Nigel Pont

Nigel Pont is the Program Director for the State Building program. Nigel has recently completed two and a half years as Mercy Corps' Afghanistan Country Director, focusing primarily on rural agricultural development in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, natural resource management in the north east of the country and microfinance in Kabul and Jalalabad. He has extensive Afghanistan experience having managed a wide range of relief and development programs during the civil war, the Taliban era and post 9/11. Born in Iran and growing up in Pakistan he has in-depth knowledge of the region and speaks good Dari and Urdu. Between 1997 and 2008 Nigel played a leadership role for Mercy Corps in many of the major humanitarian crises of the past decade including Kosovo, Iraq, Pakistan and post Tsunami Aceh. He is currently a joint fellow with Belfer & Carr Center.