About the Author: Shabbir Cheema is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Previously, he was the Director of the Democratic Governance Division of the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) in New York and the Director of the Asia-Pacific Governance and Democracy Initiative of East-West Center in Hawaii. His interests include democratic governance, urban management and public sector innovations. He has lived and worked in regional institutions and universities in Southeast Asia, East Asia and South Asia.
As a senior UN official, Cheema prepared the UNDP policy papers on democratic governance, urban management, human rights, and anti-corruption and provided leadership in crafting UN-assisted capacity development and advisory services programs in over 25 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Arab Region. He has taught at Universiti Sains Malaysia, University of Hawaii and New York University. He has undertaken consultancy assignments for the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development, Swedish International Development Agency, Dubai School of Government and the United Nations. He holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Hawaii.
He is the co-author of The Evolution of Development Thinking: Governance, Economics, Assistance and Security (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and the author of Building Democratic Institutions (Kumarian Press, 2005), and Urban Shelter and Services (Praeger 1987). He is also a contributor and co-editor of the four-volume Series on Trends and Innovations in Governance (UNU Press, 2010); Decentralizing Governance (Brookings Institution Press in cooperation with Harvard University, 2007), Reinventing Government for the Twenty-First Century (Kumarian Press, 2003) and Urban Management: Policies and Innovations in Developing Countries (Praeger 1992).
Cheema has been a member of the advisory committees of the Swedish International Center for Local Democracy, HABITAT III, UNDP Governance Assessment Program, and the Pacific Basin Research Center. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Urbanization and Environment. A featured speaker at global and regional forums, he served as an advisor to the Dubai School of Government, Pakistan Institute for Economic Development, the Malaysian Academy for Leadership in Higher Education, and the UN Governance Center in Seoul, Korea.
