These lessons are gleaned from Shahid Khan, someone who has worked in human development and sustainability for many years in lots of different contexts.  His work is especially revealing in terms of the subtleties and structural understandings which need to be acted on in order for collective challenges to be met like climate breakdown.  Many of the answers which the world needs are to be found in the Global South in the ancient tried and tested means of, for example, creating ice in deserts.

 

This article is based on a transcript of an interview which he gave in Edinburgh which the readers can listen to below.  Everything included in the grey boxes are documents and videos which are referred to by Shahid in his interview or information sources which help the reader learn more. This article is designed as a learning artifact to support active learners develop their knowledge and practices in terms of sustainability.

 

The reader can listen and also choose to pick up on the points Shahid makes in the text; the active learner should also make their own notes of those things they find useful in these shared lessons, going on to find and annotate their own expression of the knowledge with the resources they reason are most useful.

 

 

 

 

Shahid Khan: Please. Okay, so let me give you a little history about myself. I studied in school in Karachi, and then I came to the UK to study architecture. I went to a School of Environmental Studies. I was very interested in the whole concept of environment, taken as a holistic term—not only the built environment but the natural environment too. The two are really part and parcel of how human beings live, or can live, and should live. I lived here in the UK, in Scotland, for 27 years and left in 1990.

 

 

I went back to Pakistan for two reasons. One was that the recession had been pretty heavy in the late ’80s, and our architectural practice in Talcourt was almost closed because we just weren’t getting any work, and we were owed so much money by various people. So I decided to take a break and returned to Pakistan to start my practice there. While traveling in the country, I discovered that there was more poverty than I realized or had given myself an opportunity to observe.

 

By the way, prior to that, I worked for the British government in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, focusing on rural development. That was where my interest in rural development began. The program was for three years, and then in Pakistan, I established an NGO called Inder Trust in the year 2000. From the very beginning, I had experience in a certain aspect of rural development from the donor side, as I was working for the British government at that time. I realized that a piecemeal approach to alleviating poverty will never truly alleviate it. It will continue indefinitely.

 

 

The only person who can step outside the poverty ladder is the individual themselves. What they need is direction because, in Pakistan, many people are uneducated and need a step up. They require initial support to allow them to start a business. We are currently working with 1,250 individuals, helping them with what we call livelihood options. They are now all earning substantial amounts of money; many were really on the brink of begging, but now they are earning their own income, building their own houses, and sending their children to private schools.

 

I think I sent you an email with a video of one lady who has really broken the poverty cycle for herself. I visit her from time to time, and her family is doing very well. My approach has been from the very beginning what I call integrated development. I look at my life: I have a house, electricity, water, and a road that leads to my home. I have a community I live in, with trees—most of them planted by myself. I have access to healthcare when needed, as well as schools and universities for people in the area.

 

In other words, integrated development means that you must provide all of this to one person, and only then will that individual be able to move out of the poverty cycle. When you go into the villages in Pakistan, the first thing that strikes you is the type of houses they live in, which are mostly made of straw or mud. When you look inside, you see they have very few basic facilities. Women and girls walk miles to collect water and gather firewood for cooking.

 

These are basic needs. There’s no electricity, so at night, they walk around with kerosene lanterns, which are very dangerous. If they fall over, they’ve caused fires that have killed many people. Plus, kerosene gives off an unpleasant smell and affects your lungs over time. All of these issues have been part and parcel of our approach, and it has taken almost 14 years to get to a point where some people are beginning to listen to this perspective.

 

I have been keen to promote this to the World Bank, and I’ve done that. I made three presentations to them over the last year, starting from September to now. But really, it’s not just about convincing donors; it’s about convincing all of us why we need to start thinking about development. Why are we interested in development? What is the point? Why not just carry on with your life and leave the rest to figure things out for themselves?

 

There are two reasons I am doing this, and I admit they are somewhat selfish. First, I believe that inequality is one of the greatest dangers to our communities at this moment in time. The rich are getting richer while the poor are becoming poorer, and the gap is widening. Secondly, I believe that if we provide the lower strata—though I can’t think of a better term—with the facilities to improve their standard of living, it doesn’t mean just buying a fridge or a TV. We’re not at that stage yet; rather, we are talking about health, ensuring that at least they get three meals a day for proper nutrition. It’s crucial that children, especially young ones, are breastfed, not influenced by advertisements that promote powdered milk.

 

 

 

 

Alex Dunedin: Is there heavy advertising from companies promoting powdered milk?

