E
Education
Teacher capability, STEM curriculum and school systems that keep running through disruption.
School siting and catchment- Learn
- Share
- Serve
- Rebuild
Development designed with communities, not for them.
EHAAR International is a global development consultancy. We work alongside governments, UN agencies, foundations and local institutions to plan, deliver and sustain programs across education, health, agriculture, atmosphere and reconstruction.
Founded by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily and Mr. Hameed KhattakCo-Founders and Executive Directors
5Regions
5Practice pillars
2020Founded
100%Locally staffed delivery
Practice pillars
Five letters. Five pillars. One method.
The name is the work. Planning is not a sixth pillar, it is the discipline that decides where each of the five actually lands.
H
Health
Primary care access, supply reliability and health workforce planning in constrained settings.
Facility placement
A
Agriculture
Food systems from field to factory floor, built around what smallholders can actually sustain.
Land use and market access
A
Atmosphere
Energy and environment treated as an operating constraint on every plan, not a report annex.
Risk and resilience mapping
R
Reconstruction and Urban Recovery
Recovery sequenced so housing, services and livelihoods come back in the right order.
Urban recovery sequencingThe discipline behind the five
Urban planning and sustainability run through every pillar.
Where a school sits, how far a mother walks to a clinic, which road repair returns the most access, whether a rebuilt neighbourhood has water. These are planning questions, and they decide whether the programme works.
Our planning practice, led by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily, sits inside each of the five pillars rather than beside them.
Recovery you can stand inside
- 01Spatial data on where people are and what they can reach
- 02Service catchments for schools, clinics and markets
- 03Investment ranked by access gained per unit of cost
Build capability that outlasts the contract.
We help institutions design programmes their own people can run. Every engagement transfers method, data and decision rights to the partner, so results hold after the funding cycle closes.
Communities that plan their own future.
A world where recovery and growth are led by the people who live with the outcome, supported by planning, evidence and finance that actually reach the ground.
Selected work
What it looks like on the ground.
Reconstruction and urban recovery
Building accessibility into Yemen's recovery
Led by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily
Practical guidance for building universal accessibility into urban infrastructure, drawn from the Yemen Integrated Urban Services Emergency Project.
- Client
- World Bank
- Location
- Yemen
Education
Closing the gaps in STEM teacher preparation
Dr. Wafa Al-Daily, Project Manager and Lead Consultant
National education reform under SERATAC II: policy frameworks, professional development for educators and ministry officials, and inclusive evidence based reform.
- Client
- World Bank and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education
- Location
- Gaza and the West Bank
Agriculture and food operations
Gehl Foods operations consulting
Led by Mr. Hameed Khattak
Sustained on site consulting at an aseptic manufacturing facility, working process discipline, quality systems and throughput alongside the plant leadership team.
- Client
- Gehl Foods
- Region
- North America
Education and capacity
Building tomorrow's institutional leaders
Contributed by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily
The Virginia Tech Leadership and Culture Institute faculty development model, which continues to inform EHAAR's capacity building and consulting work.
- Partner
- Virginia Tech LCI
- Region
- North America
Partner with us
Let's build what lasts.
Tell us the problem you are trying to solve and who has to live with the result. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right team for it.
Who we are
A consultancy built by people who have run the work, not only advised on it.
EHAAR International was founded in 2020 around a simple observation. Development programmes rarely fail because the idea was wrong. They fail because nobody local was set up to keep them running. We design for the handover from the first week.
Global expertise aligned with local leadership
The people closest to the problem already know most of the answer.
Our job is to bring structure, evidence and outside experience to what communities and institutions already understand about their own conditions. We do not arrive with a template.
We stay accountable to delivery, not to the deliverable.
A report is not a result. We measure ourselves on whether the school opened, the clinic held stock, the market moved, and whether the partner can do it again next year without us.
In practice
What the work looks like.
The name
EHAAR is the work.
Education, Health, Agriculture, Atmosphere, Reconstruction. Five pillars covering the full arc of recovery and growth, held together by planning.
E
Education
Teaching capability and school systems that survive disruption.
H
Health
Access, supply and workforce in constrained settings.
A
Agriculture
Food systems that smallholders can actually sustain.
A
Atmosphere
Energy and environment as an operating constraint.
R
Reconstruction and Urban Recovery
Recovery sequenced so the right things come back first.
Next
See the pillars in detail.
Each one has a defined scope, a delivery method and a handover point.
Core values
Four commitments, and what each one costs us.
