Aban Marker Kabraji
Aban Marker Kabraji | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 12, 1953 Mumbai, India |
| Nationality | Pakistani[1] |
| Alma mater | University of London, Karachi University |
| Occupation(s) | Regional Director Asia Regional Office, IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology |
| Institutions | International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) |
Aban Marker Kabraji (born 12 March 1953 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India),[1] is a Pakistani biologist and scientist of Parsi origin. She was regional director of the Asia Regional Office of IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, until early 2021 when she retired from her position. Previously, she was country representative for the IUCN Pakistan office.
Family[edit]
She is the eldest of three children, and the niece of Jamsheed Marker.[citation needed]
Work[edit]
Ms. Aban Marker Kabraji currently serves as Senior Advisor Climate Change and Biodiversity, ‘The Triple Planetary Crisis’, UN Development Coordination Office for Asia-Pacific (UNDCO) with a focus on Thailand, Pakistan, Samoa, and Fiji. In this role she provides advisory and strategic support to the UN Resident Coordinators (RCs) on climate change and biodiversity to the UN system and the government.
Ms. Kabraji advises the RCs on key entry points and partnerships for the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) and facilitates the RCs in their objectives. The Senior Advisor led the work in Pakistan with the Resident Coordinator UN on the One UN approach to the Triple Planetary Crisis (Climate Change, Biodiversity loss and Pollution). This has resulted in the development of the Living Indus Initiative under the leadership of the RC and the Minister MOCC.
Ms. Kabraji focuses on the Pacific countries with support to the RC in Samoa and is identifying relevant frameworks to assess gaps and opportunities to frame a TPC response within the context of an Ocean State.
Ms. Kabraji also serves as Senior Biodiversity Consultant to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in monitoring major investments for Biodiversity and provides guidance on strategic and political considerations to making AIIB a leader among the Multilateral Development Banks in green infrastructure financing.
Ms. Kabraji is a member of the Board of TRAFFIC, which she also chaired between 2015-2017 leading TRAFFIC from being a programme of IUCN and WWF to its status as a fully compliant UK charity. She is also a member of the TRAFFIC operations committee.
Until March 2021, she was the Regional Director for IUCN Asia and Director of the IUCN Regional Hub for Asia-Oceania. It is the largest region of IUCN with a presence in 21 countries through IUCN Members, 12 offices and from 214 to 500 staff. She was involved in overseeing and maintaining a diverse portfolio of 100m in15 countries under the Asia and Oceania regions, including a multi-year, multi-million dollar programme for the Mangroves for the Future (MFF) Initiative in collaboration with UNDP. She also served as Co-Chair of the MFF initiative.
Ms. Kabraji was also responsible for driving strategic direction of close to 300 organizations composed of governments, international and national NGOs, states and indigenous groups as members of the Union in more than 70 wide-ranging environmental initiatives. With more than 40 years of global and cross-boundary experience, her leadership has been instrumental in bringing awareness to vital development and conservation issues such as gender, culture and sovereignty. Ms. Kabraji also has vast experience in conflict resolution related to environmental security, protected areas and transboundary programmes, which involved various stakeholders and constituencies.
In 2018, she was a recipient of the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz Pakistan Civil Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to conservation and development in Pakistan and services to international diplomacy. She served as an Ambassador for the Hungarian government’s “One with Nature” – World Hunting and Nature Exhibition. She led the External Review of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) during 2011 to 2012 and sits on the Green Economy Coalition Steering Group. Recently, Ms. Kabraji was appointed as Team Leader of the Special Policy Study on the “Green Belt and Road Initiative and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” under the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) and appointed by the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province to sit on the Global Environmental Advisory Committee for Jeju Province. Ms. Kabraji is also a member of the External Advisory Board for the Yale Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry, a McCluskey Fellow in Conservation, a visiting professor with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a sought-after lecturer worldwide.
Kabraji provided strategic leadership for the Asia Regional Office of the IUCN in Bangkok, Thailand from 1998 to 2021.[citation needed] This included oversight of 11 country offices with nearly 300 staff and some 70 environmental initiatives. Kabraji was with IUCN since 1988, when she joined the Pakistan office as country representative. Since then she has amassed extensive experience negotiating with governments, IUCN members and partners to support implementation of major global conventions such as Convention on Biological Diversity, Ramsar and CITES.[citation needed]
Kabraji co-chairs the IUCN-UNDP regional initiative Mangroves for the Future and is the nominated chair of TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network. She has also co-chaired the advisory committee for Ecosystems for Life, a Bangladesh-India water dialogue programme. Kabraji has been a member of the External Advisory Board for the Yale Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry and the Governing Board for the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Kabraji is a McCluskey fellow and visiting professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a member of the Advisory Committee of the United Nations Centre for Regional Development.[citation needed]
Earlier in her career, Kabraji was involved in the conservation of the endangered green turtle population off the coast of Karachi and Baluchistan.[2]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b "Aban Marker Kabraji". ASHA Foundation. Archived from the original on November 20, 2008.
- ^ Green sea turtle in Karachi and Baluchistan
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