Assistant Project Manager
Maria Aktar has been working with The International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) as an assistant project manager since May 2023. She likes to introduce herself as a development professional with nearly ten years of extensive experience in the field of development, which includes resilience, disaster risk management (DRM), humanitarian response, locally led adaptation (LLA), climate justice, women’s empowerment and their market engagement, youth capacity development, nature-based solutions (NBS), climate-resilient sustainable agriculture (CRSA), migration, and many other things related to climate change.
Prior to joining ICCCAD, Ms. Aktar was a Program Office for Women and Resilience with ActionAid Bangladesh. Here, she was primarily in charge of boosting women’s climate resilience through social and economic empowerment, mostly at the local community level and through partnerships with regional NGOs. She also served as a program officer at Friendship NGO’s climate change division. Working with Char people who had been touched by disaster in many locations. Finally, she worked as a program officer for a particular project at Democracywatch after beginning her career there as an intern there. The majority of the assignments dealt with young participation in democratic governance.
Ms. Aktar received her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in International Relations from the University of Dhaka. In order to manage her team and partnerships, she also had a postgraduate diploma in human resource management from the Bangladesh Institute of Management (BIM). She enrolled in the quick course Climate Change Adaptation for Mainstream Development Professionals offered by C3ER at BRAC University. She also attended a number of expert trainings and seminars on the connection between climate change and other issues, the majority of which were put on by organizations like SAVE the Children, ActionAid Bangladesh, ICCCAD, the Dhaka Ahsania Mission, CANSA Network, CPRD, and others.
Ms. Aktar’s main strength is in management which includes program management, staff management, partner management, project planning and implementation, proposal development, budgeting, donor communication, reporting, training conduction, advocacy, etc.
As a result of placing first on each of the college’s exams, Ms. Aktar was awarded the Professor Abdul Matin Padak by Central Women’s College. In addition, she was awarded a board scholarship for her HSC grades. Three of her own ideas (proposals) at ActionAid were financed during her professional career. She believes that her current and former coworkers’ love for her is a result of her hard work.
Ms. Aktar’s career objective is to become a well-known climate specialist who will be able to contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change on a worldwide scale.