Halima Begum

Begum advising former British Prime Minister David Cameron in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 2011. Cameron was in Pakistan to mend relations with President Asif Ali Zardari after accusing the Pakistan government of 'facing both ways on the export of terrorism'.^[1]

Halima Begum
Alma mater	London School of Economics, University of London
Known for	Anti racism activist and civil servant

Dr Halima Begum is Chief Executive and Director of the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading race equality think tank^[2].^. An institutional leader and social equity expert, Begum has held senior leadership roles with government, non-profit, philanthropy and international public sector organisations, among them the UK's Department for International Development, the British Council and LEGO Foundation. Her work has spanned areas including girls’ education in Pakistan, food security in China and post-conflict reconstruction in Nepal.

Begum is a published author of thought-leadership and regular keynote speaker on race equity, gender and socio-economics. She sits on the board and or advises various organizations including the British Academy and Nuffield Foundation, the Office for National Statistics, Toynbee Hall, the NHS Race and Health Observatory, and ITV. Dr Begum regularly appears in national and international media as an expert on social policy issues. In 2021 the Shaw Trust named Begum on the Disability Power 100 as one of the most influential disabled people in the UK.^[3]

Career[]

In 1998 Begum joined the Runnymede Trust as a Policy Analyst where she worked on the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, the high-profile commission chaired by Lord (Bhikhu) Parekh.^[4]

She went on to work for Action Aid on the Global Campaign for Education, and authored the Social Capital in Action in the UK report for the LSE Centre for Civil Society. In 2003 she joined the Department for International Development (DFID) where she worked until 2012 under both the Tony Blair and David Cameron governments on diplomatic assignments overseas. While at DFID, Begum was posted to countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, China and Indonesia. In 2008, she supported international efforts in the post-conflict reconstruction of Nepal before, in 2009, leading the UK-China Food Security Action Plan, a high-level mechanism for Sino-British cooperation on global food issues signed off by UK prime minister Gordon Brown and Chinese premier Zhu Rongji.

In 2012 Begum was appointed Director for Education at the British Council in East Asia where she was instrumental in leading the UK's soft power work in countries including China, Indonesia, Myanmar and Japan. In 2017 Begum was recruited to the role of Vice President of the LEGO Foundation and, as a member of the Danish organization's leadership team, was involved in the decision to award a US$100 million donation to Sesame Workshop to support Rohingya and Syrian child refugees.^[5] In August 2020 Begum was named Chief Executive and Director of the Runnymede Trust.

In March 2021 the Runnymede Trust was instrumental in raising public awareness of the delayed report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, a body appointed by the UK government in the aftermath of Black Lives Matter. Among its controversial and widely discredited findings, the report denied the existence of institutional racism in Britain.^[6] The Commission's report was originally scheduled for publication in December 2020 amid the UK's second COVID lockdown and growing public alarm about the disproportionate level of COVID-19 deaths among Black and minority ethnic communities across the country. Upon its delayed publication three months later, the report sparked significant controversy and scrutiny, with cited experts and its own commissioners ultimately speaking out against its findings.^[7][8]

Voluntary Work[]

Begum is the former chair of the UK's Women’s Environmental Network. She was a Trustee at the Tower Hamlets Environment Trust and a Governor at Tower Hamlets College.

Early life[]

Halima Begum was born in Sylhet, Bangaldesh, and was raised in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. As a young child she suffered from a rare and debilitating eye condition. Though surgeons at St Bartholomew's hospital were unable to save her left eye, she retains some residual vision on her right side and remains under the care of the internationally renowned Mooorfields Eye Hospital.

As a teenager, Begum co-founded to combat the rising incidence of racism and Islamophobia in East London, in particular Millwall and the Isle of Dogs. She was particularly active in the fight against the National Front and Derek Beackon, the party's first elected councillor, suffering multiple assaults in the process.

Begum took her undergraduate degree in Government and History and her Masters in International Relations at the London School of Economics, before completing her PhD at Queen Mary University of London.

Personal life[]

Begum grew up on Brick Lane in a large Bangladeshi community. She has spoken publicly about her parents' homelessness and their subsequent involvement in the Bangladeshi squatter movement in 1970s London, and about the racial and physical abuse to which she was subjected as a child by the National Front, which maintained a bookstand outside her parent's front door on Brick Lane. She speaks Bengali-Sylheti, Hindi and Urdu.

References[]