 

Shahid Khan: Oh, yes, very much so. I could go on about this. For example, there’s been advertising for hybrid seeds for farmers. Once you get caught in that trap, you’re forever in it. If you buy a sack of seeds from a shop but can’t afford the full price, you might agree to give them 30% or 50% of your produce. So, when you harvest your rice, you have to pay back half of it. But because you’ve only produced 50%, not 100%, you rely on them for your next sack of hybrid seeds, creating a continuous cycle of dependence.

 

 

 

 

This debt system is very prevalent in Pakistan. It’s not just limited to Pakistan; it spans the entire world. There’s literature discussing how the United States ensures that certain third-world countries remain in debt. They use that debt to maintain control. I can’t recall the specific book at this moment, but it discusses how countries remain indebted. This situation is also seen in India, where farmers are in a similar cycle of debt.

 

 

 

 

To address your question about powdered milk, there are two reasons why it persists: first, it can be preserved for a long time, and second, keeping fresh milk cool is a challenge due to the lack of refrigeration. During the summer, temperatures in Pakistan can range from 30 to 45 degrees Celsius. Maintaining cool temperatures is a formidable task, and options like Hessian sacks soaked in water are often used, but it can only be maintained for about a day or two at best.

 

Currently, Pakistan is experiencing a heatwave, and almost a thousand people have died due to the heat and drought conditions. These climate change issues are becoming more prevalent. As a result, the poor are always caught in a cycle of figuring out how to manage their resources cost-effectively. Going back to the milk example, we proposed that we could provide a family with goats for livestock and beekeeping so that as the goats produced milk, they could retain one while selling the rest, thus helping the family cope with their nutritional needs and improve their circumstances.

 

The idea was that breastfeeding would help stop the stunting of young children, particularly during their first year when stunting develops in that part of the world. However, we weren’t successful in getting that particular proposal accepted. I thought it was a good proposal, but that’s the way it goes; sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you don’t.

 

Having conducted this type of research on integrated development, we determined that the first thing we should provide is clean drinking water because it alleviates many health issues, especially among children. This is where we started: by providing basic facilities for clean drinking water. The second item on our list was lighting—providing light at night so that people could do their chores in the evening rather than in the heat of the day. This would allow them to read and generally increase their income by making crafts or other goods.

 

Now, if you can imagine, Alex, living in a village where your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had never seen light at night, only candles or kerosene. Then suddenly, you are given a solar-powered light. Can you imagine the psychological effect that would have on you? I’ve tried to put myself in that position and concluded that one thing that would have changed my perspective entirely would have been the ability to see at night. It would mean being able to go to the toilet with a lantern instead of fumbling around in the dark; the toilets are built outside the houses.

 

All of those advancements would have given me a lot of hope. We have electrified quite a few villages; I have my brochures that I can give you a copy of later, which include the statistics. The second most important focus was sanitation. Defecating in the open leads to various diseases and pollutes the soil, which then enters the streams. We began building pit latrines, but over the last three years, we have concentrated on livelihoods. Livelihood support means ascertaining the needs of individuals; about 70% of them are women, who are often more reliable and hardworking than the men.

 

If a woman wants to set up a sewing machine facility where she can make clothes to sell, we provide her with the sewing machine as well as lessons that can last about a week, or sometimes even longer, on how to improve her sewing techniques. We also teach her how to maintain financial records, run a business, be competitive, and know where to buy fabric, what type it should be, and how to set prices. This training takes about three to four months.

 

If someone wants to start a confectionery shop or a vegetable store, we take them to the market. One of the first women we worked with to start a vegetable store had never been to the wholesale market before. We took her there, showed her how to bargain and the techniques involved in purchasing so that she would have enough stock for the village that wouldn’t spoil quickly.

 

Maintaining proper records and running a business is really our goal. We have a training center, which we call the Main Center, where we teach practical skills—like learning how to drive a car, so one can work as a chauffeur, or how to work as a hotel maid and understand the responsibilities required. These skills are at a basic level because most of the people are uneducated, and higher-level skills may feel outside their intellectual capacity. It’s true that there are many vernacular and traditional skills—absolutely, there must be gold mines of knowledge—skills that I am particularly interested in.

 

We construct houses using earth and bamboo as materials. This technique has been around for hundreds of years; we aren’t inventing something new, but rather reminding people of the methods their forefathers used. Properly built, these houses can last 50 to 60 years, and they remain cooler in the summer and warmer in winter compared to concrete structures. Slowly, people are beginning to understand this. Currently, we are working on building about 200 houses. For a project in Basan, we built 50 houses and trained the masons and carpenters in our training center for two weeks. They learned how to construct these houses, and now they’re building them independently.

