Nobel laureate Prof. Yunus wrote about Akhter Hameed Khan (AHK) when he passed away in 1999 “He was one of the great men of the last century. Much ahead of his time. We have a lot to learn from him”. AHK used to advocate Raiffeisen’s (Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen 1885, a famous German cooperative pioneer) principles of community driven development namely, Organisation, Capital Generation and unleashing potential of the subsistence holders. AHK initially demonstrated the efficacy of these principles through his internationally renowned Comilla Project in the then East Pakistan now Bangladesh in the sixties of the last century. These principles subsequently inspired the Aga Khan Foundation to initiate Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in Pakistan and was adopted by the South Asia Independent Commission on Poverty Alleviation resulting in launching of the UNDP funded South Asia Poverty Alleviation Programme in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan under the guidance of Mr. Shoaib Sultan Khan. In India, an organization; “Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty” (SERP) was established leading to initiation of one of the largest programme of poverty reduction, according to World Bank, in 2011 called National Rural Livelihoods Mission impacting the livelihood of 300 million rural poor of India.

In Pakistan AKRSP was replicated through eight Rural Support Programmes across the country. The largest being the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) which created Institute of Rural Management in 2000 as the training arm of all the RSPs and other organisations. The RSP now have an outreach of over 8 million rural households.

The IRM provides an invaluable knowledge asset to those participating in its programmes, which are singularly aimed at improving the human resource capital of the individuals and communities. The Institute’s approach is focused on enabling young people to acquire new learning knowledge and technical skills and encouraging them to take advantage of the economic opportunities.

Registered under Section 42 of the repealed Companies Ordinance 1984 (now Companies Act 2017), Institute of Rural Management is the foremost training facility in the not-for-profit sector in Asia, conducting up to 500 different types of training with a turnout of around 15,000 participants per year.  Over the last two decades, IRM has been directly responsible for building the capacities of the thousands of marginalized rural youth in 20 countries and facilitated them in getting gainful employment.