IntegrityInnovation
InclusionEffectiveness
A value that never changes a decision is decoration. Each of these four changes what we will agree to put in a scope of work, and each one has turned work away. Below is what they mean in practice, and what we will not do.
01
Integrity
We tell partners the truth about cost, capacity and risk before the contract, not in the final report.
What this means in practice
- Open book pricing. Partners see what the work costs and what drives it, with no layered fees and no surprise scope
- If a design will not hold, we say so during scoping, while there is still time to change it
- Every recommendation carries the evidence behind it and an honest confidence level. Where the data is thin, we say that too
- Conflicts of interest are declared before we bid, not after we win
We will nottake a scope we do not believe will work in order to keep a team busy.
02
Innovation
We bring new analysis to old problems, then test it against what the partner can actually staff, fund and maintain.
What this means in practice
- Spatial and service delivery data brought to questions that are usually settled by assumption
- Options costed against avoided loss rather than against precedent
- Methods built to be re-run by the partner after we leave, not to depend on us
- We take what works from other sectors, including commercial manufacturing discipline applied to food systems
We will notpilot something novel on a community that needs a known solution to work now.
03
Inclusion
Women, displaced people and people with disabilities are planned for at the design stage, or the plan is incomplete.
What this means in practice
- Accessibility written into infrastructure specifications, not added later as a retrofit line
- Consultation records tied to the specific decisions they changed, so participation is traceable
- Delivery teams drawn from the region, working in the language of the community
- Reach reported disaggregated, so we can see who the programme is missing as clearly as who it reaches
We will notsign off a design that has not been reviewed by the people who will live with it.
04
Effectiveness
We measure ourselves by what still runs twelve months after we leave, not by what we delivered.
What this means in practice
- The handover date, the trained owners and the decision rights are defined in week one
- Every asset installed carries a maintenance plan and a named owner
- Documentation and data transfer to the partner in a form their staff can actually maintain
- We go back at twelve months and ask whether the routine survived
We will notcount a deliverable as a result.
Accountability
How we hold ourselves to them.
Six routines that sit inside every engagement. They are written into the scope, so they survive a change of staff on either side.
Do no harm review
Conflict sensitivity, safeguarding and environmental review are conditions of proceeding. They happen before the work starts, not as a sign-off at the end.
Open book cost
Partners see the cost build and what moves it. If a line item grows, they see why before it is spent.
Consultation record
Every significant design decision is traced back to the consultation that shaped it, and the record goes to the partner with the plan.
Disaggregated reporting
Reach is reported by gender, displacement status and disability. If we cannot disaggregate it, we treat that as a gap, not a footnote.
Handover checkpoint
Method, data, training and decision rights transfer on a defined date that is set at the start of the engagement.
Twelve month check
We come back and ask whether the routine still runs. What we learn changes how we scope the next engagement.
In practice
Values show up in the method, not the brochure.
The five stages put each of these into the work. If any of the four would be broken by a scope, we say so before we sign it.
What we do
Five pillars. One standard for how the work is handed over.
Each pillar lists what we deliver and what the partner holds at the end. Planning and spatial analysis, highlighted below, run through all five. If a line item does not survive our exit, it does not belong in the scope.
Pillar one
Education
Schools recover faster than almost anything else if teachers are supported and the system knows which children came back. We build both, and we plan where the schools should be.
What we deliver
- School siting, catchment and safe route to school analysis
- Teacher competency frameworks and assessment tools
- STEM curriculum design and classroom materials
- Training of trainers, so delivery becomes local
- School re-entry and enrolment tracking systems
- Learning continuity plans for disruption and displacement
- Higher education recovery and institutional partnerships
What the partner holds
- A framework the ministry can adopt as policy
- A trained cadre of national trainers
- Enrolment and attendance data with a reporting rhythm
- Materials in local language, cleared for reuse
Pillar two
Health
Access is geography plus supply plus staff. A clinic that is open but empty of stock is not access, and a clinic in the wrong place is not either.
What we deliver
- Facility placement and catchment planning
- Travel time and accessibility analysis for referral
- Cold chain and pharmaceutical supply integrity
- Community health worker deployment models
- Health information and reporting systems
What the partner holds
- A staffing and stock model tied to real catchment
- Cold chain monitoring with named owners
- Referral routines documented and in use
Focus area
Community Health Systems
Access is three things at once: a facility people can reach, staff who are there, and stock that has not run out. We plan all three together, because fixing one without the others does not change what a family experiences when someone gets sick.