 

 

 

 

Initially, people questioned why we were spending money on this, claiming these structures wouldn’t last. However, they’ve endured two very heavy rains without collapsing. The walls are about 300 to 350 mm thick, and the inhabitants find them much cooler compared to some concrete houses that collapsed during an earthquake last October.

 

Regarding earthquake resistance, I was trained in France and Japan on how to build earthquake-resistant houses. When an earthquake occurs, it releases a lot of energy that moves upwards and sideways. Our technique involves building with gabions—round rocks encased in wire mesh. The round rocks can move during an earthquake, absorbing energy from the ground before it impacts the building structure. This method is highly effective. The bamboo and earth used for the construction are lightweight, which allows the structures to withstand energy while diverting most of it to the foundational gabions.

 

 

 

 

In a worst-case scenario, if the building collapses, it won’t kill you. Most of the victims in earthquakes are crushed by collapsing concrete buildings. With our lightweight building style, it’s still possible to get injured, but it’s unlikely to be fatal. That’s our approach to housing; we also teach how to implement solar-powered lighting systems, for example. Some now run businesses selling solar lanterns, while others are creating rental services for some of the materials they have. In a nutshell, that’s what integrated development means to us.

 

Turning to the international landscape, over the last fifteen years, I’ve observed that international donors often come to Pakistan during times of crisis—floods, earthquakes, or droughts—with their own agendas. Quite honestly, I firmly believe that they shouldn’t come at all because they often lack understanding of the local culture, people, and way of life. For instance, a German representative from a well-known donor organization once visited our work in a village where women were planting rice. His first comment was to equate their work to slave labor. I had to explain that, no, this was part of their culture; the women plant the seeds, and when it’s time for harvest, the men come in.

 

 

 

 

There’s a persistent misconception about dignifying local practices. Handing out money or aid can undermine dignity. People want to be respected, recognized for their efforts and capabilities rather than receiving handouts. Our vision is centered on “development with dignity.” The development world needs a paradigm shift in attitude from both donors and recipients. It’s no longer viable for someone to come in and build your house for you; you must engage in the process yourself.

 

Community gives 20% either in cash or in labor; ownership is very important for it to be sustainable. Without any ownership, if something is given to you for free, we just wouldn’t care for it, would we? You would just say, “Okay, fine. It’s gone until the next one comes.” That’s what’s been happening over the years, ever since the Second World War. That approach has to change completely when it comes to growth.

 

The whole notion of growth implies that unless you provide a growth percentage of 2%, 4%, 5%, or whatever the figure is for GDP, society will start to stagnate. This is the perception that prevailed before our environment was being affected and before climate change became an undeniable issue, which now, without any doubt, is overtaking our lives. I fear that in some situations, climate change has passed the point of no return. From my research, I understand that a two-degree increase in Earth’s temperature is now more or less certain.

 

 

 

 

You mentioned earlier that you’re noticing problems. I mean, are you witnessing over time, with your own eyes, certain effects on the environment—be it loss of biodiversity? What are your observations? I’m interested to know…

 

 

 

 

In Pakistan, we have a tree cover, or forest cover, of 2.5%, and it should be 22%. When the floods came from the north, from the mountains, there was no tree cover to keep the water or to prevent the water from becoming a flood; and then it became a flood. There was huge devastation; billions of dollars’ worth of damage was done. I have witnessed drought, which is happening now. I’ve witnessed drought in certain desert areas where people are dying and animals are dying due to a lack of proper nutrition and water.

 

 

 

 

Recently, while I was in Karachi, the temperature reached 38° with a 75% humidity level—making it almost impossible to work a good 10 to 12-hour day. I’ve worked in temperatures where it reached 48°. The only way to work in such heat is to start around 4 or 5 in the morning, depending on when the sun rises. After 9 AM, you can’t work, and then you have to work from about 6:00 in the evening until about 9:00 at night. In between, you just have to stay in the shade. It’s very debilitating; it drains most of your energy.

 

I’ve personally experienced droughts and floods. Sea level rise is affecting certain parts of the coastline in Pakistan—thousands of hectares of agricultural land have been taken over by the sea. The sea is rising in that part of the world. While it may not be happening in other parts of the globe, we’ve lost agricultural land to rising sea levels.

