Fellows

Fayyaz Yaseen is a development practitioner with four years of experience in the nonprofit sector. He earned his Master’s degree in Economics and completed several professional courses on monitoring and evaluation, learning and accountability, qualitative and quantitative research methods, report and project proposal writing, and project cycle management. In 2012, the IDRC-SDPI awarded Fayyaz a fellowship in governance, security and justice for his M.Phil. in International Development Studies. Throughout his career, he has gained diverse experience by working in remote areas of Pakistan in different fields such as education, health, voice and accountability, women’s participation in political process, violence against women, child labor, and conflict resolution. In September 2012, in Islamabad, Pakistan he was one of the coordinators of the South Asia Economic Summit organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). Fayyaz continued his work on the promotion of good governance in Pakistan with the help of civil society initiatives by establishing nationwide networks of CSOs known as Pakistan Social Accountability Networks (PSAN) to over 125 organizations. These diverse experiences in education, health, women’s participation in political processes, violence against women, child labor and conflict resolution provided him with various skills and competencies; such as project design and management, research tools design, donor liaison and reporting, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation and financial management. His hobbies include reading political analyses and reviews and traveling.

Host Organization : The Atlantic Council

Role at Host Organization: Fayyaz will serve as a Research Associate, and will conduct on-the-ground research for an issue brief on U.S.-Pakistan relations in terms of security, public policy, and economic development.

Huma has over six years of professional experience in the nonprofit sector, having worked to fight against poverty, hunger and illiteracy in her country. She earned her last degree in Business Administration from the Institute of Management Sciences. Huma has worked as an Assistant Project Coordinator for a UNWFP funded project which provided food assistance to the FATA region of her country. Previously, she worked for a UNODC funded project that helped provide health assistance to drug users in the province’s female prisons. Through her professional career, Huma acquired highly praised leadership, humanitarian-based research and communication skills. Huma also has an unbeatable command over her technical and report preparation skills. Easily commanding cameras and laptops, Huma’s dream is to improve the quality of education in Pakistan by providing employment opportunities to the youth and empowering Pakistani women.

Host Organization: Halcyon

Role in Host Organization: Huma will work alongside the Director to help manage projects including the Halcyon Dialogue, Incubator Intensive and Halcyon’s scoping for international expansion of its social enterprise incubator. She will lead on several components of these programs, maintaining connections with external partners, and representing Halcyon in various scenarios.

Huma specializes in regional trade, trade policy and public sector development. She holds a Bachelors’ degree in Mathematics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) minoring in Economics and Philosophy. She has worked as an analyst at the Pakistan Business Council since 2012 contributing to several publications centered on Pakistan’s trade relations with emerging economies in the region, particularly China and India. Her work broadly aims to assess the development or lack thereof in Pakistan’s trade infrastructure in light of the changing political landscape, economic restrictiveness, bilateral and multilateral trade cooperation agreements and policy reforms. Her research identifies key focus areas at industry and government levels for Pakistan to create pathways for a sustainable growth in the mid and long term. She worked closely with the Pakistan Economic Forum to facilitate dialogue amongst policy makers, economic experts and academics on issues of trade, economic stability, energy and education. She is also a coordinator on the Pakistan side for the Pakistan India Joint Business Forum that consists of business leaders on both sides actively involved in the process of trade normalization between the two countries. She assisted the forum in making recommendations to the two governments on mutual opportunities and trade policy matters.

Host Organization: Heritage Foundation

Role at Host Organization: Huma will undertake an independent research project focused on economic freedom and development in the South and South East Asian region closely studying rule of law, governance, regulation and open markets. She will also contribute in developing the next edition of the Index for Economic Freedom published annually by the Heritage Foundation.

Ishaq has over five years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned two Master’s of Science degrees in Project Management and Applied Statistics from the University of Management and Technology in Pakistan. He earned a Rector’s Award for scoring four out of four GPA during his MS in Applied Statistics. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Statistics from Government College University in Lahore, Pakistan with a Gold Medal for securing first position in the class. While working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Analyst with Chemonics International Inc. in Pakistan under the USAID-funded Punjab Enabling Environment Project for more than two years, he worked to measure the impact of policy interventions made for the economic growth in the Agribusiness sector of Punjab. Ishaq has also worked with USAID funded Pakistan Firms Project implemented by Chemonics International Inc. as Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for more than two years that focused on accelerating sales and creating jobs in the targeted value chains of Agriculture and Industry sectors. Through these experiences, he developed strong monitoring and evaluation, project management and data analysis skills. Ishaq enjoys focusing on the areas of economic growth, women empowerment and gender equality, and has a strong passion for human and institutional capacity development initiatives.

Host Organization: SEED SPOT

Role at Host Organization: Ishaq will help design, collect, and track SEED SPOT measuring and evaluation work enabling more accurate and up to date data. Working with High Schools and SEED SPOT Communities across the country, he will help develop new modules and curriculum for Schools and Communities programs.

