(Founder and Executive Director, Akhuwat, Lahore, Pakistan) Mohammad Amjad Saqib is a well-known social worker, volunteer, and development professional. In 2001, he founded Akhuwat an interest-free microfinance scheme in Pakistan which operates from mosques and churches and has opened new vistas in the domain of social mobilization and poverty alleviation. This is the largest individual-based lending scheme in Pakistan and is considered a unique and innovative model in microfinance. He is Akhuwat’s Executive Director and has been its main driving force since its inception in year 2001. For his pioneering work, he received Sitara-a-Imtiaz, one of the highest civil awards in Pakistan, in 2010. He is also a recipient of Khushal Khan Khattak Literary Award by Government of the Punjab. Saqib is a trained physician and graduated from King Edward Medical College in Lahore with MBBS degree in 1982. In 1994 he received Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship in Public Administration from American University Washington. He obtained an MPA from the same university in 1995. He also attended a McGill University Social Enterprise Management Programme (2003-2004) at Lahore which was organized in partnership with University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He has published several books and recently edited Devolution and Governance – Reforms in Pakistan (Oxford University Press). 1998, he began to work at Punjab Rural Support Program, as General Manager and remained with this organization for seven years. He resigned from the Pakistani civil service in 2003. He has provided consultancy services to Asian Development Bank, International Labour Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Canadian International Development Agency. His areas of expertise include poverty alleviation, microfinance, social mobilization and education management.
Author ID
4328