Orangi Pilot Project

The Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) collectively designates three Pakistani Non-governmental organisations working together, having emerged from a socially innovative project carried out in 1980s in the squatter areas of Orangi Town, Karachi, Pakistan. It was initiated by Akhtar Hameed Khan, and involved the local residents solving their own sanitation problems. Innovative methods were used to provide adequate low cost sanitation, health, housing and microfinance facilities.

Currently OPP designates three organisations, borne out of the original OPP in 1989 : OPP-RTI (Research and Training Institute), OPP-OCT (Orangi Charitable Trust, involved in microfinance) and OPP-KHASDA (Karachi Health and Social Development Association, involved in health activities). A fourth organisation, OPP-RDT (Rural Development Trust) was merged with OPP-RTI in 2012.

The project also comprised a number of programs, including a people's financed and managed Low-Cost Sanitation Program; a Housing Program; a Basic Health and Family Planning Program; a Program of Supervised Credit for Small Family Enterprise Units; an education Program; and a Rural development Program in the nearby villages.

Today, the project encompasses much more than the neighbourhood level problems. The research and development programmes under the institutions developed by the project now covers wider issues related to the areas all over Karachi.

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