Ali Shan Azhar is a social sector governance specialist who started his career in Pakistan as a civil servant and since 2003 has conducted analytical research on poverty, inequality, economic growth, and human development in Pakistan and South Asia. He worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre in Islamabad and was the Editor of the annual “South Asia Human Development Report.”

Ali has led several monitoring and impact assessment missions with the United Nations Development Program, the Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank. As Governance Adviser for the former U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) in Pakistan, he focused on strengthening devolved social services for more equitable social service delivery. Ali also led DFID’s Punjab Resource Management Program aimed at restructuring of government departments, reforming civil service, developing the private sector, and improving public financial management.

• M.Phil., development economics, Quaid-i-Azam University
• M.A., economics, University of the Punjab