Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai is an Afghan politician and the current President of Afghanistan. He is an Afghan scholar and an anthropologist by education and has taught the subject at the University of Columbia and Johns Hopkins University. He has previously served as the finance minister as well as the chancellor of Kabul University. Before running for the presidential seat, he was an advisor to UN secretary and served as the generals special envoy to Afghanistan and the provisional president Hamid Karzai. As a finance minister, he played an important part for the economic upturn of the country. He previously also ran for the 2009 presidential election but ended in the fourth position.Born in the year 1949 in a wealthy Pashtun family, Ghani spent his childhood in the Logar Province of Afghanistan. He completed his schooling from Habibia High School in Kabul and in the year 1973, he earned his bachelors degree from the American University in Beirut and later completed his masters degree in 1977 in Anthropology at New Yorks Columbia University after winning a governments scholarship. After completing his bachelors degree, he came back to Kabul in 1974 and taught Afghan studies and Anthropology at the Kabul University and taught there until 1977 when he left to New York to obtain his masters degree. Ghani later earned his Ph D degree on state building and social transformation and was then invited to teach at the University of California in 1983. His academic research was on state building and social transformation. He completed a year of fieldwork researching as a Fulbright Scholar on Pakistani madrassas in 1985. He also taught at the Johns Hopkins University from 1983 to 1991 and during this period he worked as a commentator on the BBC Dari and Pashto services, broadcast in Afghanistan. He joined World Bank in 1991 as a lead anthropologist and while working with the World Bank, he attended the Harvard-INSEAD and World Bank Stanford Graduate School of Businesss leadership training program. He served the bank for 11 years and in his 11 year service, he played an important role in formulating the Banks social policy and designing the reform programs. In 2001, Ghani was asked to serve as Special Advisor to the Ambassador of the UN Secretary Generals special envoy in Afghanistan after the downfall of Taliban. He later joined as the Chief Advisor to the Interim President Hamid Karzai in February 2002 on a pro bono basis. In June 2002, he was appointed as the Finance Minister of Afghanistan and he carried out extensive reforms which included issuing new currency, computerizing the treasury operations, adopting a policy of balanced budgets and using budgets as the central policy instrument. Emerging Markets recognized Ghana as the best finance minister of Asia in 2003. He continued as the Finance Minister till December 2004 and then joined as the chancellor of Kabul University and advocated his shared governance concept to the faculty for the next four years. Ghani also gave keynote speeches in 2005 for meetings like the American Bar Associations International Rule of Law Symposium, the annual meeting of the Norwegian Governments development staff, CSIS meeting on UN reform and at the UN-OECD-World Banks meeting on the Fragile States.He registered as a candidate for the 2009 Afghan Presidential election on 7th May 2009 and his campaign focused on eradication of poverty, employment opportunities for citizens and a dynamic economy. Unlike other candidates, he asked the Afghan Diaspora to support and provide financial support to his campaign. He was however unsuccessful and the preliminary results placed him at the fourth position in a field of 38 and he was able to secure roughly 3% of the votes. In 2010, Ghani pledged his support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan in an International Conference on Afghanistan in London. For the 2014 presidential elections, Ghani selected General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek politician and Sarwar Danish, the Justice minister in Karzais cabinet as the candidates for the vice presidential post of the 2014 elections. A run-off election was held in June 2014 between Ashraf Ghani and Dr. Abdullah but the election ended in a stalemate after the allegations of electoral fraud which led to a three months audit. After the audit results on 22nd September 2014, Ghani was declared as the president by the election commission after gaining 55.4% of votes. He was sworn in as the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 29th September 2014. In his Presidential inauguration, Ashraf Ghani publicly acknowledged the support of his wife and addressed her with an Afghan name Bibi Gul. This move was considered extraordinary for an Afghan politician. Ashraf Ghani is married to Rula Saade, a Lebanese Christian whom he met at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. They were granted a US citizenship but Ghani renounced it after joining the Afghanistan ministry. The couple has a daughter and a son and both have the U.S. Citizenship. Ashraf Ghani for his service was awarded the Sayed Jamal-ud-Din Afghan medal, the highest civilian award in Afghanistan.
