Executive Director

Fatema Z. Sumar is the Executive Director of the Harvard Center for International Development (CID) and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School where she teaches policy design and development diplomacy. She has a distinguished career as a practitioner in the US government and civil society.

In government, Fatema served across four Democratic and Republican administrations. Most recently, Fatema was Vice President of Compact Operations at the US Millennium Challenge Corporation with the rank of Assistant Secretary. She oversaw MCC’s regional and technical divisions on infrastructure, environment, private sector, gender and social inclusion, human and community development, agriculture, procurement, financial management, strategic partnerships, and contracts and grant management in Africa, Asia, and globally to reduce poverty through economic growth. She was previously MCC’s Deputy Vice President for Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America.

Fatema also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia at the US Department of State leading efforts on regional economic and energy connectivity and as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF). In Congress, she was a Senior Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and the broader region.

In civil society, Fatema was the Vice President of Global Programs at Oxfam America overseeing development and humanitarian programs to fight the injustice of poverty. She founded the award-winning Translator Interpreter Program at Cornell University. She is on the Board of Directors of Blumont; on Advisory Boards at Princeton SPIA, Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, Women in Defense, Diplomacy, and Development (W3D), and Muslim Americans in Public Service (MAPS); and on Harvard Kennedy School’s Sustainability Leadership Council.

Fatema is author of the book, The Development Diplomat: Working Across Borders, Boardrooms, and Bureaucracies to End Poverty. She has written for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The New Republic, The Hill, Devex, and others. She is a guest speaker, testified before the US House and Senate, and visited approximately 70 countries.

Fatema graduated with a MPA from Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs, where she received the prestigious Stokes Award, and a BA in Government from Cornell. She has an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. She studied at the American University in Cairo.

 Featured Work

The Development Diplomat: Working Across Borders, Boardrooms, and Bureaucracies to End Poverty

October 2021

Opinion: E-learning can prevent another lost generation in Afghanistan

Devex, January 10, 2023

Why Inequality is Growing in the US and Around the World

The Conversation, November 1, 2022