AGM and BoD members of MASO finalised
by: Zulfiqar Ali Khan
Hunza, June 12: The Annual General Members and Board of Directors of the newly established local support organisation, Mountain Area Support organisation (MASO) have been finalised during a meeting held at Ismaili Local Councl Gulmit. The AGM is comprised of 2 persons from each village/women organisation (V/WOs) from Shishkat, Gulmit, Ghulkin, Hussaini, Borith and Passu.
The newly selected BoD members includes Abdul Rashid (Passu VO), Chairman, Dur Bibi (Gulmit WO) Vice Chairperson, Shah Jahan (Gulmit VO), General Secretary, Aman Karim (VO Hussaini), Finance Secretary, Malika Begum (WO Shishkat), Information Secretary, Dad Ali Shah (Kamaris VO), Director, Sifat uddin (Ghulkin VO), Director, Sahib Khan (Shishkat VO), Director, Zahida Akhtar (Borith), Director, Shamshad (Shishkat WO), Director, Najeeb Sultana (Passu WO), Director, Lola Begum (Ghulkin WO), Director, and Sitara Paree (Odver WO), Director. The BoD members have been selected for one year time period.
AKRSP will assist the BoD in registration and planning processes and establishing office. According to Rahim Khan, President Ismaili Local Council, Gulmit , initially membership has been given to V/WOs, however, later on other local development organisations will also be offered membership.
Many many congratulations to the newly selected members and I hope that you won’t leave even a single stone unturned in the betterment of the people of the region.
My best wishes for your future tasks and hopefully will bring about many changes by putting ur untiring efforts.
Best wishes from Lahore
Aslam Ghalib
Lahore
Dear zulfiqar
you have done a great job through developing this web site, which is serving as a effective tool to be update regarding the developmetns taking place in NAs.
you are well aware that PMAC has started its activites very recetnly and u have aslo gave space to International Biodiversity day on pamirtimes.com, on May 22 2008. we will provide information about our activites in the comming days. i am optemestic that you will aslo give spaceof our activites on your site for the information of the masses.
with warmest regards
Muhammad Karim Tahir
Education and Awareness Officer
Programme for Mountain Areas Conservation (PMAC)
Northern Areas,
Giligt
MASO is a good step but I wonder about its effectiveness, because of its limited scope.
Why has MASO been focused on only a few village of Gojal? What about rest of the valley? Would this step not further widen the divide of Upper and Lower Gojal? Is that something we can afford at this point in time?
Noor
As far as I understand, AKRSP is forming Local Support Organizatinos while combining together VOs/WOs of different villages. and if i am not wrong a local support organization at upper Gojal level including village organizations of many villages like Soust, Morkhun, Khudabad etc. has already been established and is functional.
I don not think it will widen the gap, rather it combines many VOs to form an organization that can work more efficiently.
Aziz
Dear Noor,
Concerning other part of Gojal ,LSOs have beed formed Chupursan and Gojal II.
LSO is an institutional mechanism for formalising and professionalizing the bottom up approach of development in the NAC. A formal definition of an LSO would be as follows:
An LSO is a flexible intermediary organization between AKRSP as well as other prominent development support systems and grassroots development institutions, including V/WOs and other village-based institutions.
The following are the selection criteria for LSO/ providing support. This criterion has been developed by the Regional Management Team with consensus keeping in view the ground realities observed during visits to the LSOs of the Gilgit region.
LSO Selection Criteria for Partnership/ Providing Support
Categories and Criterion
• VOs /WOs coverage in the LSO¬ should be more than 75% which should not be less than 30 V/WOs
• Population coverage should be At least 85% of the total population of the locality which should not be less than 8000
• Constitutional boundary of the LSO should be At least at Union Council level
• Geographical boundary of the LSO should be Segregated geographic unit/water shed
The LSO should meet at least three above stated criterion.
1. Registration of the LSO At least 75% representation from V/WOs and maximum 25% from other institutions in the General body as well as in the BoD and executive body
2. Governance system of the LSO 50% representation from WOs in the BoD and executive body is mandatory
3. Household coverage in VOs forming the LSO should be more than 80%
4. Household coverage in WOs forming the LSO shall be 80%
5. Self-initiated projects by the LSO shall be at least two projects
6. Projects implemented by the LSOs in partnership with agencies other than AKRSP 100% coverage required
7. The poorest household coverage in VOs/WOs forming the LSO shall be more than 80%
8. Recovery of AKRSP loans by the VOs/WOs forming the LSO shall be more than 80%
9. Should be no Conflicts among various groups.
10. Average savings per VO/WO Rs. 50,000 per VO/WO (Will be an additional benefit)
In upper Gojal a LSO “Gojal Rural Support Organization” has already been established and starts’ functioning with the support of AKRSP, one of the important criteria is there should be no conflicts among various groups. For this, selection of members and management staff should be on merit and AKRSP will help them in hiring of LSO management staff.
Arshad Aly Sakhi
Agribusiness Analyst
AKRSP, Gilgit