Sadiqa Salahuddin is the Founder and Executive Director of the Indus Resource Centre (IRC), a support organisation in Sindh province, Pakistan that is dedicated to the empowerment and mainstreaming of marginalized rural communities.
Previously, Ms. Salahuddin served as the director of the Non-Governmental Organization Resource Centre (NGORC), a project of the Aga Khan Foundation. NGORC focuses on capacity building (training, networking, information dissemination and research) and the creation of an enabling policy environment for civil society. NGORC, with its research studies and advocacy, was instrumental in bringing about important changes in fiscal and other policies and procedures benefiting NGOs.
Ms. Salahuddin is recognised as one of the leading development professionals in Pakistan and a prominent contributor to the enhancement of Pakistan’s civil society. Her early experience as a management trainer for senior government officials became the foundation for capacity-building initiatives across the civil society spectrum. Her insight of government systems, combined with hands-on experience of capacity-building at the grassroots level, increased the effectiveness of NGO-government collaboration.
Ms. Salahuddin has represented Pakistan in several international forums and has participated in numerous national and international conferences. She serves on the governing boards of several important government and civil society initiatives, and on a number of national task forces and working groups on women’s empowerment, poverty reduction, and education. She has carried out consulting assignments on strategic planning, monitoring of programs and projects, and issues related to local government bodies.
Ms. Salahuddin has two Master’s degrees in economics, one from Karachi University in Pakistan, the other from Syracuse University in the United States. She also holds a Master of Science degree in management from the Management Education Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
The Indus Resource Centre is actively participating in the process of democratisation in Pakistan through mobilising and training local communities, elected representatives, and officials of local bodies. IRC’s interventions include awareness-raising about rights and responsibilities, field programs in elementary education and economic initiatives, voters’ education, election monitoring, and evidence and research-based advocacy on the causes of poverty in Pakistan.