 

So there are three things that I’ve personally seen happening. Going back to the whole notion of growth and talking about a paradigm shift, I think we must move away from the Keynesian economics of a century and a half old. We need to move toward an economics based on our environment and carbon footprints. The minimum carbon footprints should lead to maximum rewards or whatever it is. If it’s not based on the environment and if climate change is not given the credibility it deserves by heavy industries—the cement industry, the oil industry, and others—it will eventually lead to their demise, as well as ours. We will have faced demise a long time before, but they will be affected because natural resources are running out.

 

 

 

 

I was reading the other day in New Scientist that cadmium is only about seven years away from depletion, and gypsum has about 15 years left. I’ve got all these figures on my computer. It’s all coming to a point where we will have to start saying, “Well, I don’t have this material,” or “I lack the rare earth elements to put into one of these devices.” What are we going to do?

 

Up until now, everyone has been saying, “Oh, it’s not my problem; it’ll get sorted out. It’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.” They think, “The scientists will do something; the technologists will do something.” But everyone, whether in science or technology, requires resources—mineral resources, the Earth’s resources—and they are slowly coming to a standstill.

 

Coal and oil are still available, but they are causing huge damage to the atmosphere. If we don’t take cognizance of this, the growth industry—which keeps talking about growth, as that’s how the IMF and the World Bank understand it—will lead us into a crisis. Pakistan has been projected to have a 4.2% growth rate. However, the World Bank reported in 2015-2016 that environmental degradation has cost Pakistan’s GDP 3.8%. So, actually, the only growth happening in Pakistan is about 0.6%. Politicians, understandably, are totally ignoring it.

 

The environment is being so badly affected because it’s being decimated. Corruption is so endemic in Pakistan that nobody really cares—everyone is just looking to make a fast buck as quickly as possible. I’ve given lectures to industries and factories, but they pay no attention. I don’t know what else you would like me to talk about at this stage…

 

Alex Dunedin: Well, I’m interested to know how we can possibly approach an alternative economy. What does a sustainable economy look like, or an integrated landscape? Can you paint that picture?

 

Shahid Khan: There are people—I am a great admirer of Jeffrey Sachs—who are better qualified to answer that question in the sense of what that economy might be. However, let’s consider something simple, like trees. At the end of the day, we, in the developing world, rely on the developed world to provide funds to tackle the issue of environmental degradation. But the way that money is being allocated from the West to the East, or the developed and developing worlds, is not producing the wealth of environmental improvement needed. It’s simply providing money to governments to plant trees, but the government doesn’t plant a million trees; it only plants 200,000, and the rest of the money is eaten away.

 

 

 

 

What I want to say to donors is that what you should be doing is offering incentives. If you plant a million trees, with our approach toward funding you will earn you more brownie points and give you more credibility. If we don’t do this, we will slowly withdraw our support. Now, Indonesia serves as a classic example of where forests are being burned left and right. In Brazil, similar practices are happening. Somehow, Brazil is managing to sustain itself.

 

What we also need to communicate to people is the meat industry. There are many effects associated with having your hamburgers. Did you know that it takes 20 tons of water to produce one kilogram of coffee? This is just one aspect of the unsustainable practices we’ve been engaged in. If we want to save the planet, the truth is that the planet will survive; it is we who need to figure out how to survive. The planet is currently undergoing its sixth mass extinction, which has nothing to do with climate change or environmental degradation. Hundreds of species have disappeared at a pace that should have taken 10,000 years, but it’s now occurring within just 20 years.

 

 

 

 

If we want to survive, we must learn that we need to be part of the ecosystem; the ecosystem keeps us alive. China is spending billions of dollars pollinating their plants because they have killed off all their bees. The bees were killed off due to heavy pesticide use. Einstein made a significant remark: if all the bees were to die today, the human race would only last four years.

 

How does the economy work with the environment? It’s about providing incentives for people to improve their environment instead of degrading it, which means reducing pollution, particularly in the sea. The sea needs to be recognized; it’s being exploited at an enormous rate right now by all countries, not just Japan or Korea or China or America—everyone is doing it, scraping the bottom. That’s the best I can convey from my understanding. If you’re looking for concrete examples of how it could happen, I can present them on the 29th.

 

Alex Dunedin: This is about a learning process. What can the community connecting through Ragged University in Edinburgh learn from what you’re doing and from the people you’re learning from? What can we learn from Pakistan?

 

I don’t ever see this as a one-way process. These are issues we are all tied into, and I have become increasingly aware of this over time. Recently, there was a talk by Johan Rockström, and he discussed the nine planetary boundaries. These are planetary boundaries we are at risk of overstepping. We need to realize that we are not sitting on an infinite pool of resources, which is an infantile assumption.

