Hafeez A. Pasha

Dr. Hafeez Ahmed Pasha (Urdu: حفیظ احمد پاشا) is a distinguished economist of Pakistan who is the Chairman of the country's Panel of Economists, an independent advisory committee for the government. He is the dean of the School of Social Sciences at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He is also the Vice Chairman of the university's think-tank, the Institute of Public Policy. Dr. Pasha's wife Ayesha Ghaus Pasha is now Finance Minister of Punjab province and presented provincial budget of Punjab for 2015-16.

Dr. Pasha has served till 2007 as a United Nations Assistant Secretary General and United Nations Development Program Assistant Administrator and a director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific. He is the first Pakistani to hold this distinction.

He has served as the Federal Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, with the status of a federal minister, Education Minister and Commerce Minister in three governments. Earlier, he was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi, Dean and Director of the Institute of Business Administration, and research professor and Director of the Applied Economics Research Centre (AERC). He has been the chairman or member of a large number of task forces, commissions or committees. He has published extensively in the fields of public finance, social development, and poverty. He is founder of Social Policy and Development Center (SPDC). He was awarded the ENGRO Lifetime Achievement Award in the field of Social Sciences in 2012 and earlier the Congressional Medal of Achievement by the Philippines Congress.

Dr. Pasha has an M.A. from Cambridge University, England, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, USA.