Fellows

Abida has four years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Peshawar in Pakistan. She has diverse work experience as a program support personnel in planning, monitoring, evaluation, research, reporting, and knowledge management. Abida has worked with host communities, internally dislocated people as well as with refugees, in development and emergency contexts. While working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer with the Sarhad Rural Support Program, she helped in providing social mobilization support to the Community Driven Local Development policy of the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, under the funding of the EU. Abida has also helped in providing opportunities to the rural women of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in their homes, through the provision of skill development and microfinance trainings, under the AUSAID-funded livelihood strengthening project. Previously, Abida worked as a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting Officer with the Danish Refugee Council in Pakistan to support sustainable solutions for Afghan refugees living in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, by creating livelihoods and improving general living conditions. Through these experiences, she has acquired strong monitoring and evaluations skills, which are applicable across different areas. Abida enjoys focusing on the topics of women empowerment, economic development, promotion of Civil Society Organizations and rural development.

Host Organization:  Empowered Women International

 Role at Host Organization: As EWI relies heavily on monitoring and evaluation of our program impacts for use in fundraising and communications with potential clients and donors, Abida will be helping shape the continued improvements to Monitoring & Evaluation by both assessing and updating the current systems, and researching & implementing a new Customer Relationship Management system by late 2016.

Avais has six years of experience with development projects implemented by international nonprofit organizations. Avais has a Master’s degree in Business Administration, and Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from Iqra University Islamabad, Pakistan. In Avais’s most recent assignment with The Asia Foundation, he developed the organization capacity of civil society organizations partnering with USAID Citizens’ Voice Project. In his previous position with Winrock, Avais promoted renewable and alternate energy technologies including biogas and biomass. He worked with dairy farming communities, and advocated for the installation of biogas plants for energy generation. He successfully piloted eight medium size biogas plants for electricity generation. Avais also worked with medium size industries to identify biomass energy potential, and enabled two industries to obtain donor support for implementation of their renewable energy projects. While implementing renewable energy projects, Avais contributed towards highlighting environmental issues and promoting environment protection by identifying carbon financing opportunities available through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Host Organization: Center for Environmental Health

Role at Host Organization: Avais will serve as the lead coordinator for CEH 2015 annual Fracking and Health Symposium which will bring together scientists, academia, and community members to share information on the effects of hydraulic fracturing on community health.

Ehsan is a sustainability enthusiast with a masters in Sustainability (Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management) from the University of Nottingham, UK. He holds a Bachelors in Environmental Sciences from Pakistan and has completed an exchange semester at SUNY Plattsburgh USA with mention on the Dean’s list. Ehsan shoots for the stars and is constantly thinking about new methods to generate effective engagement opportunities for the 1.8 billion global youth, rethinking the global Agenda 2030 of ‘leaving no one behind’. He has served as a youth member on UNDP’s panel for development of National Human Development Report 2016 in Pakistan and has been involved in over six social development projects in Pakistan in different capacities during his work at NUR Foundation for 3 years. He currently works as Technical Services Manager at Punjab Public Health Agency, Pakistan. He is also the module convenor for developing minimum viable product course at Startup School, MIT Enterprise Forum, Pakistan. Ehsan has also co-founded a social enterprise called, the Green Box; it is a youth led global think tank aiming to contribute towards creating routine attitudes, values and actions for sustainable development. The world is committed to achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030. Through Green Box, he wants to ensure that people acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, global citizenship, and appreciation of culture’s contribution to sustainable development. He plans to do this all in a very unconventional manner.

Host Organization: International Youth Foundation

Role at Host Organization: Ehsan will work collaboratively with YouthActionNet team to support research and learning content development as well as the co-design of a new global initiative. He will gain a deeper understanding of the global social entrepreneurship, youth-led civil society, and youth advocacy sectors in addition to supporting a new global initiative focused on engaging the next generation of young people in demanding and delivering Sustainable Development Goals.

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 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.

Kamran Malik has 8 years of experience working in the non-profit sector. Kamran holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with two independent majors in Financial Management and Project Management. For the past 3 years, Kamran has been working with The Asia Foundation in Pakistan for improving and strengthening Human Rights in Pakistan. Kamran has played a key role in establishing a national network of 25 organizations to promote religious freedom and protection of rights in Pakistan. With an Undergraduate Degree in commerce, and a Diploma in cost and management accounting, Kamran started his career in the corporate sector. Driven by his passion towards establishing a fair and just society, Kamran left the lucrative corporate sector after four years and started working in the nonprofit sector. Over the past 8 years, Kamran has worked with several national and international nonprofits in Pakistan on issues including disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, post-disaster rehabilitation, health and hygiene, and protection of religious minorities in Pakistan.

Host Organization: CARE

Role at Host Organization: Kamran will be responsible for assisting with the financial management of advocacy department of CARE USA. In addition, he will assist with monitoring and reporting of international advocacy grants, and he will have the opportunity to learn about how CARE utilizes advocacy to help achieve its mission. Kamran will also support the women and girls lead global international advocacy program—an advocacy initiative that receives quarterly reports from offices in five countries.

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.

Mavra Zehra has over three years of experience in the nonprofit sector and earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. While working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer with Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI) for countering violent extremism (CVE) program in Pakistan, she has developed the monitoring and evaluation framework for forty-five small grants running in South Punjab. She was the M&E representative of a four-member core team, which partnered with the District Government of Multan to pioneer a district-wide CVE campaign. Additionally, she was appointed by the USAID-Office of Transition Initiatives to lead the research titled, “Gender & CVE” – programming with women and was the M&E consultant on the first-ever CVE mapping exercise in Pakistan. Previously, Mavra worked with a public trust organization, Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, where she prepared an assessment and improvement strategies for the low-cost private school sector in Pakistan and contributed to the market research study for the same. Through these experiences, she developed strong research and monitoring and evaluation skills. Her recent assignment with the World Health Organization involved data review, data visualization and data analysis of the Measles SIA campaign that ran across Pakistan for two weeks. Mavra takes a keen interest in projects that value research backed social interventions and which offer room for innovative M&E mechanisms.

Host Org: Transparency & Accountability Initiative

Role at Transparency & Accountability Initiative As the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Fellow, Mavra will help to implement and refine TAI’s internal MEL system and practices.