Profile
H.E. Saad S. Khan, Ph.D
H.E. Dr. Saad S. Khan
President of ECO Cultural Institute (ECOCI)
Dr. Saad S. Khan, Pakistani government administrator, writer, analyst, and diplomat with extensive international experience.
President, ECI, Tehran, IRAN
His Excellency Dr Saad S. Khan, an eminent scholar and historian, is a career administrator-turned-diplomat of the Government of Pakistan. Prior to the present esteemed assignment at Tehran, H.E. had wide ranging experience at the Federal as well as various provincial governments in his country having headed the Departments of Health, Science & Technology, Tourism, Higher Education, and Human Rights amongst others at different times. Also a leading governance expert for developing world, he has provided consultancy services in projects funded by the Asian Development Bank and international agencies.
H.E.’s involvement with diplomacy started even before joining the civil service when he was selected as part of Pakistani delegation in the Track-II diplomacy initiative called “Neemrana Dialogue” between India and Pakistan at the young age of 23, way back in 1990’s. Subsequently in his career, H.E. represented Pakistan at various multilateral conferences held by UN Agencies including one on trans-boundary veterinary diseases by UN (Thailand; 2011); on global tourism conducted by UNWTO (Bhutan; 2012) and on demographic planning by UNDP (Panama; 2013). H.E. also was the civilian member of FST military delegation of National Defense University to Germany and Nigeria (2022). H.E. has led delegations of Pakistani civil servants abroad to Egypt, Poland, Azerbaijan and Turkiye during 2019 to 2022. H.E. is a former Deputy Secretary-General of the Pakistan Commission for UNESCO.
H.E. has a rich international experience, even otherwise than his governmental capacity, such as being the first ever Chairman from an Asian and Muslim background of the International Military Music Society; as the past Assistant Governor of Rotary International (RID 3272). H.E. has long propounded and propagated the unique idea of deployment of military bands on battlegrounds as instruments of peace between parties to international armed conflicts and is also striving for recognition of military music as an endangered intangible cultural heritage of humankind.
His Excellency’s vision of ECI—as akin to regional UNESCO for the ECO region—aims at cementing the centuries-old civilizational ties amongst member states and enhancing the ECO bloc’s cultural collaboration with contiguous regions of South Asia, Caucus and the Arabian peninsula.
H.E. Saad S Khan has widely published on international politics & security, contemporary Muslim History, and constitutional & international law. Besides being contributing author of the multi-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics as well as the influential Oxford Bibliography Online, he has to his credit the authorship of eight acclaimed books (titles below):
H.E. has remained Section Editor of Cambridge Review of International Affairs. His research publications include those in Quarterly Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Qtly Muslim and Arab Perspectives and Journal of National Development & Security. His op ed columns have appeared in numerous leading papers worldwide including in Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey and in the Diplomatic Traffic (Washington DC, USA), some of which have been translated into French, Turkish, Bengali and other languages.
H.E. has taught at the prestigious National School of Public Policy and other institutions of instruction for Pakistan’s public servants and has frequently lectured at military institutions. He has appeared as Guest Speaker abroad at the Cambridge University, University of Dhaka, Cairo University, Jamia Millia University New Delhi and Cornell University, NY, USA among many other forums and thinktanks the world over.
H.E. Saad S. Khan’s academic qualifications upto PhD are in the discipline of International Relations and Diplomacy; his doctoral dissertation focused on regional organizations, comparing the performance of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) with the European Union (EU). His post doctoral research endeavors included his stint as Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK, where he worked on the refugees and stateless people created by 1971 Indo-Pakistani war. Even PhD could not quench his intellectual thirst, so ever since H.E. has undertaken several graduate certificate/diploma courses in related fields including one on International Conflict and Cooperation from Harvard University, USA; one on Anti Corruption Strategies from Ecole Nationale l’Administration, Paris, France; one on Creative Diplomacy from Regional Center for Strategic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka; a MicroMasters in International Law from Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium; in addition to participating in the world famous Summer School in Private and Public International Law from The Hague Academy of International Law, Netherlands.
Earlier, during his youth, H.E. had been a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholar at Cambridge University, UK, a Fulbright/USEF professional exchange fellow at ITD, Massachusetts, USA and an alumnus of the International Academy of Leadership (IAF), Kottenhiede, Germany.
H.E. Dr Khan holds many awards and honors. He has travelled worldwide extensively. He is happily married to Sara Saad Khan, they live in Tehran with their two sons.