Akhter Ahmed is a senior research fellow who co-leads IFPRI's Global and Regional Program on Large-Scale Human Capital Interventions. He joined IFPRI in 1990. He works on strategies for restructuring social protection and safety net programs to improve the food security, nutrition and livelihoods of the poor in developing countries. Ahmed was posted in Bangladesh from 1990 to 1994, where he worked on targeted interventions and participated in designing the innovative food for education program. From 1996 to 1999 he was posted in Egypt as the leader of IFPRI's collaborative project on food security research. During 2000-2006, Ahmed worked on poverty and human development issues in Bangladesh, China, India, Malawi, and the Philippines. Currently he is leading an impact evaluation of the conditional cash transfer program in Turkey. Before coming to IFPRI, Ahmed worked with the World Bank and was an agricultural economist for the U.S. Agency for International Development. He received a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Colorado State University, and an M.S. in agricultural economics from Cornell University.