelihood Development
 Developing linkages with like-minded, local, national, and international
organizations

To create talented development workers at the village, district, provincial, and national
levels, IDSP provides a platform from which potential local activists can build their skills
and channel their energies toward progress and development. The development
philosophy behind this platform is reflected in IDSP’s curriculum:
  Theoretical framework in community organization and philosophy of social
change and development.
 Technical skill building in communications, English, computers, management,
planning, monitoring and evaluation.
 Character building, emphasizing honesty, integrity (refusal to compromise on
important issues), humility, ego control, inquisitiveness, listening, patience and
perseverance, fighting spirit, and constructive male-female working
relationships.
 Credible field work experience, whereby students are attached to NGOs,
community based organization, district councils or local government offices,
where they are responsible for implementing a project. The students work with
the agency but keep in close weekly contact with the Institute. Progress towards
the graduation credential is conditioned on success of the project or on analysis
of why the project failed. Teaching staff work closely with students on their
projects and assist with documentation, seminars and presentations.

IDSP’S University of Community Development is the natural evolution of IDSP’s

fourteen years of practices, experiences, lessons, evaluations, research and studies. The
University offers theory and practice/research-based courses to create a rich human
resource of social and intellectual entrepreneurs. These courses are knitted into a
conceptual framework that starts from self to family, community and finally the world.
IDSP believes that if positively utilized, the rich youth human resource has the potential
to steer the country’s destiny towards, peace, prosperity, development and democracy.

IDSP has also expanded regionally and

created a Trust for Development Studies
and Practices, with its headquarters in
Karachi.

What we can learn from IDSP?

IDSP evaluated its first four years of

experiences in a retreat in June 2004. At
the retreat, IDSP adopted the following
core values and principles for its future
journey.
An IDSP Children's Day Celebration
 IDSP facilitates conceptual growth
and nurtures learning beyond the mechanical and technological tools of
development. Its curriculum will be reflective of culture, values and traditions
and sensitive to cultural, gender, religious and ethnic diversities.
 IDSP is an open learning space, which believes that every human being is equal
and has the potential to create, develop, produce, generate, vitalize and revitalize
processes, thoughts and actions based on humility, humanism, trust, justice,
truth, self and mutual accountability and transparency.
 IDSP believes that regeneration of the spirit of culture and religion are part and
parcel of human development; it generates resilience, nurtures spirituality and
revives the essence of human interaction based on collectiveness, creativity and
freedom.
 IDSP believes that the dominant development notions ignore, deviate from and
do not acknowledge the richness of people’s knowledge, wisdom and creativity;
therefore, it is imperative to relearn, regenerate, regain, and reclaim the
indigenous values, practices, processes and repressed knowledge based on local
wisdom and knowledge.
 IDSP denies the colonial logic of dominant development practices of modernity
and education and therefore redefines the development context and perspective
using a blend of theory and practice as a means.
 IDSP believes that self-growth and global understanding are two sides of the
same coin and, therefore, understanding oneself and the world will lead to
countering injustice, inequality, tyranny, oppression, exploitation, repression,
and racism at the individual, family, community, and global levels.

IDSP medical camp for flood victims

 Human resource development is a process of love, care, humility and
unlimited belief in the creative potential of ordinary and average people.”
Dr. Quratulain Bakhteari

BRINGING HUMANITY INTO DEVELOPMENT: THE STORY OF IDSP

More than 60 percent of Pakistan’s population is between 15-35 years in age, and almost
80% of this huge majority is excluded from meaningful education and livelihood
processes and opportunities.

Frustrated with a lack of efficacy in internationally sponsored development projects, Dr.

Quratul Ain Bakhteari wrote a concept paper that became the blueprint for the research-
and practice-based Institute for Development Studies and Practices (IDSP). After
formulating the curriculum and recruiting and training faculty, she formally launched
IDSP in 1999 in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, Pakistan’s poorest, largest, yet least
populated province.

Including the excluded

IDSP’s mission statement
speaks for itself: “To create and
develop human resources that
will change the power structure
by demystifying the
development process and
establish sustainable
partnership with
communities.”

The organization’s purpose is to

reduce and eventually end the
exclusion of the majority of
young people from mainstream
education and livelihood
opportunities in the country,
especially those who have been
discarded, neglected, or
excluded from formal education systems. The Institute is people-centered, need-based,
and dedicated to providing just development in Pakistan; it is a place where
marginalized youth can come for deep reflection, studies, research and action. IDSP
achieves its purpose by providing learning opportunities to under-privileged youth who
are directly or indirectly denied their right to earn a livelihood.

