Asadullah Meelad
MA

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Based in Kabul, Afghanistan
Fluent in Dari, English, & Pashto
Proficient in Arabic & Japanese

ASADULLAH MEELAD holds a Master’s degree in International Development, which includes two programs: Governance and Law, and Peace Building/Conflict Resolution from the Graduate School of International Development (GSID) at Nagoya University in Japan. He has written his Master’s thesis on the environmental issue of Hamun Wetlands (an ongoing controversy between Afghanistan and Iran) in the Helmand River Basin, titled “A Legal Approach towards Environmental Challenges in the Helmand River Basin”. He has also had extensive interdisciplinary training in several fields towards further developing his career within the water conflict and transboundary niche. These include training courses in water governance, climate change, water diplomacy, water conflict management, negotiation, and settlement of disputes that have been facilitated by the World Bank, USAID, and several other international development and research organizations.
 
For over a decade, he has held several key positions which have collectively sustained ongoing interdisciplinary research, training/teaching and capacity building in promoting and strengthening regional cooperation and diplomacy towards the management of water, and related conflicts between Afghanistan and its neighbours. He has also been exposed to a wide range of water conflict, cooperation, and diplomacy situations through his association with Richard Paisley and the International Waters Governance Initiative at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada; including work in Central Asia/Aral Sea, Nile, Mekong, Columbia.
 
Meelad has also invested considerable time towards supporting the implementation of education and capacity development of transboundary water issues. Since 2012, he has delivered presentations and lectured on topics related to transboundary water issues during his graduate studies, during his jobs with the Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Ministry of Public Works (MPW) and at several international forums. Additionally, he has contributed as a trainer and mentor in several capacity building and training programs within the MEW, including the providing of training to Afghan journalists on water related issues and to water user associations on behalf of the MEW. Furthermore, while working as a national expert on transboundary water in an EU funded project (Assistance and Training in Transboundary Waters for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan PHASE 2) with the MoFA, together with other international experts, he prepared, organized, and handled seminars and workshops for the Directorate General of Border Affairs, Transboundary Rivers and Security Cooperation (DGBSC). These were delivered to 30-40 participants from academia (e.g, public and private Universities), MoFA, National Water Affairs Regulation Authority, National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Livestock and various other key Afghan ministries responsible for transboundary international waters. He has also researched and prepared material for the seminars and workshops organized under the EU funded project at MoFA ─ for which he served as the moderator for all the workshops’ sessions ─ which included internationally recognized leading experts in water diplomacy, climate change, water resource management, conflict and cooperation.
 
Since November 2021, Meelad has been teaching international crisis management at Kardan Univesity (Band 1 Private Univesity in Afghanistan) in the Department of Master’s in International Relations.