About Book

The Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) was established by the renowned Pakistani social scientist Akhtar Hameed Khan in the informal settlement of Orangi, Karachi, in 1980. The objective of the Project was to build models of participatory development that could overcome the problems faced by conventional development programmes in dealing with informal settlements and poverty related issues. Among other things, the Project worked at establishing producer and consumer cooperatives. These attempts slowly evolved into a Micro-credit programme, the first of its kind in Pakistan. Although this programme was originally limited to Orangi, through the OPP

About Author

Arif Hasan is an architect and planner, activist, teacher, researcher and the author of a large number of books, research papers and monographs on urban development issues. He was the Principal Consultant to the Orangi Pilot Project-Research and Training Institute from 1981 to 2017. He is also founder Chairperson of the Urban Resource Centre, Karachi and a founding member of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Bangkok. All these projects are being replicated in a number of cities worldwide and have received international recognition. He has also taught at Pakistani and European universities, lectured worldwide, been a member of various UN committees, and his activism has led to the modification of a number of projects and policies in favour of low income communities. He has received a number of national and international awards for his work and writings including the Hilal-e-Imtiaz and the UN Year for the Shelterless Memorial Award. Mansoor Raza has 28 years of experience in Research and Development and Community Relations. He is a visiting Professor at NED. He was a Senior Member of Arif Hasan's Team for an IIED project in 2016. He worked at the Urban Resource Center in Karachi. He is also a Short Story writer.