Category : Fellows

This year’s Benazir Bhutto Leadership Program Fellow is Waheed Ahmad, the first fellow from Afghanistan. He brings over a decade of experience at the intersection of national security, governance, and development. Waheed most notably served as a senior National Security staff of the Afghanistan Democratic Government (2001-2021). He fled Afghanistan as the U.S. withdrew from the country and the Taliban took power in Kabul. Once in the U.S., he served as Resident Practitioner at the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (I-GMAP) at Binghamton University, focusing on human rights issues in Afghanistan. He is now a Mason Fellow pursuing his MC/MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School. We spoke to Waheed about his past, his time at Harvard, and his future plans.