Fahmida Khatun is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a leading South Asian think tank. She completed her bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in economics at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh. She did another masters program in environmental and natural resource economics, and she completed a PhD in economics at University College London. She did her post-doctoral research at Colombia University’s Earth Institute as a Fulbright scholar and undertook joint research with Professor Jeffery Sachs. She has also participated in a leadership decision making course at Harvard University.

Prior to joining CPD, she worked as a research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies; as an environment specialist for the United Nations (UN) Development Programme; as an economist for the United States Agency for International Development Mission in Bangladesh. She taught economics at universities in Bangladesh and England. She was a visiting fellow at the Christian Michelsen Institute in Norway, at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade in South Korea, and at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy in India.

She delivers lectures on macroeconomic policy, trade, climate change, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and issues related to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and least developed countries (LDC) in several institutions in Bangladesh including public and private universities, the National Defence College, the Defence Services and Staff College, the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre, and the Bangladesh Police Academy.

Khatun is a member of the advisory board of the Productive Capacities Index with the UN Conference on Trade and Development. Dr Khatun is a member of the Governing Body of BRAC, largest non-government organization in the world. She was a member of the Panel of Economists for the Eighth Five Year Plan (from 2021 to 2025) formed by the Bangladesh Planning Commission. She previously served as a member of the advisory committee for the National Human Development Report prepared by the Economic Relations Division of the Government of Bangladesh. She also previously was a director of Janata Bank Limited, the second-largest state-owned bank of Bangladesh, and a director of the SME Foundation of Bangladesh.

Khatun has undertaken research for several international organizations. Her areas of interest include macroeconomic policy, aid effectiveness, international trade and WTO issues, the digital economy, youth unemployment, health issues, social inclusion and poverty eradication, climate change, the interests of LDCs, the SDGs, and women’s contributions to the economy. She has published widely at home and abroad. She is a columnist of the Daily Star, a leading daily in Bangladesh. She is also a contributor to the East Asia Forum.