Work

As Asia Regional Director of IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Ms. Kabraji provides strategic leadership for IUCN’s work in the 23 countries of the region. In Asia, IUCN has some 350 staff with offices in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indo¬nesia, Lao PDR, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam. These are complemented by two thematic expert groups covering Biodiversity, Climate Change, Environmental Economics, Environmental Law, Forests, Marine and Coastal, Protected Areas, Species, Water and Wetlands and Business and Biodiversity. IUCN operates nearly 100 environmental initiatives in the Asia region.
Ms. Kabraji first joined IUCN as the Country Representative for Pakistan in 1988 where she served until 1999, when she initiated the establishment of the IUCN Asia Regional Office in Bangkok. In recognition of her extensive experience in running a national programme and later, one of IUCN’s largest regional programmes, she has been appointed as the Director General’s Senior Adviser on Regionalization and as Coordinator of all IUCN’s Regional Programmes worldwide.

She has had extensive experience negotiating with governments, IUCN members, and partners to support implementation of major global conventions such as CBD, Ramsar, and CITES and is the lead liaison between IUCN and the Asian Development Bank.

In addition to these responsibilities, Ms. Kabraji serves on a number of advisory boards, and committees. She co-chairs the Regional Steering Committee for the IUCN-UNDP led Mangroves for the Future (MFF), a unique multi-partner initiative promoting investment in coastal ecosystems. She also co-chairs other large regional initiatives including Ecosystems for Life covering Bangladesh and India and the Mekong Water Dialogues in the Mekong region. She is a member of the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC Committee, the External Advisory Board of the Yale Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry, has served on the Governing Board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and was a founding member of Shirkat Gah.

Ms. Kabraji has been honored with several distinguished awards. She received the Order of the Golden Ark by the Grand Master of the Order, His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and is also a Yale University McCluskey Fellow. She has authored and co-authored a number of publications on conservation strategies, the environment and security and conflict prevention. Ms Kabraji was a visiting Professor at Yale University in 2004, where she taught Master and PhD level courses in development and conservation issues and is still a member of their External Advisory Board.

Before joining IUCN Aban was the Regional Director for the Sindh Region of WWF. Throughout her career she has retained a special interest in gender, social equity and security, to the extent of undertaking programme activities in politically less secure areas where other environmental organizations have found it difficult to work.

Ms. Kabraji was born in Pakistan, and has raised three children. She holds a BSc in Biology (Honors) from the University of London, and is a graduate of the World Bank Executive Development Programme and the World Bank Sustainable Development Leadership Programme. She is fluent in English and Urdu, is proficient in Hindi and Gujarati and speaks some Thai.