Zehra Abbas

Zehra Abbas is the Director of the Office of Safeguards – Regional Operations Services 1 at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). An Environmental Engineer with a background in Physics, she has over 15 years of experience with ADB, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), international non-government organizations (NGOs), consulting firms, governments, and the oil and gas sector. Throughout her career, she successfully integrated environmental management and sustainable development into project lifecycles and national planning processes. Moreover, she led the review and update of ADB’s Safeguards Policy Statement (2009), which resulted to the new Environment and Social Framework (ESF) of the bank, approved by the ADB Board of Directors in November 2024. This marked a significant milestone in strengthening environmental and social safeguards across Asia and the Pacific.