Salma Popalzai has completed her bachelor’s degree in business administration at the American University of Afghanistan and her master’s degree in public administration from the London Metropolitan University, on a Chevening scholarship. “Public Administration Reform in Post-Conflict Countries” was the title of her master’s thesis. She has extensive work experience with national and international organizations in senior management positions, in the areas of women’s empowerment, programmes development and implementation, capacity-building, monitoring and investigation, and performance management.

Baryalai Helmand has Bachelor of Arts in political science from University of Delhi, India, and a Masters of Public Administration degree from University of Rajasthan, India. From 2010 to now he has served in the leadership teams of important organizations. He has with CARD-F as provincial Manager of Helmand branch since 2013. Mr. Helmand, besides his full-time employment, was also teaching in private universities including Bost University and Arakuzia University.

Mr. Helmand is one of the founders of cultural and civil society movements in southern Afghanistan. He has established the first culture society (Bost Cultural Society), published the first quarterly magazine (Bagrray), established the first commercial radio station (Sabawoon) and a women’s radio station called Muska, and the first Television Station (Sabawoon), in Helmand province. Mr. Helmand founded the annual poetry festival of Helmand Sind, in 2004.

Mr. Helmand participated in London Conference on Afghanistan, 2014 as elected civil society activist of southern Afghanistan. In addition, Mr. Helmand has attendant a number of leadership and management trainings and courses in Denmark, Germany, France, Uganda, India, and many other countries.

Sayed Ahmad Rateb Muzafari is an Afghan scholar and lecturer at the Law and Political Science Faculty of Kabul University. He has received his MA (2004–06) and PhD (2006–10) from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

‘Presidential System in a Divided Society: Afghanistan 2004–09’ is the topic of Mr Muzafari’s doctoral dissertation. The title of his MA thesis was ‘Mechanisms Influencing Foreign Interventions: Causes and Consequences of the War in Afghanistan’. Mr Muzafari’s articles have been published in specialised national and international journals. He is a pioneer of critical research in the fields referred to above in Afghanistan.

‘Afghanistan’s Early Democratisation Process 1946–73: An Analysis of Factors Influencing its Rise and Fall’ is the title of a research article by Mr Muzafari that has been published in the Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies. He also has a number of unpublished research articles that will be published in the future.

Dr. MUzafari has served as the head of the Legal Services Institute for three years. He has also worked on the public administration’s reform policy and simplification of administrative processes in the IARCSC.

In addition, Mozaffari has management and consultant work experience with international institutions, in various sectors.

Aliye Yilmaz is a women’s rights activist and an academic. She has received her doctorate in philosophy and religious studies from Ankara University, Turkey. Ms. Yilmaz did her MA in Turkish literature in Süleyman Demirel University and her BA in theology and inter-state relations in Süleyman Demirel and Eskişehir Osmangazi Universities.

Ms. Yimaz has published articles in national and international journals. Her MA and doctorate were respectively about women’s social problems and education in Afghanistan, and the philosophy of education in the politics of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani.

Aliye Yilmaz holds membership in the steering committee of tomorrow’s leaders group (Süleyman Demirel University), the executive board of the forum of Afghan scientists and scholars and the academic board of the international conference on new foreign language learning methods (Süleyman Demirel University).

Dr. Aliye Yilmaz has management experience with international and non-governmental organizations.

Gaisu Yari has obtained her Master’s Degree in Women and development, accountability and transparency of development aid from Columbia University. She also has a double major, Bachelor of Arts in Women Gender Studies and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Virginia, USA.

Miss Yari has work experience with national and international organizations. She has worked as Research Consultant for some time at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) and through this institution, she has assessed the impact of war on civilians in most provinces including Ghazni, Kandahar, Helmand, Badakhshan and Kunduz. Likewise, Miss Yari has worked as Assistant Professor of Persian Language at the University of Virginia, as intern at the Feminist Majority Foundation and as Gender Trainer at the ZOA-International.

Gaisu Yari is the founder of the Women’s Creative and Artistic Organization. This organization works to empower women and advocates for women’s rights. Furthermore, Miss Yari has worked as Consultant/Program Manager at Paiwand-E-Emroz Social and Cultural Organization, as Consultant/Agency Liaison with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs at the Asia Foundation and as Technical Assistant at the Huda Development Organization.

Maiwand Rahyab has served in leadership capacities in national and international organisations for the past 15 years. He has served as director of the Afghanistan Institute for Civil Society from 2014 to 2017. Prior to this, Mr Rahyab has led international humanitarian aid organisations such as Focus and Counterpart International in Afghanistan.

In 2006 he worked as Chevening fellow in democracy and rule of law at the Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy at the University of Birmingham in the UK and as an Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) international electoral observer in Tajikistan. Additionally, he has working experiences in technical, management, research, and organisational development fields.

Mr Rahyab has received his MA in public administration through a Fulbright scholarship at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, the US, and his BA in law and political science from Balkh University.

Mr Rahyab has delivered talks in international forums, including in the UN Headquarters in New York, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Wilson Centre. He has completed short-term leadership training programmes at universities such as Stanford University. In 2016 Mr Rahyab was recognised by the Asia Society as one of the Asia 21 Young Leaders in the Asia-Pacific.

Sayed Hashmatullah Hashimi is a graduate of Kabul Medical University and he completed his specialized studies abroad in human resource management at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Mr Hashimi has working experiences in areas such as public policy and administration, human resource management, donor coordination, project management, organisational development and human resource support in ministers and other government agencies, and restructuring and reform initiatives in government institutions such as the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Interior, and the Independent Directorate of Local Governance.

He has served in policy and advisory capacities for institutions such as the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission, the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock, and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

In addition, Mr Hashimi has been involved in research and translation as well, his research on the country’s public administration has been published twice by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.