Dr Daud Hamidi is a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Afghanistan Research Initiative. He holds a PhD in Geochemistry and Technology Development from Durham University, UK and a master’s in economics in integrated water resources management from the Kazakh-German University, Almaty, Kazakhstan. He is a former lecturer at Jami University in Herat and worked with government agencies on water supply engineering. His project is titled “Flitting between Integrated Water Resource Management and Tradition: Lessons from Afghanistan’s Water Governance Reforms”, which involves a detailed stakeholder analysis in three locations: Herat, Bamyan and Mazar-e-Sharif detailing the institutional arrangements concerning water allocation at the sub-basin level and analyzes the gaps between policy frameworks and actual practices. He is co-author of, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Geosocial Approach to Water Insecurity in Kabul," Water Security 22, 2024.