Get in touch
For research collaboration, advisory work, teaching, editorial requests or a question about a publication. Say what you are working on and who it is for, and I will reply.
Email
Best for a first enquiry, and for anything with a document attached — a terms of reference, a draft, a concept note.
shakhawatali1965@gmail.comWhatsApp
For a short question, or to arrange a time to talk.
Send a message
Send a message
What to put in the first message
- Who you are and the organisation or university you are writing from.
- The question you are trying to answer, or the decision the work is meant to inform, in one or two sentences.
- What you are asking for — a study, a review, an evaluation, a lecture, a comment — and the timeline.
- Anything already written on it — a terms of reference, a concept note or an earlier report.
Questions
What people ask before writing
What do you work on?
Four areas, for three decades: education policy and school governance; social protection and poverty; local governance and civil society; and mobile financial services and financial inclusion. Across all of them the method is the same — qualitative, field-based research and evaluation, written up so that it can be used in policy.
What can I get in touch about?
Research collaboration, policy and advisory assignments, evaluations, guest lectures and teaching, editorial work, and requests to speak or comment. Write with what you are trying to find out or decide and who it is for — that is enough to start a conversation.
Which organisations have you worked with?
As a researcher: the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC), BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, BRAC Development Institute, Unnayan Shomonnoy, Grameen Trust and Gonoshahajjo Sangastha. On studies funded by DFID/FCDO, the World Bank, Sida, the Swiss and Netherlands embassies, the Canadian High Commission, UNDP, UNICEF and UNESCO, and for Save the Children, ActionAid, Plan International and NETZ Bangladesh. In digital finance: Nagad and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
What is your work on mobile financial services?
A book and a body of advisory work. The book is Mobile Financial Service in Bangladesh: Achievement, Opportunity and Challenge (Riverside Press, 2017), on the sector's institutional bottlenecks, interoperability and consumer protection. I have served on the Management Board of Nagad, and I advise the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on scaling mobile financial services and digital payment infrastructure for people who are unbanked.
Where can I find your publications?
The publications page lists everything in full — eight books and edited volumes, four book chapters, two journal articles and nine policy papers, monographs and working papers — in MLA format, followed by my essays, poetry and newspaper columns. If you cannot locate a title, write to me.
What is Gayanmela?
Gayanmela — a ‘knowledge fair’ — is a concept I introduced in Bangladesh in 2000. It is a way of opening public policy research to ordinary citizens: taking what is usually discussed inside research institutions and putting it in front of the people it is about, so that academic work and grassroots experience can meet.
Do you work in Bangla or English?
Both. I write, teach and publish in Bangla and in English, and a report or a lecture can be in either.
Where are you based?
In Gulshan, Dhaka. The research itself has been carried out across Bangladesh — in upazilas, in schools and in the river islands of the north-west — and with partners abroad, including the University of Manchester.