Dr. Abdullaev holds MSc and PhD degrees from Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agriculture Mechanization Engineers, Uzbekistan. Part of his PhD work was at Iowa State University, USA. He has intensive training and education programmes in Israel (1996-1997), USA (1999), Netherlands (2000), and Switzerland (2002).
He has over 25 years experience in water management, water institutions, environmental activities in Afghanistan and 5 Central Asian (CA) countries. He joined Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Institute as Deputy Director in Jun 2019. From 2013-2019 he worked as Executive Director of Regional Environmental Center for Central Asia. He worked as Regional Advisor for Germany’s Berlin Initiative - Transboundary Water Management in CA at the GIZ. During 2007-2009, he was Senior Researcher at ZEF Centre for Development Research University of Bonn and conducted research in CA and Afghanistan.
During 2001-2007, he worked as a regional researcher at IWMI. He is member of IWRA and editorial boards of internationally peer reviewed journals. He is author of 3 monographic books, peer reviewed over 30 articles/policy papers, and presented more than 150 conference papers. He has been regular guest and key-note speaker at the many international conferences such as Annual World Water Weeks and World Water Forums.