AT THE DOORSTEP
Community health workersCare that travels to people
THE CLINIC
Outreach and screeningWhere the catchment actually gathers
REFERRAL
Getting to the next levelTravel time decides the outcome
SUPPLY
Cold chain and stockA clinic without stock is not access
Access, close to home
- Facility placement against real catchment
- Travel time and safe route analysis
- Community health worker deployment
- Referral pathways that people can actually use
- Screening and outreach schedules
Supply, there when it is needed
- Cold chain design and monitoring
- Pharmaceutical stock integrity
- Named owners for every temperature record
- Reporting rhythm the ministry can sustain
- Maintenance plans for every asset installed
Pillar three
Agriculture
Food systems fail at the joints. We work the whole chain, from water at the field to handling, storage, processing and the price a farmer actually receives.
What we deliver
- Land use planning and market access mapping
- Value chain analysis and buyer linkage
- Irrigation and water efficiency design
- Post harvest handling, storage and cold chain
- Producer group and cooperative strengthening
- Food safety and quality systems
What the partner holds
- Working buyer relationships, not a list of leads
- Maintenance plans for every asset installed
- Trained extension staff and lead farmers
- Simple margin tracking the group can run itself
Focus area
Food & Beverage Manufacturing
From farm to table, we serve as a single, end to end partner to food and beverage manufacturers: aseptic and value added processing, capacity building, SOP standardisation, and the operational excellence that turns what farms grow into safe, shelf stable products markets can rely on.
IN THE FIELD
Smallholder farmingSubsistence to surplus
THE HOUSEHOLD
Cottage self-relianceHousehold poultry keeping
MODERN GROWING
Hydroponic growingControlled environment
PROCESSING
Value-added dairyValue-added output
Food Safety, safe to eat
- SQF and HACCP discipline
- Sanitary, hygienic design
- Aseptic and cold chain control
- Allergen management
- Traceability, raw material to case
Food Security, there when it is needed
- Higher, steadier yields
- Local storage and processing
- Less post-harvest loss
- Shorter farm to table distance
- Subsistence to surplus
Pillar four
Atmosphere
Energy and environment change what is worth building and where. We put that constraint into the plan rather than into an annex.
What we deliver
- Climate risk and vulnerability mapping at settlement scale
- Sustainable urban design and heat, flood and drainage planning
- Water security and drought contingency planning
- Clean energy for schools, clinics and cold storage
- Adaptation options costed against avoided loss
- Environmental safeguards review
What the partner holds
- Risk layers integrated into the planning process
- Asset level adaptation specifications
- An operations and maintenance plan for energy systems
Pillar five
Reconstruction and Urban Recovery
Rebuilding is a sequencing problem before it is a construction problem. Order the work wrong and people return to houses with no water, no school and no income. This is where our urban planning practice is deepest.
What we deliver
- Urban accessibility and mobility analysis
- Land use, zoning and settlement planning
- Infrastructure repair prioritised by access recovered
- Municipal service recovery and operating cost models
- Damage, loss and needs assessment
- Recovery sequencing across housing, services and livelihoods
- Local contractor and labour capacity assessment
- Safeguards, land tenure and return readiness review
What the partner holds
- The spatial dataset and the method to refresh it
- A phased, costed plan tied to funding tranches
- Planning staff trained on the analysis
- A qualified local contractor pool
- Community consultation records tied to each decision
Scoping
Not sure which pillar fits?
Most real problems cross three of them. Send the brief and we will map it.
Our work
Engagements, and what changed because of them.
Work delivered for the World Bank, the U.S. Department of State, ministries of education and private industry, across the five pillars and five regions. Each entry names the founder who led it.
Reconstruction and urban recovery
Mainstreaming universal accessibility in urban infrastructure, Yemen
Led by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily
Practical guidance for building universal accessibility into urban infrastructure, drawn from the Yemen Integrated Urban Services Emergency Project. The work covers public facilities, streetscapes and transport in a conflict affected context, where the needs of people with disabilities, older people and other vulnerable groups are routinely designed out.
- Client
- World Bank
- Programme
- YIUSEP-II
- Location
- Yemen
- Focus
- Inclusive urban infrastructure, accessible design standards
Education
STEM education reform in Palestine
Dr. Wafa Al-Daily, Project Manager and Lead Consultant
Support to national education system reform under the SERATAC II initiative, covering policy framework design, professional development for educators and ministry officials, and inclusive evidence based reforms that address educational inequity in STEM.
