June 23, 2005 | Read Time: 6 minutes
Mohammad Akhter, the new chief executive of a coalition of international aid organizations, knows firsthand the important work charities do abroad.
When he was 3, his family fled India to Pakistan during the sectarian fighting and turmoil that followed the separation of the two countries in 1947. As a refugee, Mr. Akhter survived in part thanks to the efforts of relief groups.
Now more than half a century later, Mr. Akhter wants to return the favor. Last month he became the head of InterAction, an umbrella organization in Washington of 160 U.S. nonprofit groups that work overseas to alleviate poverty, provide emergency assistance, and help resolve conflicts.
Mr. Akhter, 60, joins the association at a challenging time for relief groups. The tsunamis that devastated South Asia last December generated an unprecedented outpouring of donations to aid organizations. But the disaster also placed an enormous amount of public pressure on them to spend the money quickly and efficiently. Mr. Akhter said he hoped to use the attention from the crisis to raise awareness among Americans of the needs in other strife-ridden parts of the world.
In addition, in Afghanistan and Iraq aid workers have frequently been targets of Muslim militants and criminals. Last year, for example, the head of CARE International in Iraq was kidnapped and killed. Mr. Akhter said he plans to work with the U.S. military to help prevent such incidents.
Mr. Akhter is a medical doctor who has worked at several public-health organizations during his career. Before joining InterAction, he served as the senior associate dean for public and international health in the College of Medicine at Howard University, in Washington.
While Mr. Akhter said he valued his academic experience, he is looking forward to working with the many international organizations providing practical solutions to problems. “At Howard, we can talk about the theoretical and educate people,” he said, “but this is the opportunity to really bring back all that knowledge and education to work with those who are actually on their hands and knees in the field trying to make life better for other people.”
Mr. Akhter, the first foreign-born InterAction chief executive, replaces Mary E. McClymont, who ran the organization for four years and announced in March she would step down to travel and spend more time with her family.
Mr. Akhter declined to say how much he will earn as InterAction’s leader. According to the group’s 2003 tax information — the most recent year for which data are available — Ms. McClymont received $189,000 in compensation.
Mr. Akhter did say he is earning less than he did in previous jobs because he wants the opportunity to repay the strangers who helped clothe, feed, and house his family while he was a child.
In an interview, Mr. Akhter discussed his new role:
What is the biggest challenge facing relief organizations after last year’s tsunamis?
We’ve done wonderful work providing relief to the people who are affected, but the real challenge is, Can we continue this level of activity and make sure the development takes place in an organized manner? We need to collaborate with the communities and the people who were affected to make sure their lives are better off then they were before.
How will your background in health issues affect your leadership?
Clearly, coming from a background of medicine and public health, that’ll be an area I’ll be making a special effort, such as making sure there’s close coordination between development and HIV/AIDS.
One example that illustrates this is a U.S. government program that provides for the prevention, treatment, and care of HIV/AIDS people. This is President Bush’s initiative. It’ll provide medications to the people and medical treatment, but it’s not coordinated with the other programs that need to be in place. If a person doesn’t have food to eat, how do you expect him to take medication?
How will your experience as a refugee shape your work?
Childhood experiences have a lifelong impact on people, and I am no exception. My mother was 20 years old when she became a refugee from India in coming to Pakistan in a mass migration. I was 3 years old and my sister was 6 months old. This 20-year-old woman who had never been out of a five-mile radius from her home in her entire life had to go into another country, into another culture.
We made it alive to Pakistan. Of course, it was the help of agencies that provided the food and the shelter and the clean water so that I lived. Somebody else provided the education and today I’m here as a person who’s not only earning my own living and living my own life, but also contributing to society. So this is not only about a job for me, it’s a mission.
Where will you go to help raise funds for your members?
There are two basic sources. One is the American people. We’re going to do advocacy to keep international issues before them. It’s very hard when an issue like the tsunamis comes up and there are equally as pressing issues like Darfur, Sudan, or in other parts of the world.
And also we want to see if we can work with other parties we have not worked with so closely before. And those nontraditional partners would include the World Bank and the United States military.
Are you concerned, though, that by working with the military InterAction and its members will jeopardize their ability to remain neutral in conflicts?
There are times that the military has a very legitimate role to play in relief and development. For example, when our members collaborated with the U.S. Navy in providing relief after the tsunamis, our navy was the only one with the ships and the helicopters available.
Then there are the times when a military has taken over a country. It is required by international law to provide services to the people, and the military is the only one there. We understand that is a legitimate role.
But then there are those areas where our paths cross where the line is being blurred. We just need to have a very clear line at that point so we don’t mix up these two things. The military should keep itself doing things it knows how to do best and not divert its attention to humanitarian assistance where private NGO’s can provide the assistance.
Also, we should provide the humanitarian assistance as civilians, and when the military provides humanitarian assistance, it should provide it in uniform so people recognize who is doing what. We believe very strongly in the independence of our members so our members can serve communities with a relationship based on trust.
ABOUT MOHAMMAD AKHTER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF INTERACTION
Education: Received a medical degree from Pakistan’s King Edward Medical College Lahore in 1967 and a master’s degree in public health in 1973 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore.
Recent employment: For the past two years, Mr. Akhter was senior associate dean for public and international health in the College of Medicine at Howard University, in Washington. Before that he was the executive director of the American Public Health Association for six years.
Languages he knows: Mr. Akhter speaks English, Punjabi, and Urdu, and can read Arabic and Persian.
What he’s been reading: To learn about opportunities for relief groups, as well as their failures, Mr. Akhter is reading The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, by Jeffrey Sachs, and A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis, by David Rieff.
