Mojeeb Stanikzai is a Director of Projects at DAI, where he oversees a portfolio of governance, economic growth, environment, and water governance projects in the Middle East. He is originally from Afghanistan, where he witnessed the effects of war and poverty on him, his country, and his people. He decided to dedicate his life to promoting peace, democracy, and development in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. He believes that empowering local communities and fostering inclusive and accountable governance are the keys to achieving sustainable and positive change. His areas of expertise include community-driven development, stabilization, peacebuilding, gender integration, and workforce development. He has more than 22 years of international development experience, primarily managing large, complex donor projects.

For the last five years, he has been overseeing DAI’s governance, environment, and economic growth projects in the Middle East. Before joining DAI, Mojeeb worked at Winrock International where he focused on managing education, agriculture, aquaculture, livelihood, and agribusiness projects. He spent more than 12 years in the field managing governance, stabilization, agribusiness, education, peace-building, and post-conflict programming. He has work experience in both post-conflict and developing countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sudan, Tajikistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan.

• M.A., comparative local development, University of Trento, Italy
• M.D., curative medicine, Kabul Medical University