Hi, I’m Fariya!

I’m a policy and advocacy strategist and facilitator with over 14 years of experience across 4 continents and expertise in sub–Saharan Africa. I’m a senior generalist with experience building strategies and programs from the ground up, designing and delivering capacity building curricula, and leading high-level policy advocacy and campaigns.

My areas of expertise include fiscal policy, advocacy strategy and campaigns, governance (accountability and transparency), and gender equality.

I speak English (native), German, French, Bengali, and Urdu. I was born in Canada and raised in the UAE by Bangladeshi-Canadian parents. I now live in Berlin, Germany (via London, Accra, Toronto).

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My Experience

An overview

 
 
 
 
 

Freelance Consultant

Independent

Apr 2026 – Present Remote & Berlin, Germany
  • Joined the roster at Global Learning Partners as a core consultant. GLP helps organisations integrate adult learning principles and practices into trainings, staff and leadership coaching, organisational development, and evaluations.
  • Stayed on at Tax Justice UK as a Technical Advisor on Illicit Financial Flows
  • Training and facilitation consultancies for Amnesty International (Tax Justice and Human Rights) and GIZ Morocco (Gender Mainstreaming in Policy)

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Student

Le Wagon

Jan 2026 – Mar 2026 Berlin, Germany

I upskilled with a Data Analytics Certificate from le Wagon. This 9-week course covered tools such as SQL, python, and PowerBI for effective data analysis and visualisation. It culminated in a group project on the dimensions of the housing crisis in Europe.

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Interim Deputy Director - External Affairs

Tax Justice UK

Feb 2025 – Nov 2025 London, United Kingdom
  • Provided strategic direction and people management for the External Affairs function (policy, advocacy, campaigning)
  • Led a strategy refresh to better fit our programming to the current political context
  • Developed the Head of Policy Advocacy (in post only four months at the time) into my successor as Deputy Director

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Short Consultancies

Independent

Jan 2024 – Aug 2024 Remote
  • Short policy consultancy for Greenpeace International on global wealth tax policy advocacy strategies.
  • Short policy consultancy for ActionAid International on IFI influence on fiscal policy and the gendered impacts.

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Senior Program Officer, Tax and Policy (Global)

International Budget Partnership

Sep 2019 – Nov 2024 Berlin, Germany
  • Hired to build and launch IBP’s Tax Equity Program
  • As principal architect, played key roles in the recruitment, onboarding, and mentoring of our country Senior Program Officers across our focal countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania
  • Elevated IBP’s profile and influence in regional and global policy arenas by navigating and shaping partnerships within major global networks and coalition spaces
  • From Aug 2021 - Jan 2023, on top of my full-time role within the Tax Equity Initiative, I was seconded to the Collaborating for Open and Accountable Budgets program team where I delivered a 6-week online training course and a 5 day in person training on budget advocacy for CSOs in 8 countries.

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Freelance Researcher

International Centre for Tax and Development

Apr 2018 – Jan 2019 London, United Kingdom
  • Led the Ghana country research for the project: Enabling Tax Bargaining: Supporting More Meaningful Tax Transparency and Taxpayer Engagement in Ghana and Sierra Leone
  • In conjunction with the World Bank’s Global Tax Team and ICTD, worked on a project on property tax administration in Kaduna State, Nigeria

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Strategic Programmes Researcher

Tax Justice Network

Dec 2016 – Sep 2019 London, United Kingdom / Berlin, Germany
  • Co-organised three TJN Annual Research Conferences ( 2 in London, 1 in Peru).
  • key organiser of the Women’s Rights and Tax Justice Conference held in Bogota, Colombia.
  • Built out the work on tax and gender and was one of the key people in formalising the Global Working Group on Tax and Gender – leading the strategy process and an initial member of the Steering Committee.

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Property Tax Reform Technical Advisor

Govt of Canada funded project

Jul 2014 – Mar 2016 Hohoe, Ghana
  • Goal of the project: to work with municipalities to update their maps with satellite imagery and GIS, label and name streets, enumerate plots, paint house numbers and run a large-scale valuation process
  • Think creatively about how to achieve my goals in a low-tech, low-capacity, low-trust environment

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Social Change Fellow (Advocacy)

Engineers Without Borders Canada

Sep 2013 – Feb 2014 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • Built my understanding of how to build campaigns, support networks of advocates, and plan convenings

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Research Assistant

International Centre for Tax and Development

Oct 2012 – Jul 2014 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • Helped to clean and standardise the underlying data for the first iteration of the UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset - the GRD was created with the aim of producing a substantially more complete and accurate database of government revenues, allowing for more reliable and comparable cross-country tax research.

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Master of Global Affairs, Honours Bachelor of Arts

University of Toronto

Sep 2006 – Jun 2012 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • Honours Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Relations, awarded in June 2010.
  • Also in 2010,awarded the Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award for leadership at both the university-wide level and college-level
  • Master of Global Affairs, awarded in June 2012 from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

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