 

 

 

 

We have built a society on redundancy by throwing away valuable resources. I was helping to clear up an event today, and all these jam jars were being just thrown out. Well, they weren’t exactly being thrown out; they were being put into recycling. I thought, “Why are we even melting these down and recycling them? Why is there not a culture of putting jam back in the jars?”

 

Shahid Khan: Yes, exactly! In the old days, that’s exactly what our parents, our mothers, used to do. They never threw a jam jar away; they would just make some more jam and put it back in the jar. All of this requires an attitude change, I think. So, yes, everything is connected to each other. It’s a circle, a sphere. What is happening on the other side of the world will affect you here, and what happens here will affect the other side of the world, one way or another—whether it’s done physically or emotionally, it will certainly have an effect across the board.

 

But we, as a global community, still find it very difficult to make that shift in attitude. You start mentioning words like “alternatives,” and people say: “Oh my God, that’s not the right word to use!” But why not? You know, the alternative culture and all that stuff come to mind. But that’s the right word to use; it is an alternative. We have to find alternatives. Business as usual is not acceptable anymore, at least not to us and to a lot of other people. Many people are now saying, “Look, my land is disappearing.”

 

It’s the Monsantos of this world who’ve taken over the whole hybrid system and are now under huge pressure to stop this because you can see the dust bowls in the United States. For the last ten years, they’ve made a lot of money through hybrids, but that’s gone; it’s finished. You can almost compare it to the Great Depression again. When you see pictures of this, it’s evident, yet it’s not working.

 

 

 

 

Alex Dunedin: I’m particularly interested because I’m about to screen “Food Inc,” which looks in part at the practices of Monsanto, including how people aren’t allowed to keep seeds from their crops to plant the next year. Even the machines that help sift seeds are taken out of the hands of the owners, who are being run out of business. Of course, big multinationals are starting to sue countries for loss of profit because they’ve been irrational in their practices. For instance, the neonicotinoids have been killing bees, and they have been banned—but these companies have sued countries for profits that they claim they would have made! What role do you think multinationals play in the current state of affairs?

 

 

Shahid Khan: Oh, they play a huge role, and their role is just profit for today, not for tomorrow. This is a very general statement to make because some multinationals are genuinely looking at the notion of the effect they can have. I was the past president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Pakistan, so I had access to world conferences.

 

For instance, there was one example where the IUCN was able to persuade a Russian oil company to divert its oil line in Siberia because it was going to damage environmental aspects crucial to tiger preservation in that particular area. Shell was the company, and they actually did that. It cost them much more, but they removed the oil pipeline that was going right through the middle and redirected it.

 

Now, sometimes Shell does some very questionable things, though. For example, you’ve seen what’s been going on in Nigeria. But, at the end of the day, an oil company is there to find oil—that’s their job. They’re not there to build solar panels—although, in fairness, Shell and BP are doing that now, but I suspect that it’s just for PR purposes, to signal to their customers that they care about the environment.

 

www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55853024

 

We, as consumers, have to say that we don’t want your oil, that we can survive without it. Electric cars are becoming more and more prevalent in China. I was there last year, and every single rickshaw and bus is electric. There are only very few gasoline-powered cars left. The electric trend is becoming more popular, but that brings up another situation: If you have to have an electric car, then you need electricity. How do you generate that electricity? Is it coal-fired? Is it nuclear-powered? Or are there alternative systems? All of these things need to be considered dramatically right now.

 

I was recently talking about looking forward to a time 200 to 300 years from now. What we see around us will exist, but most of the time we’ll be walking or on bicycles with very little use of private cars. Public transport will have to be increased. But see, what I’m really trying to do at this talk on the 29th is not to provide facts and figures of what is happening in the world. I think there’s enough information available for people to be aware. The idea is to convince whoever comes that it’s up to them to make a difference, and they can make a difference in their own way. If they band together as a community and lobby their MPs, they can voice their concerns. Politics is about representation, after all.

 

Alex Dunedin: That’s a good point.

 

Shahid Khan: Yes. If you look at the population of this country, around 80 million, even if you get half of that to address the government and say, “Sorry, we are not satisfied with the way things are going,” because it’s affecting our coastlines, our gardens, and the plants we eat—then maybe something will change.

 

Alex Dunedin: In my own life, what can I do? You mentioned that it takes 20 gallons of water to produce just one kilo of coffee…

 

Shahid Khan: …it takes 20 tonnes of water to produce one kilo of coffee; this figure is given by Jeffrey Sachs in his book ‘The End of Poverty’….

