Curriculum Vitae of Manik Kumar Saha Page 1 of 4

Manik Kumar Saha

5th floor, Gulshan Bhaban, 355 Mohakhali, Dhaka-1212

Date of Birth: 10 October, 1986 Cell: +8801717354230 E-mail: manik.0415009@gmail.com

Education and Qualifications:

2014-2015 University College London (UCL), UK. (Commonwealth Scholar )

MSc Environment and Sustainable Development (Merit 2:1, 61-69% marks)

Modules included: Political Ecology of Environmental Change, Environment and

sustainable development in practice, Urban Environmental Planning and Management,

Disaster Risk Reduction in Cities, Adapting cities to Climate Change in the Global South

2011-2013 University of Dhaka

Master of Development Studies (3.53 out of 4.00)

Modules included: Policies and Issues in Environment and Development, Environmental

Economics, Economics of Development, Quantitative Methods for Development Policy

Analysis, Poverty Concepts, Strategies and Programming, Project Planning and Evaluation

2004-2010 Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology

Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning (3.69 out of 4.00)

Modules included: Urban Management and Governance, Environmental Planning and

Management, Natural Hazards and Disaster Management, GIS and Remote Sensing, Project

Evaluation and Management, Participatory Local Level Planning, Planning of Utility and

Municipal Services

Skills Profile:

Leadership

Currently I am leading a team from Urban Development Programme of BRAC aiming to implement

some special projects in urban slums of Bangladesh. Moreover, I am designing, planning and

implementing the “Community Fire Prevention” project so that urban slum communities become

resilient. Before that, I was responsible for providing strategic guidance and planning of

“Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents" project which focuses both on financial and social

empowerment of youths in Bangladesh. I also led the customer service project for BRAC microfinance

clients as a test case, which is now a mainstream programme due to its frugality and effectiveness.

I also led a team of 21 members during the digital programmatic MIS development through

Geographical Information System (GIS) at BRAC as a part of ICT for Development (ICT4D) and

successfully completed the project within the given time and resources. Moreover, during my

employment at UNICEF funded project, I led a WASH team consist of 10 members in terms of field

decision making, information gathering process and overall quality control.

Teamwork

My job responsibilities at BRAC requires excellent teamwork skill to lead a multidisciplinary team on

regular basis. For example, at BRAC, I was assigned in a team comprised of both national and

international expert to develop a new secondary school model to ensure quality education with

appropriate value proposition in collaboration with Pearson, UK. After 6 months of hard team work,

our team finally came up with an innovative secondary school model, which is now operating in

certain parts of Bangladesh.

Moreover, I was distinctly recognized as a very effective team player during several leadership and

management training. In my academic career both in UK and Bangladesh, I was assigned to several

practical academic projects that is solely based on team work. I completed my assigned

responsibilities successfully that aligned with the overall team objectives.

During my study at University College London, I had a field study in Lima, Peru with a group of eight

members. Only two of us knew Spanish while others entirely depend on them for translation and

communication. However, we delegated our work daily and overcame this language barrier through

proper planning and teamwork.

Curriculum Vitae of Manik Kumar Saha Page 2 of 4

Self-motivation and enthusiasm

I am extremely motivated to work in the development sector to unleash the potential of poor people

and organize them. Experiences of working with the poor people of rural areas and urban slums

dwellers during my academic life and last 4 year at BRAC assist me to understand their sufferings and

coping mechanism, which is still driving me to work in this sector.

Knowing the multi-cultural aspects has been always my priority. During my post-graduation in UK, I

spend that year’s Christmas with one of the traditional British Family through HostUK organization. I

was enthusiastic to know their culture as well as to share my culture with them.

Networking, Organization and Pro-activeness

I am well-known for my networking skills and I possess the ability to cope with any situation promptly.

The nature of my professional work capacitate me to manage functional partnership with wide range

of actors in development field. It includes development partners (USAID, DFID), development

practitioners (UNDP, ActionAID, TIB), research organization (BRAC University, Centre for Urban

Studies) and policy institutions (City Corporation, Municipality, LGED, UDD) as well.

