Social Protection Resource Centre

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Board of Directors

Dr. Aliya Hashmi Khan

C.E.O
About Dr. Aliya Hashmi Khan
Dr. Aliya Hashmi Khan
Dr. Aliya Hashmi Khan is an economist and former Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. Currently she is also a member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister & Labor Expert Group under the "Ehsaas" Social Protection Program of Government of Pakistan. She is associated in an advisory capacity as a Macro Economist and Labor Economist with various committees of the planning commission of Pakistan as well as the international organizations including ILO UNDP, UN Women, World Bank & ADB. She was awarded the President's Medal - Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah 2010 in the category of Higher Education.

Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri

Member
About Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri
Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri
Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri is Executive Director at SDPI. At present, he serves on different policy-making forums and advisory boards, including Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council; National Advisory Council of Planning Commission of Pakistan, and Pakistan Climate Change Council. He is Convenor of National Coordination Committee on Prime Minister’s Agriculture Transformation Plan, and a Member of Board of Directors of National Disaster Risk Management Fund. He is also a member of Government of Punjab’s Vice Chancellors’ Search Committee for Agricultural Universities.

Dr. Wajid Ali Ranjha

Member
About Dr. Wajid Ali Ranjha
Dr. Wajid Ali Ranjha
Dr. Wajid Ali Ranjha is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Forman Christian College (A Chartered University), Lahore. He did his Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Adelaide, Australia; his dissertation was published by the University of Adelaide, as an eBook, titled Critical Theory, Modernity, and the question of Post-Colonial identity. His areas of interest are philosophy, social theory, and political theory.

Dr. Salman Hamayun

Member
About Dr. Salman Hamayun
Dr. Salman Hamayun
Dr. Salman Hamayun is Executive Director at Institute of Social and Policy Sciences. He is a Policy practitioner with 20 years’ experience managing, designing and delivering technical assistance programs, at the highest levels of various governments, bringing considerable knowledge of public policy, public finance and governance reforms in education sector.

Executive Director

Dr. Razia Safdar

Executive Director SPRC
About Dr. Razia Safdar
Dr. Razia Safdar
Dr. Razia Safdar is a public health expert with long experience working in the public sector. She is a Medical graduate from Fatima Jinnah Medical University Lahore and pursued her clinical post-graduation in gynecology and obstetrics and worked as a maternal & child health specialist. Her second postgraduate degree is Masters in Public Health from ULB Brussels, Belgium. She works on environmental health, Climate change, WASH, and inter-sectoral crosscutting public health interventions at the policy level. She is part of national and international forums on Environment and Climate Change.

Dr. Safdar Sohail

Executive Director SPRC
About Dr. Safdar Sohail
Dr. Safdar Sohail
Dr. Safdar Sohail (Ex. Special Secretary Cabinet, Distinguished Fellow/ Senior Advisor SPRC Initiative for Globalisation and Development (SIGAD). Dr. Safdar Sohail has joined the intiative as Director SIGAD from 01.11.2022. Dr. Safdar Sohail, a recently retired career civil servant, belonged to the Commerce and Trade Service, government of Pakistan. He carries an M. Phil. in Sociology and Social Demography, PhD in Sociology of Politics and PGD in Public Policy, all from France. Dr Sohail retired as Special Secretary Cabinet, Government of Pakistan in May 2020. In his civil service career spread over thirty-five years, he served in various capacities combining traditional jobs as a Ministry of Commerce Officer with policy research, training of civil servants, governance reforms and trade diplomacy. He has also served as DG National Institute of Management Islamabad, DG CPEC Center of Excellence at the Planning Commission, Pakistan’s Economic Minister to EU and Member Governance at the Planning Commission. After the retirement, he established Pakistan Alliance for Social Protection. PASP is an Alliance of 20 plus leading organizations and prominent professionals to jointly work to expedite the adoption of minimum social protection to all in Pakistan. Being committed to reform and development, he has established, in collaboration with other experts, Social Protection Resource Centre (SPRC) Islamabad to complement the ongoing efforts of positive social change in the country. Dr. Sohail has many local and international publications to his credit and has addressed/participated in numerous international and regional conferences, workshops, and Seminars.

Distinguished Fellows

Prof. Dr. Zahid Asghar

Distinguished fellow
About Prof.Dr. Zahid Asghar
Prof.Dr. Zahid Asghar
Prof.Dr. Zahid Asghar is currently working as Professor, School of Economics , Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He is former Director, School of Economics, and has also served as Registrar of the university. He is applied econometrician and statistician with special interests in development economics, making sense of data through Data visualization and has conducted a large number of trainings on data analytics using Excel, STATA, R and EVIEWS. Professor Asghar has also served at NIBAF,State Bank of Pakistan for two years as senior econometrician. He has expertise in using R , STATA and Excel , and comfortable in using Datawrapper, Tableau, SPSS and EVIEWS for data anlysis. He is actively engaged in playing with data particularly PovCalnetR, PDHS, PSLM, WDI using R among many other survey data sets. He has published in gender, food security and other socio-economic issues both in national and international peer reviewed journals. He is keen in having better awareness of development indicators in the society and to contribute to an evidence based decision making in socio-economic policy. He has also good grasp of macroeconometrics issues.