 

 

 

 

Alex Dunedin: So, by stopping drinking coffee, especially in my household, I could reduce my water consumption (in other countries).

 

Shahid Khan: Yes, yes…Coffee isn’t good for you anyway; the caffeine can be very hard on your system, we become addicted to it. So, yes, there are certain things individuals can do. The Isle of Egg has recently said that they don’t want mainland electricity; we’re going to produce their own. They’ve created solar, wind, and hydro systems that provide the entire island with its own electric power. A community got together to achieve that. If Germany can produce 80% of its energy needs through solar energy, why can’t other countries in Europe?

 

The simple reason is that Germans, being Germans, tend to be more community-minded or conscious of this than perhaps the British are. I’m not saying this about Scotland specifically, but generally about British culture. China has been the one country able to dramatically reduce poverty more than any other because China is not a democracy. They can say, “You have to do this,” and it gets done. We know that the whole democratic process is at stake; it’s being eroded right in front of our eyes. More and more, we are held accountable, with our phones tapped and so on, through fear and insecurity. Fear has been exploited very effectively by the Americans, with their color-coded alerts which have created this atmosphere of paranoia.

 

 

 

 

But our society will change; it has to change. You and I may not change as much, but our children will, and their children will have to adapt even more. Youngsters today are becoming increasingly aware of what’s happening globally. They wonder, “Why are frogs dying? Why aren’t there more butterflies?” They will be the ones who push for change. What we need to do now is provide knowledge and respite for them, to say, “Look, this is the way it has to be done.”

 

For example, if your carbon footprint isn’t reduced in your lifestyle—like in my house, where I grow my own vegetables on my roof, which is about three to four times the size of this room and is covered in pots and containers—you can do it too.

 

Alex Dunedin: As an architect, what are your thoughts on greening the city with all these vertical structures? I read about research that these environments which lack green spaces are not good for us; without the green, living environment our stress hormones – like cortisol – go up.  Also there is nothing to take pollution out of the air so the cancerous chemicals which come out of exhaust fumes, for example.  It is no small secret; it is a glaring idiocy that we are using combustion engines all through our cities. So asking you as an architect – how do we green our cities practically ?

 

 

 

 

Shahid Khan: Practically, if we want to green our cities, we need to provide incentives like the Germans have done. If you install solar power in your house, you get tax relief. You can sell excess energy back into the grid. To green the city, we should encourage people to grow their own vegetables, start community beekeeping (they’re doing it in New York; we can do it here), plant more flowers for the bees, and involve the government in tree plantation initiatives.

 

If you look around from this window, you see many flat roofs. Every single one of those could be growing vegetables, trees, or shrubs that produce oxygen and provide insulation. The historical allotments from the mid-20th century are becoming increasingly valuable in urban settings. Hydroponics could be a viable alternative, even without land. I’ve seen impressive hydroponic systems working well in containers using plastic pipes and nutrient solutions.

 

Alex Dunedin: There are mixed feelings about the IMF and the World Bank. What’s your experience with them?

 

Shahid Khan: The World Bank has been very good to us. They have never restrained us; in fact, they’ve encouraged us to do certain things in innovative ways. Speaking specifically about our work through our NGO in Pakistan, when looking at the bigger picture, the World Bank used to encourage large dam projects, like the Aswan Dam, which proved to be an environmental disaster.

 

The World Bank seemed not to see the potential environmental repercussions—they were focused on supplying hydroelectricity for a growing population and the reservoir for irrigation. But the argument is that, eventually, these large projects can do more harm than good for the countries involved. That point is debated extensively, and frankly, I don’t have the expertise to argue either side effectively.

 

When you see things from a bigger point of view the World Bank certainly has a lot to answer for; working in certain ways in which certain countries cannot afford to have things done in the way which the World Bank wants things done. Yes, personal experience of the World Bank is fine. I have nothing to complain about.

 

Alex Dunedin: You also mentioned the use of alternative energy technologies, such as solar and wind power. Are these accessible and realistic technologies?

 

Shahid Khan: Yes! I learned a lot from an organization in Scotland called… um, the Orkney Islands! They taught us how to make a wind turbine out of truck parts. They provided the full set of drawings for a wind turbine built from locally sourced materials.