Both my professional and academic career facilitates me to meet with diverse group of people and it

helps me to organize some of the biggest events at national level. For example, I was the convener of

Planning Week, a three-day long national level programme jointly organized by United National

Development Programme (UNDP) and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

(BUET). It was very challenging job for me to arrange financing and ensuring the participation of right

people in the right place. Through my networking skills, I successfully managed and ensured the

participation of several ministers, development partners and development practitioners. Moreover, I

have organized several seminars at BRAC.

Moreover, I am a member of a travelling group where we arranged lots of exploring events across

Bangladesh. It includes managing the accommodation, transport and logistics in due time. I

proactively organized multiple tours with lower cost and it has been successful so far.

Communication and Presentation

I have very good communication skills and good command both in Bengali and English. I have been

assessed several times through presentations in seminars, open discussion, class debate and I

received feedback that I am a confident presenter. For instances, my IELTS overall score is 7.

Innovative and Problem solving ability

I try to find an innovative approach for any problem solving. I am one of the winners of an “Innovation

Fund Challenge” competition of BRAC for my idea of integrating mobile money in the effectiveness of

development programme implementation across BRAC. Also I was the winner of Urban Resilience

Challenge, a global competition of innovation run by IDEO, DFID and Rockefeller foundation.

In my current employment I am about to run an “Urban Innovation Challenge” for tackling urban

poverty. This challenge will run in different universities and development institution to engage them in

the common platform of reducing urban poverty and the way forward to address this. Moreover, we

are going to finance and implement some of this bottom-up award winning idea.

Research, analytical and technical skills

I conducted several actions research for the improvement of development programme intervention. I

have outstanding competency on using Geographical Information System (GIS) regarding spatial

analysis for research purpose. Beyond that, I have excellent data analysis and technical proficiency

through MS Office, SPSS, MS Project and MS Access.

My research skills demonstrated in several publications both nationally and internationally as follows,

while additional writings are in the process of publication.

1. Saha, M.K., Magazova, A., Louis-Castano, C., Chang, H., Jeun, J., Chen, J., Nonye, M. and

Rivadeneira, N.R., (2015). “Co-Learning for Action: Exploring the Relationship between

Everyday Risk and Urban Development in Lima”, Development Planning Unit, University

College London, pp. 1-34. London, United Kingdom.

2. Saha, M.K., Khan, N.A., (2014). “Changing Profile of Cyclones in the Context of Climate

Change and Adaptation Strategies in Bangladesh”, Journal of Bangladesh Institute of

Planners, Volume 7, pp. 63-78. Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Curriculum Vitae of Manik Kumar Saha Page 3 of 4

3. Saha, M.K., (2013). “Environmental and Social Impact of Flood Control, Drainage and

Irrigation projects: Is it a Development Disaster for Bangladesh?” Planned Decentralization:

Aspired Development, Bangladesh Institute of Planners, pp. 78-84.

4. Saha, M. K. (2010). “Earthquake is chasing Dhaka City”. Perspective. pp. 12-17.

Job Experiences

Oct 2011 –

Present

Manager, Urban Development Programme, BRAC

I started working at BRAC as a Young Professional Trainee which is a year-long capacity

building programme, aimed to create a mid-level management through intensive training

and field visit. It helped to conceptualize the development landscape of Bangladesh.

Currently, I am working as a Manager of Urban Development Programme, a new

intervention of BRAC, which intend to reduce urban poverty through empowerment, pro-

poor governance, creating resilience and multi-actors partnership development.

May 2011 –

Sep 2011

Physical Planner, UNICEF and BUET

The primary role of this position was to provide strategic guidance for assessing the need

of water supply and sanitation (WASH) through participatory process. It also includes the

preparation of WASH plan while developing capacity-building module for community

people. However, It was very challenging to work with the root level community which

assisted me to increasing my coping mechanism to any environment.