Mr.Azhar Hameed

Distinguished fellow
About Mr. Azhar Hameed
Mr. Azhar Hameed
Mr. Azhar Hameed is the Ex. Chairman of Employees’ Old-age Benefits Institution (EOBI)

Dr. Nasir Iqbal

Distinguished fellow
About Dr. Nasir Iqbal
Dr. Nasir Iqbal
Dr. Nasir Iqbal is an economist. His specialized areas are Social Protection, Trade and Poverty. He is certified in modeling and prognosticating socioeconomic issues. He has also remained as the Additional Director General of Pakistan’s Largest social protection program (Benazir Income Support Program). He has also worked with World Bank, Asian Development Bank, DFID, ILO and MIT, Harvard and LSE universities as well.

Dr. Muhammad Khalid

Distinguished fellow
About Dr. Muhammad Khalid
Dr. Muhammad Khalid
Dr. Muhammad Khalid brings with him nearly two decades of working experience with the Government of Pakistan and the private sector, including JICA, GIZ, DFID and various clients from the UN and International NGOs sector and national level agencies. After completing Bachelors in Medicine and Surgery in 2004, Dr. Khalid completed Masters in Public Health with distinction from the prestigious University of Warwick UK in 2007. Since 2006, he has been working in the public health sector in Pakistan with experience in community health, program designing, systems development, strategic planning & management, monitoring and evaluation.

Dr. Ejaz Ahmad Khan

Distinguished fellow
About Dr. Ejaz Ahmad Khan
Dr. Ejaz Ahmad Khan
Dr. Khan is a medical and public health professional working as an Associate Professor in the field of public health. He has special interest in epidemiology of both the communicable and the non-communicable diseases and injuries/trauma. Currently he is working with Global Burden of Disease study as a country-level collaborator. In addition to this, he has been country lead in disaster preparedness and response. He has 21 year of teaching, research and programme implementation experience. He has published extensively in International Journals of high impact. His current h-index is 42, and an i-index of 72. Dr. Khan has moderated, coordinated, chaired and co-chaired in various scientific conferences. He has been on several technical and professional committees, and has led major response to diseases outbreaks and immunization drives in his country. Besides the above serious things, Dr Ejaz has good taste of poetry, he is a good chef, and loves deep sea diving.

Dr. Mohsin Raza Khan

Distinguished fellow
About Dr. Mohsin Raza Khan
Dr. Mohsin Raza Khan
Dr. Mohsin Raza Khan is a Finance specialist and brings with him nearly two decades of experience in the field of expertise. Dr. Mohsin is currently working with World Bank as National Health Financing Consultant. Previously he has worked with The Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), Ministry of National Health Islamabad and British High Commission Islamabad. Dr. Mohsin has completed his Ph.D. in finance from Bahria University Islamabad. He has also remained a part of various national and international training programs and conferences.

Research Fellow

Dr. Kiran John Sardar

Public Health Expert
About Kiran John Sardar
Kiran John Sardar
Kiran John Sardar is a Public Health expert working in the private & public health sector including the Ministry of Health and UNDP Pakistan. Currently she is Public Health Consultant at WHO Alliance for Health Policy & Systems Research.

Dr. Muhammad Bilal

Consultant
About Dr. Muhammad Bilal
Dr. Muhammad Bilal
Dr. Muhammad Bilal is a public health researcher with an expertise in qualitative research methods. His area of interest lies in health systems and the use of systems thinking in LMICs

Core Team

Dr. Ajaz Ahmad

Director Research Programmes
Dr. Ajaz Ahmad
Dr. Ajaz Ahmad
Dr Ajaz Ahmed is an accomplished academic with a PhD in Economics from Durham University, UK. He is trained in applied economic policy research and works in areas such as sustainable agriculture, water conservation, climate change, energy, and public transport, among others. Dr Ajaz has a track record of conducting high social-impact research. He has demonstrated his ability to generate income by independently securing several competitive research grants. While he has peer-reviewed research publications to his credit, Dr Ajaz also contributes to the Dawn which is one of the most widely read English daily newspapers in Pakistan.