Mahak has five years of experience in engaging talent for sustainable organizational performance through capacity building initiatives focused on women and youth empowerment for energy and financial sector of Pakistan. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from the National University of Computers and Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. At USAID-Training for Pakistan Project, she worked on capacity building needs assessments to highlight technical areas which will contribute towards new global practices, challenges and developmental needs in line with Pakistan’s regional pacts. She successfully initiated and implemented 18 training programs focusing on financial management, cyber security, leadership and communication to achieve international best practices for sustainable organizational development. She has worked closely with young leaders from energy and financial sectors to enhance their capacities in areas promoting innovation to help strengthen long-term results. During the implementation of training programs, she also facilitated successful implementation of two courses by USACE for climate and water experts resulting in introduction of new simulation tools for effective management of the overall Indus River Basin. She also worked with ITCILO in organizing a Works Procurement Management course based on Pakistani needs which was later introduced as a regular course at Pakistan Audit and Accounts Academy, Lahore. Previously in 2013, she implemented a nation-wide USAID-Energy Internship Program for youth belonging from underdeveloped areas of Pakistan and it successfully increased women participation from 2% to 9% at Thermal and Hydro Power Plants of Pakistan. The program helped her draft the Gender Strategy for ministries of Pakistan; strategy detailed inclusion of more women in the energy sector in technical areas. She has been voluntarily working with a postpartum self-help group for endorsing mother-child health awareness campaign. All these experiences have developed her working knowledge in program development and implementation, stakeholder liaison and strategic planning for effective project management

Host Organization: Teach For All

Role at Host Organization: Mahak will play a key role in helping build an influential network of champions for the MENA region (Middle East, North Africa) and provide critical behind the scenes support to early stage entrepreneurs seeking to join the Teach For All network.

Mahwish Javaid is a women entrepreneur, and an aspiring lawyer. She has six years of experience in nonprofit sector, and earned a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in Reproductive Physiology from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Mahwish studied effects of hormonal contraceptives and stress on reproductive health of women in Pakistan for her thesis. She joined UN Women in March 2014, as Project Officer; specifically, she worked on Gender Training and Capacity Building under the Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) program funded by United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security (UNTFHS), in Sindh. Along with the International Labour Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, she helped to improve livelihoods of 2500 landless peasant women and 2000 informal women workers by enhancing access to social security services, food security, land tenancy agreements, and income generating opportunities. She supervised activities for disaster risk reduction, sanitation, and onsite trainings for gender mainstreaming, numeric literacy among women, and first aid in 120 villages. Her job profile encapsulated skills of project coordination, policy advocacy, women’s entrepreneurship, and capacity building to realize the goals of the program. Mahwish has been winner of national essay writing competition, and debate competitions and has also held leadership positions in the Scientific Academic Society, Quaidian Intellectual Forum, and Literary and Debating Society, respectively, in her university. She hopes not only to be a skilled social entrepreneur herself, but also to develop a successful model which can be replicated at macro-scale.

Host Organization: Concern Worldwide

Role at Host Organization: Mahwish will utilize her background in business, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship by supporting efforts of the Innovations team to sustain and expand programs with a specific focus on the Maker Hub for Maternal and Newborn Health in Nairobi, Kenya.

Maryem has 5 years of experience in the development sector and earned a master’s degree in business administration from Bahria University in Islamabad, Pakistan. Maryem’s association with the development sector has been diverse both in terms of thematic and functional areas. While working as a program officer in USAID’s Small Grants and Ambassador Fund Program, she provided assistance to the grassroots level organization in designing initiatives in education, health, economic development, entrepreneurship, disaster, women’s issues, culture, and the environment. As the regional manager at a consultancy firm, she helped with research and monitoring and evaluation. She also carried out institutional assessments and conducted capacity building exercises for DFID, EU, World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF and USAID funded projects. Through these experiences, she developed strong project coordination and implementation skills. Maryem enjoys focusing on the topics of economic empowerment and social entrepreneurship and has a strong passion for women’s empowerment.

Host Organization: Global Communities

Role at Host Organization: Maryem will provide support to Global Communities’ economic development portfolio with a particular focus on entrepreneurship, enterprise development including cooperative development, access to finance, workforce development and private sector partnerships. She will develop specific technical products and tools, including programming frameworks/models for business advisory services and workforce development; cooperative enterprise development tools; and research briefs.

Hamza has five years of experience in the development sector of Pakistan, and has a strong academic background in Development Economics with a Postgraduate Degree (MSc.) in Economics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Hamza’s thematic areas of expertise are regional connectivity and trade, development economics, democracy and social accountability, quantitative analysis, gender development, social budgeting, and child rights governance in Pakistan. He has gained experience progressively working for global, regional and national organizations on forwarding human rights of children, youth, women, and the most vulnerable populations in Pakistan. He was associated with the Economic Growth Unit at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), a premier think tank in Pakistan, in the capacity of Project Associate. Hamza also has experience working with various international non-profit organizations such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Save the Children, Actionaid International, The Asia Foundation and national non-profit organizations like Social Innovations, Pakistan Microfinance Network, Bedari, and Youth Parliament of Pakistan. He has shown resilience and commitment to working in sensitive areas of Pakistan for Afghan refugees and Internally Displaced People from the conflict area of Swat, in Khyber PakhtunKhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Hamza’s core competencies include a drive for results, working with people, communication, formulating strategies and concepts, analyzing and interpreting, networking, and strategic thinking.

Host Organization: International Center for Research on Women

Role at Host Organization: Hamza will be a Research Fellow specializing in quantitative data analysis and program monitoring and evaluation. This research will help to support ongoing projects by providing input into the design of new studies in various gender related initiatives.