- Masters of Science, Health Economics and Management, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
- Bachelors in Software Engineering, City University, London, United Kingdom
- Bachelors in Statistics and Economics, Edwardes College, University of Peshawar, Pakista
Akbar has extensive experience of working in an advisory role with governments in the South and Central Asian region on trade and development, customs modernization, domestic competitiveness and productivity enhancements of private sector including SMEs through technology and innovation. He started his career with UNDP as a Young Professional Officer (YPO), providing technical backstopping to manage poverty reduction projects with specific focus on private sector partnerships and has worked extensively with the World Bank Group on Afghanistan Customs modernization and trade facilitation, Pakistan-Afghan transit trade and border management. He continued to advise the Government of Pakistan while working with Deloitte Consulting LLT on issues related to border management, trade development, Afghanistan transit trade, electronic data interchange and customs single business window. Akbar’s work on electronic data interchange between the Customs department of Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan was instrumental in establishing Realtime exchange of Customs information between the two Governments to curb informal trade which was causing millions of dollars in revenue losses to the Government of Pakistan. More recently, he has been involved in UNDP’s work on innovation and entrepreneurship which aims to help find innovative ways to addressing development challenges to improve service delivery and creating employment for youth across Pakistan.
