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Atiq Rahman
Executive Director - Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies
Dr. Atiq Rahman is the Executive Director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and in charge of Programme and Policies of BCAS. As Bangladesh\'s lead think tank BCAS works on issues of (a) Environment-Development Integration (b) Good Governance and Peoples Participation (c) Sustainable Economic Growth of poor societies and works at local national, regional and global levels of decision making. He also coordinates Global Forum on Environment and Poverty (GFEP), which is an initiative emerging out of UNCED in Rio, and a worldwide network of over 400 policy and research institutes working on sustainable development, global governance and equity issues. Further Dr. Rahman is the Convener of Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA), a South Asian Network working on Global Change, working closely on global change issues and global networks. In 1999, he was elected the Chairperson of the Coalition of Environmental NGOs, Bangladesh and continues to represent this vibrate community as its principal decision maker. He is presently the Chairman, Steering Committee of Asia-Pacific National Councils for Sustainable Development (APNCSD) whose Secretariat is in Manila. He is also the Bangladesh Focal point of South Asian Poverty Commission follow up actions. Besides, his work in Bangladesh and Asia, Dr. Rahman is a Research Associate at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Boston, USA since 1996. He was also a Faculty Member of the International Programme on the Management of Sustainability (IPMS) for the Sustainability Challenge Foundation in Netherlands. He has designed, developed and teaches (1999 and 2000) multi-disciplinary post graduate course at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Cambridge, USA on Sustainable Development Challenges and North South Dialogue. He is also a Reviewer of the World Energy Assessment (1999) by the World Energy Council, UNDP and UNEP. He was born in Bangladesh in 1950. Trained as a chemist with early education in B.Sc Hons. and M.Sc from Dhaka University he was awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship 1974 and completed his Ph.D on solid state chemistry and low energy processes from Brunel University, London, UK. in 1977. For fourteen years (1974 - 1988) he taught and researched in the Universities of Oxford and Aberdeen in UK and Haute Alsace in France. During his scientific career in Europe he was awarded (a) the Thermal Methods Group Award in 1984 by the Royal Society of Chemistry and (b) Sir Eric Rideal Award in 1985 by the Society of Chemical Industries, London (c) Royal Society, London gave the award for lecturing on Advanced Ceramics in several Universities in Japan during 1986. During his academic career in Europe he taught and researched on wide ranging subjects including materials science, solid state chemistry, history and philosophy of science, sociology of development, North South negotiations, environment-development integration and sustainable development, global governance and peoples participation methodologies. He has been a visiting lecturer in universities and research institutes in many countries including USA, UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan. Dr. Rahman has been very active all his student and professional life on issues relating to democracy, human rights, environmental concerns, poverty and equity issues. In U.K he was the Vice Chairman of Scottish Council for Racial Equality (1985-87), Chairman of Aberdeen World Development Movement in the early eighties and was closely involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. In Bangladesh, as a Dhaka University student he initiated his career in late 1960s through to early seventies as a journalist in the then Pakistan Observer. After 14 years of teaching and researching and being an environment and human rights activists in European countries he returned to Bangladesh in 1987 to help set up BCAS. Since then he played a leading role in environment and democracy movement in Bangladesh. He was the Chairman of the Synthesis Committee of Bangladesh National Environment Management Action Plan, a nationwide mass mobilization project involving over 70,000 peoples\' input used to develop a participatory national environmental plan, which is now being implemented by the Government of Bangladesh. Further Dr. Rahman initiated and led the national and international peoples and civil society movement on Flood Action Plan (FAP) since 1989, which has now emerged into a mass movement raising concerns of peoples participation, human and environmental rights. Dr. Rahman has over 100 publications and edited or co-authored eighteen books on various issues, more recently on sustainable development, peoples participation and vision exercises. He was an advisor to the US National Academy of