Centennial Group Associates

Biography: Tariq Husain, Senior Associate

Mr. Tariq Husain has multi-sectoral professional expertise with a proven ability to combine these perspectives into practical strategies. Over a career spanning more than 30 years at the World Bank in multi-sectoral public policy formulation and implementation, he has led major assignments in Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, amongst others. He was a senior member of a Technical Assistance Task Force created by the President of the World Bank (Mr. Robert McNamara) at the request of the Shah of Iran. This Task Force was resident in Teheran and was the first one for the World Bank to provide technical assistance to a member country after the 1973 oil price increase. Mr. Husain was resident in Iran for two years.

In recognition of his technical and leadership abilities, Mr. Husain was, as the first exception to the Bank's policy, seconded to the Government of Pakistan (his country of citizenship) to lead a joint Bank-UNDP Government Project to develop a 15-year Perspective Plan for Pakistan's Indus Basin. About 500 professionals, including international consultants, worked to develop the Perspective Plan, which had a significant influence on the government's, the World Bank's and other donors' (US and Canada) policies in Pakistan's Water and Agricultural sectors during the 1980s. This was a model of government ownership creation that was used in subsequent technical assistance projects by the World Bank.

Mr. Husain headed the World Bank's Resident Mission in Nigeria during which period the Bank's input on Nigeria's development program reached its peak. The country program increased five-fold to over a billion dollars annually, and the Bank became actively involved in education, agriculture, energy, health, structural and institutional reform. Subsequently, he became the Senior Operations Adviser to the Vice-President for the Middle East and North Africa Region. In this job, he supervised the Region's operational work in all sectors.

Since the late 1980s, Mr. Husain has been leading human development and change management programs in many important institutions. In early 1990s, he headed a Regional Task Force to improve the responsiveness of the World Bank to client country requests for assistance. Subsequently, he headed a Bank-wide task force to recommend a human capital development program which, inter alia, led to the creation of the World Bank's first Staff College called the Bank's Learning and Leadership Center. This Center was created by Mr. James Wolfensohn who also appointed Mr. Husain to head it. In this capacity Mr. Husain significantly increased the human resources development activities of the World Bank. He worked with universities - Harvard, Stanford, INSEAD, London Business School, London School of Economics and others to develop joint programs for technical as well as leadership development. The most notable accomplishment in leadership development - another first in the World Bank - was the creation of the Bank's Executive Development Program. This Program was tailor-made for the Bank's managers and delivered by a joint faculty from the world's premier institutions - Harvard, Stanford, INSEAD. In 1999, this program was rated one of the five best leadership development programs in the US.

Mr. Husain took early retirement from the Bank to work on the development issues of his own country.

He is currently Senior Adviser to Pakistan's Minister of Planning and deeply involved in designing the restructuring and reform of the educational institutions that serve Pakistan's elite civil service. He is adviser to the chairman of Pakistan's National Revenue Service which is undergoing a major restructuring to make it a world class revenue service. He is also Adviser to a research think tank - Center for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution - which is focusing on the many dimensions of Pakistan's Poverty Reduction Program.

Since his retirement, Mr. Husain has been consultant to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and UNDP on change management, private sector development and education reform.