Wahidullah Waissi is a career Afghan diplomat. He is now serving as the ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand and Republic of Fiji. He worked as Director-General for Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2012 to 2016 overseeing regional economic cooperation and multilateral development partnerships, chaired economic diplomacy committee, coordinated Regional Economic Cooperation Conference for Afghanistan process and projects and served as a Focal Point for economic Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) of the Heart of Asia Istanbul Process.
Waissi is co-founder and Chair of the Green Club, a voluntarily association on environment and green activities. He used to teach economic development at the University of Afghanistan and writes on development, region, geoeconomics and socio-development issues.
Early life and education
Wahidullah Waissi was born on April 18, 1975, in Kabul. He has studied in the United States and holds MA in Development Economics from Center for Development Economics of Williams College. Waissi was one of the first Afghan students studied at the CDE. Among them were fellows from countries near Afghanistan—the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan and Georgia.
He is a visiting scholar of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of the SAIS/Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, a fellowship program for raising regional leaders in government, commerce, and academia from Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan (CAMCA).
Waissi had also studied Results-based management at the Shanghai based Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Institute (AFDI) in 2007 under a fellowship granted from Shanghai International Program for Development Evaluation Training (SHIPDET) program.
Diplomatic career
Waissi joins Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2012 as Senior Advisor on regional cooperation. Later, he was appointed as Director-General for Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2012 to 2016). In this position he was overseeing regional economic cooperation and multilateral development partnerships, chairing Economic Diplomacy Committee, coordinates Regional Economic Cooperation Conference for Afghanistan and serving as a national Focal Point for economic Confidence Building Measures of Heart of Asia Istanbul Process.
Waissi was coordinating infrastructure project negotiation phases for TAPI, CASA-1000, TAT Railway, regional transit and transport agreements and projects and Special Economic Zones/Dry Ports.
Ambassador accredited to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji
Waissi was appointed as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Commonwealth of Australia in February 2017 and as a non-resident Ambassador to New Zealand and Fiji on 12 August 2017 and 24 April 2018 respectively. As an ambassador, this is his first mission abroad. Waissi has submitted his letter of credentials to Sir Peter Cosgrove, Governor-General of Commonwealth of Australia on 1 March 2017 and to Dame Patsy Reddy, Governor-General of New Zealand on 6 September 2017 as the fifth Ambassador of Afghanistan to both Australia and New Zealand.
As the first Afghan President visiting Australia, Dr. Mohammad Ashraf Ghani arrived to Canberra on 2 April 2017 for an almost 3 days visit. Marking the visit, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Afghanistan and Australia had forged a “solid connection” for more than a century. From Afghan cameleers in the 1860s, through to the Australian military effort to free Afghanistan of terrorism, the two nations have long maintained a healthy partnership. Discussions were mainly focused on security and development co-operation.
Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA)
One of the efforts that have been striving to have regional economic cooperation in South and Central Asia so as to assist Afghanistan is Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA). RECCA is a forum that has been managed to promote stabilization in Afghanistan and South and Central Asian regional economic integration.