Shahida Arif

Shahida Arif a nonresident fellow at the Global South Policy Hub. She is a South Asia-based humanitarian and development professional with more than two decades of experience advancing strategic partnerships, resilience, and locally led approaches across complex and crisis-affected contexts. Since 2015, she has played a leading role in advancing the localization agenda and strengthening the leadership, agency, and influence of local and national actors across regional and global platforms. Through her engagement with NEAR as Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, she has supported collaboration with networks and institutions to promote more equitable partnerships, shift decision-making closer to affected communities, and strengthen locally led action across the humanitarian-development nexus.

Since beginning her career in 2005, working alongside earthquake-affected communities in Pakistan, she has built an extensive track record of work across Asia Pacific, East Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe with local and international NGOs, multilateral institutions, the United Nations, and, most recently, the Global South Network. She holds a master’s degree in political science and an advanced diploma in Disaster Risk Reduction, Policy and Planning.

She remains committed to advancing principled, equitable, and sustainable change through partnerships that center local leadership and deliver lasting impact.