Dr. Zeba A. Sathar (T.I.)

Dr. Zeba A. Sathar is a Distinguished Scholar and Country Advisor at the Population Council’s office in Pakistan. She served as Country Director of the Pakistan office from 2002 until April 2026, leading technical assistance and capacity-building, social science research, advocacy, and work on population and the demographic dividend that informed national policy discussions.

In her current role, she provides strategic and technical guidance on population, demographic and reproductive health issues and continues to contribute to advisory engagements with government officials and other key stakeholders. Her expertise includes demographic analysis, cross-national comparative research, advocacy and policy engagement, and evaluation of health service delivery systems.

Dr. Sathar joined the Population Council in 1994 as Deputy Representative in the Islamabad office, where she conducted research on fertility and family planning, led research projects and managed relationships with donors. Earlier in her career, she served as Chief of Research and Demography at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and worked as a population consultant with the World Bank in Islamabad.

In 2006, she received the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz from the President of Pakistan in recognition of her public service to the development sector. She was also the first Pakistani elected to the governing council of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population and has contributed to international initiatives related to family planning performance, monitoring and accountability.

She is a lead author of Capturing the Demographic Dividend in Pakistan and has published extensively on population dynamics, gender and equality, family planning, reproductive health, maternal and child health, safe abortion and postabortion care.

Dr. Sathar holds a PhD in medical demography from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MSc in demography from the London School of Economics.