Ajmal Shams


Ajmal Shams is an Afghan politician.
Shams has been president of the Afghan Social Democratic Party since October 2005. He speaks Pashto, Persian, English and Urdu.
He is a certified Project Management Professional with Project Management Institute and a Licensed Professional Engineer in Kentucky.
Shams regularly writes in national and international newspapers and journals including the News International, Gulf News, Foreign Policy, Asia Times and others. He writes on political, economic and developmental issues.

Early life

His father was the late Shamsul Huda Shams, the former president of the Afghan Social Democratic Party.
Shams pursued his education in Peshawar, graduated from the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar with a B.Sc. degree in civil engineering. Upon graduation he worked as a lecturer at Khyber Institute of Technology. He taught for several years. He studied Water Resources and Environmental Engineering in the United States. In 2002, he obtained his master's degree in civil engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He worked as an environmental engineer for a consulting engineering firm in Florida for about a year before returning home to participate in the reconstruction and development of his homeland.

Engineer

Shams worked for about two years as head of the water resources section of the International Organization for Migration in Kabul and served briefly as Head of the Engineering Department of the National Solidarity Program in the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.
In 2007, Eng. Shams went to United Arab Emirates in a senior engineering position where he participated in large-scale infrastructure projects including the Sheikh Zyed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. In 2009, he returned to Afghanistan and rejoined the Ministry of Rural Development where he served in the reputed National Solidarity Program for about a year.
He then joined the Ministry of Urban Development as Director of Planning, Policy and Coordination. In July 2011, Shams joined the Transition Coordination Commission as Policy Advisor.

Political and party affairs

Shams has been president of Afghanistan Social Democratic Party since October 2005. He was elected by an emergency party congress soon after his father's demise.
During the 2014 Presidential Election, Shams' party supported Ashraf Ghani and actively participated in his campaign efforts.