The purpose was twofold. On the one hand, it is the 50th year of His Highness’ Imamat. As part of these celebrations, he is visiting countries in which there is a substantial Ismaili population. Syria is one such country. It’s also the only country with an Ismaili population that is Arab and it is therefore the oldest Ismaili community in the world. He is spending a considerable part of his visit with the community leadership and at two religious gatherings outside Damascus.

The second reason for the visit is to renew conversations with the Syrian government and key ministries concerning several development activities we are involved in. Our work in Syria started in 2001 when the Aga Khan Award for Architecture was celebrated in Aleppo. We then expanded our work to include historic conservation, restoration and the reuse of historic buildings with restorations at Masyaf and Saladin castles and Aleppo citadel. Since then we have further broadened our scope with projects in education, health, rural development and the hospitality industry.

In this last area we are looking to bring together conservation and preservation with tourism by developing a number of small-scale hotels in the old cities of Aleppo and Damascus. They would be housed in historic buildings and would help showcase Syria’s Islamic heritage. We are also looking at the possibility of converting old caravanserais along the Syrian portion of the Silk Road into small inns. We have carried out this type of project very successfully, particularly in Pakistan.

So there is a two-tier approach to our tourism development, linking the larger hotels in Damascus and Aleppo to smaller inns and making them part of a circuit. Again, this is an approach we have adopted elsewhere, one that was best developed in Pakistan, but also in East Africa.

One of the things that characterises the Aga Khan as a development leader is that he takes a long view and makes long-term commitments. Some of our activities like our hotels are for-profit. They are meant to be not only sustainable, but also demonstrate that it is possible to invest and do business in countries that many other people are shy of working in, such as Tajikistan and Afghanistan for instance. We like to demonstrate that this can be done by making investments in the for-profit sector in the fields of hospitality, financial services and communications.

The other thing is that in all cases we look to build human resources. Of course we draw on international expertise too, but a major part of our strategy is the development of local capacity at all levels.

In historic conservation for instance, we are interested in the management and reuse of the building; we never carry out conservation works for the sake of conservation. We do it to encourage development and to stimulate the training of new managers, financial experts, artisans and so on. If we do our work well, these projects will last: in 15 years all of these activities will still be here, still operating at a high level in terms of quality and impact, and 99 percent of the people involved in them will be Syrians. That is one of our goals, to build human resources.

Syria is a middle-income country and we don’t work in many middle-income countries. In general we work in countries which are a lot poorer than Syria and we work in countries which have recently experienced conflict, like Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Mozambique, countries that are in the process of rebuilding themselves.

So Syria has the unusual situation of having a talented and well-trained population that we can draw on and we hope to recruit and work with Syrian staff in Syria, but also beyond. We would like them to become a resource for us in other countries, because we are always looking for people who are interested in international work as well as the for-profit side of the organisation.

Another thing that distinguishes Syria is that it hasn’t received much attention from international tourist companies and it therefore has great potential. Syria has an extraordinary stock of physical assets. There aren’t many countries that can boast the resources that Syria has. Finally, Syria’s physical proximity to Europe is another great asset just in terms of movement of people and training opportunities for tourism.

The restoration works at the castles at Misyaf, Aleppo and Saladin were very successful from our point of view. We feel that the quality of the work and the post-restoration use of the facilities and their management have all moved in the right direction. Focusing more specifically on the work of the Aga Khan Foundation in the Salamiye area, we’ve had a very high level of success with the introduction of modern irrigation techniques for the cultivation of vegetables, fruits and the expansion of the olive tree plantations.

The opening of the first microfinance institution in Syria is another great achievement of the AKDN.

Indeed. We signed an agreement on August 25 which allows us to broaden the services we offer. Until now we only offered lending services, but under the new agreement we will be able to expand our services significantly with loans for housing improvements, micro-insurance products, including health insurance, and saving facilities. Savings is an important part of financial management for everyone and creating easy mechanisms and support services to encourage people to save is very important. The new agreement moves us into the next stage of microfinance and we have great ambitions in this domain.

We are also involved in conversations with the government about working in the field of nursing education. We have built up a great deal of experience, particularly in Pakistan, and would like to use this experience in Syria.

In all of the countries we work in, we believe that projects should not be carried out in a rush. There is a build-up, planning and several phases of the project. Very often governments or community leaders want things done immediately and while I haven’t heard the Aga Khan say this about Syria, he often reminds people that development is not like instant coffee – if you do it that way, you get a bad cup of coffee.