Dr. MUHAMMAD MUNIR
AGRONOMIST, STRATEGIC THINKER AND PLANNER, RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, PROJECT COORDINATION & MONITORING SPECIALIST
Dr Muhammad Munir is a Gold Medalist, having Ph.D degree in crop sciences (Agronomy) from Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon, United States of America (June, 1988) and by now possesses 35 years of Post Ph.D experience. He did his M.Sc.(Hons) Agronomy in 1981 and B.Sc.(Hons) Agriculture Education & Extension in 1979 from the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Dr. Munir is a strategic thinker and planner with professional carrier spanning over 41 years in research and development. He has rich experience and professional knowledge on issues of food security; capacity building; resource mobilization; farmer empowerment and rural development; project planning & execution; coordination & monitoring of R&D activities; national and international liaison of stake holder; research; research management; programme design and implementation focusing mainstreaming and sustainability and public private partnership.
He has held senior leadership positions in Pakistan and abroad and has pioneered several transformational programmes foresetting networks by linking policy, agricultural research, Extension, private sector, diagnostic services, and farmers to translate researcher’s knowledge into practical and accessible advice. His salient assignments in Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad (PARC) includes Member Plant Sciences Division (the largest Division of PARC, Member Coordination & Monitoring Division, Secretary Council, Senior Director PARC, National Project Director Olive Promotion in Pakistan funded by Government of Italy entitled as “Promotion of Olive Cultivation for Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation” and National Coordinator for an international project entitled “International Consortium For Rice-Wheat Cropping System Research in Indo-Gangetic Region of South East Asia”. This project was a collaborative effort among four regional countries Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and International Centers under CGIAR System i.e. IRRI, CIMMYT, ICRISAT, and IWMI, while financial support was extended by World Bank & Asian Development Bank. As a Member in PARC, he was responsible for planning, execution, and monitoring of R&D activities undertaken by different establishments of PARC and National Agricultural Research System (NARS), through plan, aid, promote, and coordination mechanism as per priorities set by the Govt. of Pakistan, directed to uplift the Agriculture sector of the country.
He served as Deputy Director (Policy Planning) for 4 years in SAARC Agricultural Information Centre (SAIC) Dhaka, Bangladesh, representing Govt. of Pakistan in SAARC and headed a team of technical experts and professionals from all SAARC member countries. He was responsible to facilitate across boarder sharing of information regarding different technologies developed in the region and to keep liaisons with the Agricultural Institutions in the SAARC member States and the world over in the field of Agriculture.
Dr. Munir has served as consultant in Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for a project of Islamic Development Bank (IDB) entitled “Resource Mapping Program for Pakistani Institutions under Reverse Linkage Program”. He also worked as consultant with Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations for developing a project of international collaboration among OIC (Organization of the Islamic countries) member states for promotion of use of indigenous Plant Genetic Resources in the varietal development process and their integration in the seed system and for developing a state of the art Institution “Punjab Horticulture Development Board” for the Government of Punjab aiming to uplift the Horticulture Sector of the Province.
He also served as Vice President in a multinational private sector company “Celeros Networks (Pvt.) Ltd., Islamabad” ,where as head of Agriculture Division, was supervising the Research & Development activities in the field of Agriculture and Human Resource Management of the organization. This activity was a joint venture of Zonergy International Agriculture China.
Dr. Munir acquired international exposure by representing Govt. of Pakistan in different Countries at different forums on 23 occasions and by serving for about four years in SAARC Agriculture Information Center Dhaka. He secured specialized professional training from highly skilled International institutions like CIMMYT; IPPC; IRRI; ICRISAT; OSU, IWMI, CAAS & China.. He succeeded to win and successfully executed many projects with International and National financial support.
He worked as member of Senate & Syndicate of University of Agriculture Faisalabad and is still on board of studies of different universities and working as member of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) curriculum committee for Agronomy. He is well-versed in use of different computer softwares needed in professional work and in addition is member of many national and international professional societies.He has managed large number of professional staff with multi-disciplinary teams, and has a reputation of leading people to deliver results.
Dr. Munir is author of 63 research publications in different journals of international repute and prepared a policy paper for ten years of SAIC.