Oct 2009 –

Apr 2011

Urban Planner, House of Consultants Ltd. and AQUA Consultant & Associates Ltd.

This is my first job where I was assigned to prepare structural plan of several districts

and sub districts of Bangladesh through GIS analysis, field survey and focus group

discussion. Besides, I also prepared land use plan, topographic, utility and base map.

Awards and Honors

Commonwealth Scholarship holder 2014-2015, funded by the UK Government

BUET Dean’s List Award: At two levels out of four.

University Merit and Stipend Scholarship from BUET: At six terms out of eight.

Rajshahi Education Board Scholarship in Higher Secondary Certificate Examination.

BUET’ 70 Scholarship, 2009

Professional affiliation, membership & societies:

Member, Alumni of the Commonwealth Scholars in the UK

Member, Bangladesh Institute of Planners.

Member, BUET planners.

References:

Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3

Name Ahmad Fazlullahil Baqi Maria A. May Dr. Ishrat Islam

Designation Sr. Programme Manager Senior Programme Manager Professor

Organization Urban Development

Programme, BRAC

Microfinance, BRAC Department of Urban and

Regional Planning, BUET

Contact

number

+88029844180 Ext-5641

+88 01709647509

+88029881265 Ext-3376

+8801738194965

+88029665650-80 Ext-7199

+8801713014801

E-mail fazlullahil.baqi@brac.net maria.a@brac.net ishratislam@urp.buet.ac.bd

Relationship Current professional

supervisor

Previous professional

supervisor

Academic and previous

professional supervisor

I confirm that all information stated in this CV is correct and complete to the best of my knowledge.

Manik Kumar Saha

Curriculum Vitae of Manik Kumar Saha Page 4 of 4

ANNEX

Professional Training

Training/Workshop Title Organizer Date of training Duration

Result Based Management MDF Training and Consultancy

Apr 10 – Apr 12, 2016 3 days

Design Boot camp on Human Centered Design, Nairobi, Kenya

www.ideo.org Mar 21 – Mar 24, 2016 4 days

Inter-disciplinarily and inter-generationality in planning sustainable urban environments

University of Birmingham Aug 24 – Aug 26, 2015 3 days

Connect and Communicate Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK

Mar 13 – Mar 15, 2015 3 days

Mindfulness - Based Emotional Intelligence Curriculum

Enroot Management Consulting in association with BRAC

July 02 – July 04, 2013 3 days

Process Mapping MicroSave in association with BRAC

Mar 24 – Mar 28, 2013 5 days

Leadership Skill Development Enroot Management Consulting in association with BRAC

Dec 15 – Dec 20, 2012 6 days

Qualitative research techniques Bangladesh Institute of Planners

Dec 07 – Dec 08, 2012 2 days

Contemporary development issues

BRAC Sep 17 – Oct 04, 2012 16 days

Essential habits of highly effective people

BRAC Sep 15-16, 2012 2 days

Supply chain management BRAC Sep 12-13, 2012 2 days

Managerial competencies development

BRAC Sep 08-11, 2012 4 days

Governments policies, rules and procedures

BRAC Aug 07 – Sep 06, 2012 30 days

Project planning and management

BRAC Apr 23-30, 2012 7 days

Basic accounting and financial management

BRAC Apr 17-22, 2012 5 days

Statistical analysis BRAC Apr 07-09, 2012 2 days

English Proficiency Development Course

BRAC Mar 24 - Apr 05, 2012 13 days

Gender awareness and analysis course (GAAC)

BRAC Dec 13-17, 2011 5 days

“Project proposal writing for NGOs”

BD jobs training program Sep 09-10, 2011 2 days

“Project cost management: estimating, budgeting and earned value analysis”

BD jobs training program July 30, 2011 1 day

“Post cyclone spatial redevelopment potentials in Bangladesh”

Urban Emergencies research program by Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.

May 21, 2009 1 day

“Dynamics in Urban Informal Settlements”

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, BUET and Technische Universitat Dortmund, Germany.

Mar 5-6, 2008 2 days