Tariq Banuri information

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Tariq Javed Banuri (Urdu: طارق جاوید بنوری) is a Pakistani academic, development economist, environmentalist, climate scientist, educationalist, human rights advocate, and author who holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University and who is the fourth and current Chairperson of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), a statutorily established regulatory agency whose mandate is to improve and promote higher education and research & development (R&D) within Pakistan. Tariq Banuri has broad experience on the interface between policy, research, and practical actions on the realization of the goal of sustainable development. He has worked in government, academia, civil society, and the international system, specializing in economic development.

He started his career as a member of the erstwhile Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP), and served in a number of positions, including as a Research Fellow at the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER), Professor of Economics at The University of Utah (2012-18), Director at the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development (UNDSD) — being the first person of colour ever to hold this position — founder and first Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Director at the Asia Centre of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), and Executive Director of the Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC), a statutory corporation established under the GCISC Act, 2013.

He has served on national as well as international forums for policy and research, including as Coordinating Lead Author on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC), member of the United Nations Committee on Development Policy (CDP), member of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Council, member of the Central Board of Governors of the State Bank of Pakistan, and Member Secretary of the Presidential Steering Committee on Higher Education.

An expert on sustainable development policy and institutional design, he has been instrumental in the design of a number of institutions and networks on sustainable development, including the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), the Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP), the Asia Centre of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development (UNOSD), the Ring alliance, the Sustainable Mekong Research Network (SUMERNET), the Human Development Foundation of North America (HDFNA), the U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCAS-W), and the Great Transition Initiative (GTI).

In 1992, he founded the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Pakistan's first ever independent think tank, and currently Pakistan's top-ranked think tank according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Index report.

In 2003, he was awarded the Sitara-e-Imtiaz by the then Government of Pakistan for his services to research and education.

In 2007, he was recognized for his contribution to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded jointly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore, Jr. "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

In 2008, he was called by the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, to head the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development (UNDSD) — the largest division of the United Nations — becoming the first person of colour ever to hold this position, which he held until 2011. During his tenure as Director of the UNDSD, he helped lay the groundwork for what would soon thereafter become the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In 2018, he was appointed as the fourth Chairperson of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the apex governing body of higher education in Pakistan. His appointment was made by the then elected prime minister on the recommendation of a non-partisan, high-powered search committee convened by the venerable Syed Babar Ali (founder of the Lahore University of Management Sciences and one of the founding fathers of the HEC). ^[1][2][3][4] In March 2021, he was removed from office unceremoniously on the basis of an amendment to the HEC Ordinance, 2002 through a presidential ordinance that reduced the chairman’s tenure from four years to two years, but was restored in January 2022 by the Islamabad High Court after a petition was filed by Mosharraf Ali Zaidi and others. ^[5][6]