 

 

 

 

When it comes to solar systems, in Chinese factories, if a solar panel or solar cell, which is roughly the size of your hand, gets slightly damaged—like an edge being broken off—it’s put into containers and sold to the developing world very cheaply. We buy these damaged cells and assemble them into units sold as functioning systems. This allows people to have enough light for a room, sustaining that for about eight hours using a car battery to store overnight energy.

 

Alex Dunedin: Finally, would you describe your work as education for sustainability in any sense?

 

Shahid Khan: Absolutely! We train people; we don’t just make the systems and give them to others. We show people how to make the systems themselves. It may take some time and cost slightly more compared to factory-produced items, but the end goal is that they know how to make it. They gain a skill and dignity by earning their money and providing for themselves.

 

In my view, this is the only sustainable way forward. The impoverished in Pakistan, and in many other countries, are born entrepreneurs; they just need opportunities to fulfill that potential. Nobody is going to give them jobs because they are uneducated, etc. Therefore, they must find ways to survive. I’ve been amazed by the enthusiasm and enterprise of the more than 1,250 people we’ve trained.

 

This empowerment is crucial, and it’s essential for dignity. No more handouts; there’s ownership in what they create, and when you build a house with your own hands, you’re going to make darn sure that house doesn’t collapse.

 

Alex Dunedin: Are there bureaucratic barriers?

 

Shahid Khan: Yes, there are, lots! Local politicians get jealous of our work because we’re doing what they should have. They sit back in their air-conditioned offices, corrupt, while we’re out there making a difference. For example, in a Hindu community I visited recently, the people were so eager to improve their lives that suddenly their landlord started to complain about our involvement. He argued that we were empowering them too much.

 

The landlord came around and started to talk to us to say “look what you’re doing is not right from my point of view”.  We said “So what do you mean from your point of view ?”… “So because the more they get empowered, the more they will demand their rights.” And we said “Yes, that’s part of the Constitution.  He said “Now that’s not part of my Constitution, and please can you restrain yourself from giving them more empowerment.”

 

Now one of the empowerments that we do is we teach them the Constitutional human rights they have; what they should know as part of the law, and they’ve never heard of it. They didn’t even know it existed, so now they’re going to see their landlord and saying ‘we need and want this and that which you should be providing’. So he’s getting pissed off with us and even the local politicians are getting jealous of us and they putting obstacles in our way. We have to get no objection certificates for everything that we do, so some of them are not giving it to us.

 

And that’s rooted in human rights education; it’s essential we teach people about their constitutional rights. Many of them didn’t know these rights existed until we showed them, and they’re now approaching their landlords demanding better treatment, which has irked some local politicians too. It’s a struggle, and yes, there are obstacles, like not receiving “no objection certificates” from them for our activities.

 

I’ll give you an example, Alex, of how powerful a community can be. We were doing a project in a village, and the project was to build flood protection walls due to severe floods. A substantial amount of money was involved, so I decided to put my money where my mouth is. I said, ‘What we’re going to do is give all the money we get from the donor to the community. We’re not going to do this; they’re going to do it.’

 

The donor was apprehensive. They said, ‘You know what? They’re not going to do this; they’re going to run away with the money!’ Other NGOs said I was mad, etc. Anyway, I finally convinced him, and we proceeded. The community built these flood protection walls better than any contractor would have done, and they were able to handle the money. They did everything.

 

At the end of the project, we had a selection process. When we set up a community-based organization, we also established a Village Development Organization, and these were all elected by the community themselves. The president, treasurer, and secretary, the three of them, came to us and said, ‘You know, for the first time in our lives, somebody has trusted us, and we were able to do this.’ I told them, ‘Well, your politicians came around, and they said they haven’t seen work like this because a political entity, given the same amount of money, would have done far less.’

 

Another example I’ll give you involved building check dams, which are small dams built along a river with irrigation channels so that water flows from one dam to the next. They were going to build two out of the money—let’s say it was a budget of 10 pounds—so they planned to build two. We built nine out of ten pounds, and the politicians got angry with us because their ‘cut’, their corruption cut was completely taken away; they made no money. Previously, if they had done that, they would have made money from the seven dams that were never built. The community thought, ‘At least we have two,’ but corruption is a cancer that affects bureaucrats.

 

To be honest, I’m tired of it now. I find it very difficult to cope because I lose my temper. I feel that one day, I might say something that won’t be taken very well at all. I can’t stand these people holding us back when we can see the possibility of doing things, only to be impeded by their greed. So that’s really what a paradigm shift is going to be, what it will have to be, and it will happen.