After attending a two-year course, including residency at the Institute, the young men
and women students design and implement innovative programs on education policy
 and planning, gender mainstreaming, participatory poverty assessment, girl child
nutrition, and numerous advisory services. Government and development agencies
have adopted many of these programs for implementation throughout the country.

In last fourteen years, IDSP has graduated

6,000 learners, and each graduate has
impacted more than 2,000 people from their
families, communities and districts, while total
learners impacted more than 120,000,000
individuals across the country. A good number
of learners have established their own social
organizations or generated rights based
movements across the country.

As of 2013, 1,200 graduates from six 6 different

types of practice-based courses are directly or
indirectly impacting the lives and livelihoods of
approximately one million people in Pakistan.
Twelve IDSP Senior Fellows (six of whom are
women), who had no prior education or
Quratul Ain talks with elders experience in development, have designed,
implemented and managed development projects ranging in
size from $30,000 to $1.3 million. And early 100 graduates have been selected through
competitive processes for key national and international positions.

IDSP’s recent third party evaluation’s analysis concludes that 90 percent of total IDSP
graduates are engaged in livelihood activities with dignity and meaningfulness. Read
Impact Study

What IDSP teaches

IDSP is built on the belief that development interventions need to be brought to the
same level of the people participating in the programs. Development needs build off
what exists on the ground, in the government, and in the NGOs. At the same time, the
people need knowledge and skills to channel their energy and talents. IDSP focuses on:
 Applying and synthesizing research
 Advocacy on social and educational issues
 Innovations in the field of Learning and Livelihood Development
 Developing linkages with like-minded, local, national, and international
organizations

To create talented development workers at the village, district, provincial, and national
levels, IDSP provides a platform from which potential local activists can build their skills
and channel their energies toward progress and development. The development
philosophy behind this platform is reflected in IDSP’s curriculum:
  Theoretical framework in community organization and philosophy of social
change and development.
 Technical skill building in communications, English, computers, management,
planning, monitoring and evaluation.
 Character building, emphasizing honesty, integrity (refusal to compromise on
important issues), humility, ego control, inquisitiveness, listening, patience and
perseverance, fighting spirit, and constructive male-female working
relationships.
 Credible field work experience, whereby students are attached to NGOs,
community based organization, district councils or local government offices,
where they are responsible for implementing a project. The students work with
the agency but keep in close weekly contact with the Institute. Progress towards
the graduation credential is conditioned on success of the project or on analysis
of why the project failed. Teaching staff work closely with students on their
projects and assist with documentation, seminars and presentations.

IDSP’S University of Community Development is the natural evolution of IDSP’s

fourteen years of practices, experiences, lessons, evaluations, research and studies. The
University offers theory and practice/research-based courses to create a rich human
resource of social and intellectual entrepreneurs. These courses are knitted into a
conceptual framework that starts from self to family, community and finally the world.
IDSP believes that if positively utilized, the rich youth human resource has the potential
to steer the country’s destiny towards, peace, prosperity, development and democracy.

IDSP has also expanded regionally and

created a Trust for Development Studies
and Practices, with its headquarters in
Karachi.

What we can learn from IDSP?

IDSP evaluated its first four years of

experiences in a retreat in June 2004. At
the retreat, IDSP adopted the following
core values and principles for its future
journey.
An IDSP Children's Day Celebration
 IDSP facilitates conceptual growth
and nurtures learning beyond the mechanical and technological tools of
development. Its curriculum will be reflective of culture, values and traditions
and sensitive to cultural, gender, religious and ethnic diversities.
 IDSP is an open learning space, which believes that every human being is equal
and has the potential to create, develop, produce, generate, vitalize and revitalize
processes, thoughts and actions based on humility, humanism, trust, justice,
truth, self and mutual accountability and transparency.
  IDSP believes that regeneration of the spirit of culture and religion are part and
parcel of human development; it generates resilience, nurtures spirituality and
revives the essence of human interaction based on collectiveness, creativity and
freedom.
 IDSP believes that the dominant development notions ignore, deviate from and
do not acknowledge the richness of people’s knowledge, wisdom and creativity;
therefore, it is imperative to relearn, regenerate, regain, and reclaim the
indigenous values, practices, processes and repressed knowledge based on local
wisdom and knowledge.
 IDSP denies the colonial logic of dominant development practices of modernity
and education and therefore redefines the development context and perspective
using a blend of theory and practice as a means.
 IDSP believes that self-growth and global understanding are two sides of the
same coin and, therefore, understanding oneself and the world will lead to
countering injustice, inequality, tyranny, oppression, exploitation, repression,
and racism at the individual, family, community, and global levels.

IDSP medical camp for flood victims