— The Implementation Arm of the Biruni Institute
Research-backed. Afghan-led. Grounded in context.
Biruni Consulting LLC translates the institutional research of Biruni Institute into policy advisory and implementation mandates across Afghanistan and the development sector.
Born from a research institution, not a consulting template
Biruni Consulting LLC was established as the direct implementation vehicle of Biruni Institute — a native Afghan research institution with a documented analytical record across poverty, private sector, value-chains, and financial systems.
Our mandate is precise: convert field-verified research into implementable strategy for donors, UN agencies and commercial partners operating in environments where generic frameworks consistently fail.
Afghan-led analysis is not a credential we claim — it is the condition of our work. Our advisors operate inside the economy, the geographic complexity, and the risk layers that external consultants reconstruct from secondary sources.
Every recommendation is stress-tested against what could break it
Conflict dynamics, political economy, and implementation constraints are not peripheral considerations — they are the first inputs. A strategy that ignores these factors is not a strategy; it is a proposal waiting to fail.
This analytical discipline is inherited directly from Biruni Institute's research methodology and applied at every stage of client engagement — from scoping through delivery.
Institutional credibility, applied to your context
Biruni Consulting's two practice areas — Private Sector and Financial Inclusion, and Strategic Research and Conflict-Sensitive Analysis — carry the Institute's research depth into mandates that require both rigor and field proximity.
Nazir Kabiri
Nazir Kabiri brings a rare combination of senior government experience and field-level institutional knowledge to every mandate he leads. As Former Deputy Minister of Finance (2020–2023), he managed and oversaw multi-billion-dollar international portfolios, $3B+, across engagements with the World Bank, UNDP, and the Asian Development Bank.
A Fulbright Scholar, Kabiri's advisory work is grounded in direct participation in Afghanistan's fiscal architecture at its most consequential period. His expertise spans political-economy analysis, strategic programme design, and the relational networks required to navigate complex, multi-stakeholder environments. He leads mandate scoping, institutional engagement, and the design of high-level PEAs for Biruni Consulting's development partners.
Managing Director
The Core Team & Experts
Lutfi Rahimi, PhD
Dr. Rahimi holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Exeter, UK, and serves concurrently as Director of the Afghanistan Research Initiative at the University of Central Asia (UCA) and Lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF). His prior role as Policy Advisor at Afghanistan's Ministry of Economy grounds his research in the institutional realities of policy translation.
At Biruni Consulting, Dr. Rahimi oversees the technical design and data integrity of all consulting assignments, applying rigorous quantitative and qualitative methodology to environments where data scarcity and contextual complexity demand analytical precision above standard practice.
Lead Researcher, Economist
Omar Joya, PhD
Dr. Joya is a former World Bank Economist with an academic and research record that spans peer-reviewed publications, econometric modelling, and macro-fiscal analysis. He has lectured at the University of Paris and the American University of Afghanistan, bringing an internationally benchmarked standard of analytical discipline to every engagement.
His role at Biruni Consulting is unambiguous: every deliverable passes through a quality-assurance process calibrated to international peer-review standards. For institutional clients and donor agencies whose programming decisions rest on the integrity of the analysis they commission, Dr. Joya's oversight is the assurance that the work holds.
Senior Advisor & Quality Assurance, Economist
Mir Tawfiq Ansari
Mir Tawfiq Ansari is a financial economist with over ten years of experience across macroeconomic modelling, banking and non-banking sector analysis, monetary policy, and Islamic microfinance, including direct institutional experience with Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB). He holds a BA from Punjab University (India) and an MA from the University of Tsukuba (Japan).
As Biruni Consulting's lead for local field research, Ansari operates at the intersection of financial-sector diagnostics and private sector development: SME mapping, banking sector analysis, financial inclusion programming, and the advancement of Islamic microfinance as a resilience instrument in Afghanistan's evolving economic landscape.
Research Fellow
