David had been the first editor of the BBC Pashto language service that was set up in 1981 following the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. There was no teaching post in a British university at that time, and David worked with a retired Pakistani army officer and experienced linguist in recruiting staff and guiding choices of language and dialect for a service that was to attract a large audience as a reliable source of news and information.

Its popularity was boosted by a radio soap opera broadcast in Pashto and Dari (Afghan Persian) inspired by The Archers and called New Home, New Life, which won a large audience among refugees in Pakistan and throughout Afghanistan and is still on air 30 years later.

Born in Derby, David was the son of Ena (nee Draper), a PA, and Kenneth Page, a manager at the Rolls-Royce aircraft engine factory in Mountsorrel, Leicestershire. David went to Loughborough grammar school and then Merton College, Oxford. After graduating with a first in history in the mid-1960s he worked as a volunteer teacher at Edwardes college in Peshawar, Pakistan. His doctoral thesis on politics in pre-1947 Punjab, published as Prelude to Partition (1982), is still in print.

After 22 years at the BBC he devoted his energies to development work in Afghanistan. As a trustee, and for 10 years chairman, of the charity Afghanaid he helped in turning its focus from relief to development projects in some of the poorest rural provinces.

It is one of the leading NGOs, supporting Afghan families and promoting adaptation to climate change. Retaining his close interest in the broadcast and print media in south Asia, David collaborated in writing and editing books or monographs in this field, including Embattled Media: Democracy, Governance and Reform in Sri Lanka (2014). He had an acute mind and a great sense of humour and capacity for friendship.

Since 2016, David played a leading role in establishing a partnership of civil society organisations that has argued strongly for the Commonwealth to take action to ensure that the media is protected by law to report freely.

That alliance of professional groups includes organisations of Commonwealth journalists, lawyers, parliamentarians and human rights advocates, along with London University’s Institute of Commonwealth Studies, of which David was a senior research fellow. Weeks after his death the Commonwealth principles on freedom of expression, and the role of the media in good governance, were adopted by heads of government at their summit meeting in Samoa in October.

David is survived by his partner, Ruth Kirk Wilson, whom he met at Oxford, and his sister, Janet.