 

Unfortunately, it’ll happen – I was about to say when it’s too late. I mean, it’s not a meteor hitting the planet that wipes everything out in a few seconds; this is a very slow, gradual process. If we go over the 2-degree mark, we can’t bring it back to one degree; it’s gone. Which means we might reach 3.5 to 4 degrees, which would result in many coastal cities disappearing.

 

I think Obama is beginning to understand that, though his Republican counterparts are not allowing him to do what he needs to do because they now realize that Florida will just disappear in the next 10 to 15 years.

 

Alex Dunedin: So, reality bites.

 

Shahid Khan: Yes, we don’t have to go to see disaster movies anymore; we’ll be living it. However, as I was saying once the other day, there’s still time to change that. It’s not a foregone conclusion; there is time. And that time means another five, six, or ten years if we make the right decisions. The politicians need to make the right choices, if they are lobbied by you.

 

You have a democracy here, which Aisha has different views (democracy by a fascist dictatorship). Even then, if millions of people rose up and said, ‘Sorry, we don’t accept your policy anymore because it’s killing off my ecosystem,’ it would have an impact. I, as an individual, depend on that ecosystem. If my bees are not going to be there, eventually it’s going to affect me. If the flowers and butterflies are gone, it will eventually impact me. There is enough evidence to say that it will happen; this is not scare-mongering anymore; it’s a fact.

 

So, there is time to prevent all of this from happening. I’m always positive about how things look. You have a university where you allow people to discuss things that are normally not talked about. People come to listen—maybe 10, 20, 30 people, or even hundreds. It’s a start. You haven’t been doing this since 1870, so that’s great!

 

Alex Dunedin: I believe in change, and I believe it starts with us. You’re doing fantastic work, and you’re an inspiration. I’m looking forward to learning a whole heap of new strategies.

 

Shahid Khan: Well, you know, whatever I can offer is obviously there to be shared. Thank you very much, Alex. It’s great talking to you, and thank you for taking the time to come here from Glasgow. You’re a busy man.

 

Alex Dunedin: Well, you know, it’s one day at a time, and we’ll get to the top of the mountain. One day, we’ll look out and say, ‘What a beautiful sight.’

 

Aisha Khan: Yeah, that’s a great way to look at it!”

 

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Here are some questions for the active learner:

1. Who is Shahid Khan, and what are his main areas of expertise?
2. What is the significance of Shahid Khan’s work in relation to climate breakdown?
3. How does Shahid Khan define “integrated development” in the context of poverty alleviation?
4. What challenges did Shahid Khan face when he returned to Pakistan to start his practice?
5. What role does education play in Shahid Khan’s approach to community development?
6. How does Shahid Khan address the issue of uneducated individuals needing support to start businesses?
7. What methods of construction does Shahid Khan promote, and why are they significant?
8. In what way does Shahid believe the World Bank has contributed positively or negatively to development efforts?
9. What are the environmental and economic impacts of the debt system mentioned by Shahid Khan?
10. How does climate change affect the livelihoods of communities in Pakistan according to Shahid?
11. Why does Shahid Khan argue that community ownership is crucial for sustainable development?
12. How does Shahid perceive the role of multinational corporations in current global challenges?
13. What is Shahid Khan’s view on the relationship between individual behavior and environmental sustainability?
14. How does Shahid suggest that local communities can combat environmental degradation?
15. What alternative models of development does Shahid Khan propose?
16. In what ways does Shahid emphasize the importance of educating communities about their human rights?
17. How does Shahid describe the psychological effects of providing basic facilities like clean water and electricity to communities?
18. What examples does Shahid give of successful community-led projects in Pakistan?
19. How does Shahid envision a sustainable economy, and what changes need to occur to achieve it?
20. What are Shahid’s thoughts on the interconnectedness of global communities regarding environmental issues?
21. How does Shahid propose individuals can take action in their own lives to support sustainability?
22. What lessons can the international community learn from Shahid Khan’s experiences in Pakistan?
23. How can local governments improve their practices to align better with community needs according to Shahid?
24. What challenges do individuals face when attempting to implement sustainable practices in their communities?
25. How does Shahid Khan define success in terms of his development projects and the individuals he works with?

 

Try writing out on a piece of paper – not typing on a computer screen – your attempts at answering some or all of these questions; writing by hand is an essential skill which offers you things which digital tools do not.  You can read through your answers and reflect on your notes.  Then you will have a better sense of what you have learned and where you can go back and exercise by taking in the information again.

 

Enjoy the process just like walking through the hills is also exercise; by doing this you literally grow new connections between neurons and extend the capabilities of your brain.