Akram has seven years of experience in program design and management, monitoring and evaluation, and research for diverse community development projects, both for national and international non-profit organizations. He earned a Master’s degree in Sociology from Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan, earning distinctions in his course and research work. He recently worked with the Marie Stopes International for a DFID-funded project as Manager of Technical Services in Punjab province, where he developed and implemented the monitoring and evaluation system at provincial level, developed protocols of four research studies,, and managed them at regional level in nine districts, analyzed beneficiaries’ data using STATA/SPSS/Pivot table on a monthly basis, and ensured the project progress via Franchise Live Application for Monitoring and Evaluation. In an additional role, Akram has piloted the implementation and monitoring of Marie Stopes’ behavior change communication strategy and action research tools, and developed and implemented 80 small scale social action projects at a regional level. Previously, Akram has worked on several community development projects funded by the USAID, UNICEF, The Asia Foundation (TAF), Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), and British Council (BC). He has strong writing and analytical skills and wrote 16 successful grant proposals for different local nonprofit organizations. He has rendered services to different organizations and developed their systems, profiles, annual and decades’ reports. He also conducted mid-evaluation of Ilm Ideas Program funded by the UK-Aid and managed by the PRISE in district Nankana, Punjab. Akram has six research publications in internationally recognized journals and 15 articles. He also volunteered with The Citizens Foundation, World Council of Religions and Dialogue Pakistan. Akram has keen interest in working on system improvement and quality indicators of community development projects in collaboration with the nonprofit sector and aspires to help marginalized communities.

Host Organization:  Center for Islam and Religious Freedom (CIRF)

Role at Host Organization: Akram will help CIRF expand its research, education, media production, and advocacy, working at the intersection of Islam and religious freedom, in support of religious freedom, both in populations where Musilms are a majority, and in populations where Muslims are a minority.