Haider Nazir Chattha

Research Associate
About Haider Nazir Chattha
Haider Nazir Chattha
Haider Nazir Chattha did his graduation in Sociology from International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI) and now working with Social Protection Resource Centre (SPRC) as Research Associate. His areas of interest include healthy ageing, sustainable development, social welfare, disability, pandemics and transformative social protection. He is working with the Research Unit in reports, policy briefs, working papers and projects. Along with this, he is actively engaged with the organization as a survey manager and conducts surveys for the research being produced. Moreover, he also provides administrative services to the organization and look after the financial and managerial matters as well.

Taskeen Abbas

Research Associate
About Taskeen Abbas
Taskeen Abbas
Taskeen Abbas is an MPhil graduate in Economics from the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). Previously, she has worked with PIDE as a Research Assistant and currently she is working with SPRC as a Research Associate. Her areas of interest include social protection, employment, industry, socio-economic issues and evidence-based policy review and analysis.

Ghulam Fatima

Research Associate
About Ghulam Fatima
Ghulam Fatima
Ghulam Fatima is a Development Economist graduated from Quaid i Azam University and her area of interest includes Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis, Macroeconomics Policy Analysis, Data Analysis, Social Sector Development. Currently she is working as Research Associate at SPRC and actively engages in Data Analysis, Data Collection, Writing Policy Briefs and Concept Notes, Project Proposal Development and Research Related Articles.

Abid Raza Khan

Assistant Professor Economics
About Abid Raza Khan
Abid Raza Khan
Abid Raza Khan is Assistant Professor Economics
Malik Arslan

Malik Arslan

IT Expert
About Malik Arslan
Malik Arslan
Malik Arslan
I am Malik Arslan Website Designer & Developer , Graphic Designer & Creative Strategist ardent about learning and experiencing new things. I am more passionate about my work rather than just earning money. I love to create and provide distinctive solutions for unique problems. My Background in Website & Graphic Design, Website Design, Marketing & Strategy has helped me out to broaden my horizons and have creative thinking. I’m always looking to connect with more people & learn more while creating work that speaks. The best way to predict about a website is to create it. I never dream about the success I work for it

Najya Ali

Project Assistant
About Najya Ali
Najya Ali
Najya Ali is currently a student of the 5th Semester, completing her Bachelors in Public Health from University of the Punjab. She has completed her O-levels from the UAE & her A-levels from LGS, Lahore. Moreover, she served as a volunteer in the First Public Policy Conference at NSPP, 2022. Besides this, she holds interest in community work, prevention of diseases, sociology, international relations, psychology, and much more. She has also written her first research paper which is under process of being published. Her passion towards improving the future of our society has driven her to work as a Project Assistant at SPRC & give her part to contribute towards this cause. Lastly, apart from this, she is also a horseback archer & has internationally represented Pakistan in various events.

Alishba Naeem

Research Associate
About Alishba Naeem
Alishba Naeem
Alishba Naeem is a Policy Researcher. She has obtained her MPhil Degree in Public Policy from Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. Driven by motivation to work in social sector, her areas of interest include informal economy, social protection, gender disparity and urban-social dynamics. She has pursued both field and desk research in her academic career. Her expertise revolves around qualitative research, report writing, policy review and analysis. In addition to this she also actively engages in social media and web based projection of research.

Maimoona Munir

Program Officer
About Maimoona Munir
Maimoona Munir
Maimoona Munir is currently completing her bachelors in Public Health from the University of the Punjab. She holds an interest in public health, social protection, community work, social welfare, climate change, prevention of diseases, and research. She has written her first research paper, which is being considered for publication. She has taken part in a variety of social activities, such as fundraising events. Moreover , she has served as a volunteer at NSPP's ( National School of Public Policy) first international conference.

Tahreem Fatima

Manager Communications
About Tahreem Fatima
Tahreem Fatima
As a highly motivated student of BS Public Health from University of Punjab, looking to secure a position that allows me to apply and broaden my skills. During my time at university and at workplaces, I developed excellent time-management skills, work well under pressure and detail orientated. As well as the above skills, I have experience of working in a highly regulated environment. I have worked on research under the supervision of Assistant Professor as a course work. Another research was based on Identifying Gaps in Curriculum through Focus Group Discussion. Besides this, I was appointed as a volunteer for this conference, and get certified as “Volunteered in NSPP 1 st International Social Policy Conference 2022”. I have participated in many other social works like organizing Fundraising Session, Events and Programs Management as a society member, debates, and speeches etc. These experiences have allowed me to build on my hassle fixing, expand my understanding and gain hands on practice, as well as amplify transferable abilities which include commercial focus, communication and negotiation and analytical abilities. I am seeking for a new opportunity where I can use and develop both my soft and technical skills. My career intention is to benefit a role which permits me to further my expertise and is to count on a function that permits me to examine and take on increased responsibility at a market places.