Abdul Tawab Balakarzai

Balakarzai served in various academic positions as Head of Civil Engineering Department, Founder and Head of Water and Environmental Engineering Department, Dean of Engineering Faculty and Vice Chancellor of Kandahar University, Kandahar, Afghanistan from August 2010 till January 2017. Later on he served at the national level as Acting Minister/Deputy Minister for Academic Affairs at Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan from January 2017 till August 2021. Besides working in the academic leadership and management, Balakarzai was also a faculty member earlier in Faculty of Engineering at Kandahar University and later on in the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at Kabul University. His research areas of interests are water and higher education leadership. Balakarzai has led the ratification process of Tokyo Convention 2011, for Afghanistan with UNESCO office for the Asia-Pacific Region. In addition of leading various academic committees and councils at the ministry level in higher education of Afghanistan, he served in several other national platforms of Afghanistan namely

• Member of Supreme Council of Water, Land and Urban Development
• Member of Supreme Council of Academic, Cultural and Human Resources Development
• Member of Supreme Council of Standards
• Member of Medical High Council
• Member of High Commission for Legal Aid
• Member of National Academy of Science Reform Committee

Moreover, he has serves in the following regional/international platforms

• Co-chair of Education Confidence Building Measures (CBM) in the Hearth of Asia Istanbul Process HoA-IP
• Member of SAARC Ministers of Education/Higher Education Committee
• Member of governing board of South Asian University, New Delhi, India

Balakarzai has a B.Eng. in Civil Engineering from Kandahar University, his master degree is in Water Engineering and Management from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok Thailand. He has recently joined UVIC to obtain his PhD in Water Governance.