IFES staff Shabir Ahmed

Shabir Ahmed, Country Director, Pakistan

Country Director, Pakistan
General Inquiries
media@ifes.org
+1 (202) 350-6700

With over 27 years of experience in democracy, elections and governance, International Foundation for Electoral Systems’ Country Director for Pakistan, Shabir Ahmed is a senior electoral and civil registration expert. Shabir brings extensive experience of working in post-conflict and developing democracies in Africa, Asia and Europe - Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Kosovo, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Nepal, Afghanistan and Iraq. He has worked with IFES, the United Nations (UN), the Election Commission of Pakistan and other national and international organizations.

Working with IFES, Shabir provided a wide range of technical assistance to the Electoral Commissions of Pakistan, Cambodia, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka covering various electoral domains including strategic planning, electoral legal framework, training, civic and voter education, political finance, voter registration, gender and social inclusion, electoral integrity, delimitation of constituencies and capacity assessments, among others. He supported Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission in strategic planning. Shabir extended technical support to the Iraqi Election Commission in strategic planning as well as other important aspects of elections and led the UN’s effort in Kurdistan Region of Iraq and successfully supported Kurdistan Election Commission in the conduct of parliamentary elections in 2018, conducted a post-election review and trained Election Commission’s staff on voter registration. Shabir was part of the UN’s election and civil registration teams in East Timor and Kosovo.

Shabir holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Shah Abdul Latif University, Sindh, a law degree from Peshawar University and a certificate in international relations and multilateral governance from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. He is fluent in English, Urdu, Hindko, Punjabi and Sindhi languages and has working knowledge of French. Shabir was decorated by the government of Cambodia in 2007 as a Knight (civil award) in acknowledgment of his services to the people of Cambodia.