Sciences ( Board in Natural Disaster), a member of the International Advisory Board of WWF initiative on Impacts of Structural Adjustment on Environment in nine countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. He was also a member of the International Advisory Board, IMAGE 2.0 Integrated Model on Global Climate Change RIVM, The Netherlands. He is a member of the Global Scenario Group (GSG) of the Stockholm Environment Institute, Boston, and USA. He is the author of the background paper on the Poverty-Natural Resource and Livelihood for UNDP, NY and presented at the UN Special General Assembly session of Rio plus 5 held in 1997. He presented the Asia-Pacific consensus positions at the Sixth Session of UN-CSD in 1998 in New York. He is a member of the International Curriculums Advisory Committee of \"Leadership in Environment and Development (LEAD). He was also the Vice Chair of the Commission on Economic, Environment and Social Policy (CEESP) of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland and Chaired the World Water Council / IUCN consensus on Water Vision and Security in Harare in 1999. Dr. Rahman has been a key non-governmental actor in the Climate Change Negotiation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and was elected to represent the global civil society to address the UN-negotiation in its first and the last sessions of INC. He is also the Co-team leader of a major global project entitled New Initiative for North-South Dialogue on Climate Change: Good Practices, Technology Innovation and New Partnerships for Sustainable Development- Challenges and Opportunities in Implementing the Climate. He played leading role in UNCED, Rio, 1992, all the Sixth, Sixth-B, Seventh and Eighth session of the Conferences of Parties and Climate Summits in Kyoto, 1997 leading to Kyoto Protocol. He is also a lead author of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report and IPCC Special Report on Technology Transfer and cross cutting paper on Development, Equity and Sustainability. He was also a lead author of \'Bangladesh 2020\' a vision exercise of Bangladesh by the BCAS and the World Bank. He was also the lead author of the \"Global Inter Linkages Study\" of the World Bank, UNEP and NASA. Dr. Rahman was invited to testify before the US Congressional Committee on International Finance to address the question of global environmental resource mobilization and GEF. He was one of the key actors in formulating, monitoring and establishing the GEF (Global Environmental Facility. He leads one of the Collaborating Centres of Global Environment Outlook (GEO) process of UNEP and a lead author of the Multilateral Environment Agreement issues in GEO-2000 and is member of the Global Scenario Committee of GEO-3 and Team Leader of Asia Pacific Natural Disaster Assessment Task Force. He was also engaged write the commissioned paper on Regional Assessment of Sustainable Development Strategies in the Asia Pacific Region for the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations, NY. In Bangladesh he is the team leader of the World Bank Study on the Socio-economic impact of Electricity Outages and a member of the evaluation team of Meghna Estuary Study of the Government of Bangladesh and the Social Evaluation of the Shrimp Culture in Coastal Bangladesh. Dr. Rahman has been commissioned by OECD Secretariat to write the vision piece on Equitable Climate Regime in a Post-Kyoto world. In April 2001 Dr. Rahman gave the key note speech on Global Citizenship and Responsibility of the Private Sector in a Rapidly Globalizing World for CERES, Boston, USA at their Annual Congress. Dr. Rahman has been invited to give the key note address at the Funders Meeting at US Environmental Grantmakers Association, Washington DC in May 2001 and address the International Human Dimension Program at Stockholm Environment Institute on Vulnerability and Global Environmental Change. Dr. Rahman is the lead Author of the commissioned paper by UNCTAD on Sustainable Development and Global Governance Strategies for the Asia and the Pacific LDCs as background material for the LDC-3 Summit in Brussels, May 2001. He is also the member of International Advisory Committee of the Secretary General of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) on Sustainable Development and was elected Vice Chairman of working Group on Environment, Trade and Investment (GETI) of the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic & Social Policy (CEESP). It is an outcome of World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) 2002. The Netherlands National Committee on Pugwash nominated Dr Rahman to represent and chair the Pugwash Input on Sharing the Planet, Population-Consumption-Species: Scientific and Ethical Perspectives on Sustainability at WSSD along with Jan Pronk, Special Advisor to UN Secretary General and Jane Goodall, President Jane Goodall Institute.
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