Book excerpt: The Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) in northern Pakistan has become a model for rural development programmes throughout the country and worldwide. This is the fourth independent evaluation of the AKRSP by the World Bank, which seeks to assess how the programme can best meet present and future challenges and development needs. The assessment covers the period since the programme's initiation in 1982, as well as the period since the last evaluation in 1995. It concentrates on four programme components: community organisations, infrastructure development, natural resource management, and microfinance.