Jurjen van der Tas is deputy director of the Historic Cities Programme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC). Before taking up this position in 2003, he was director of policy and programming for the Aga Khan Foundation UK. Between 1991 and 2002, he worked at Oxfam Novib as programme officer for local development initiatives in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and the former Soviet Central Asia. In the late 1980s, he was agricultural advisor to the project planning unit of the Federal Bank for Cooperatives in Pakistan. Van der Tas has an MSc in tropical agricultural development from the University of Reading, UK.
Interview by Ellen Lammers