- Client
- World Bank and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Palestine
- Location
- Gaza and the West Bank
- Status
- Ongoing
- Focus
- Policy frameworks, teacher development, STEM access
Reconstruction and education
Post-conflict recovery of Iraqi higher education
Directed by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily
Recovery and revitalisation of higher education institutions in Iraq after the ISIS conflict, rehabilitating infrastructure and rebuilding academic capacity at Mosul and Tikrit Universities. Dr. Al-Daily directed every stage, from activity design through stakeholder engagement, aligning local priorities with United States development goals. Key faculties and libraries were reestablished, long term academic partnerships built, and tailored capacity building delivered for Iraqi faculty and administrators.
- Client
- U.S. Department of State
- Location
- Iraq
- Status
- Completed
- Focus
- Institutional recovery, academic capacity, partnerships
Education and capacity
Virginia Tech LCI faculty development initiative
Contributed by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily
The Faculty Development programme of the Virginia Tech Leadership and Culture Institute cultivates faculty leaders who can shape inclusive, mission driven environments in higher education. Dr. Al-Daily contributed to the initiative during her tenure at Virginia Tech, and the model continues to inform EHAAR capacity building and consulting work.
- Partner
- Virginia Tech Leadership and Culture Institute
- Location
- United States
- Focus
- Leadership development, institutional change
Agriculture and food operations
Gehl Foods operations consulting
Led by Mr. Hameed Khattak
Sustained on site operations consulting at a Gehl Foods aseptic manufacturing facility through 2025. The work covered process discipline, quality systems and throughput across production and packaging, delivered alongside the plant leadership team rather than reported from the outside.
- Client
- Gehl Foods
- Region
- North America
- Focus
- Aseptic process, quality systems, throughput
- Result
- Overall operational optimization, reduced CIP cycle times and consistent attainment of planned OEE targets.
North America operations
Supply chain, cold chain and distribution design
Led by Mr. Hameed Khattak
Commercial food manufacturing discipline applied across storage, handling and distribution. Warehouse and cold chain design, food safety and quality routines, and the operating standards a local team can run without outside support. This is the capability EHAAR carries back into agriculture and food security work overseas.
- Region
- North America and multi region
- Focus
- Cold chain, post harvest handling, food safety
- Output
- Standards, storage design, maintenance and quality routines
Health
Community health access and supply reliability
EHAAR delivery team
Facility placement and catchment work paired with cold chain and stock integrity, so that a clinic within reach is also a clinic with something on the shelf. Community health workers carry the first line of care, and referral routes are planned around real travel time rather than map distance.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA
- Focus
- Catchment planning, cold chain, community health workforce
- Output
- Staffing and stock model, referral routines, monitoring with named owners
Atmosphere
Water security and clean energy for public services
Led by Dr. Wafa Al-Daily
Adaptation planning for public facilities, pairing water contingency with renewable supply so schools, clinics and cold storage keep running through shortage instead of shutting down with the grid.
- Region
- Multi region
- Focus
- Climate risk, water security, distributed energy
- Output
- Adaptation specifications and maintenance plan
Who we work with
Partners and clients.
The World Bank, the U.S. Department of State, UNICEF, UN-Habitat, the Social Fund for Development in Yemen, Saudi NCAAA, the Qatar National Research Fund, MENASA World, Virginia Tech, ministries of education and higher education, and local NGOs and community organisations.
References
Want the detail behind a case?
We can share scope, methodology and references under the appropriate permissions.
How we work
Five stages. The handover is designed in stage one.
This is a sequence, and the order matters. Skipping listening to get to design is the single most common reason development programmes do not survive their own launch.
Listen, diagnose, design with, deliver, hand over
01
Listen
We start with the people who will live with the outcome. Community consultation, institutional interviews and a hard look at what has already been tried here and why it stopped working.
02
Diagnose
Evidence before opinion. Spatial data, service delivery data, supply and workforce data, assembled to show where the system actually breaks rather than where it is assumed to.
03
Design with
Options are built jointly with the partner and tested against what they can staff, fund and maintain. If an option only works with us in the room, it is not an option.
04
Deliver
Implementation support with local teams in the lead. We hold the standard, track the plan and remove obstacles, while the partner's people run the work in front of their own stakeholders.
05
Hand over
Documentation, data, training and decision rights transfer to the partner on a defined date. We measure the engagement by what still runs twelve months after we leave.
Standards
What we hold ourselves to.
Local first
Local staff, local suppliers and local decision making wherever the capability exists or can be built inside the engagement.
Evidence over assertion
Recommendations carry the data behind them and the confidence level. Where the data is thin, we say so.
Do no harm
Conflict sensitivity, safeguarding and environmental review are conditions of proceeding, not review steps at the end.
Transparent cost
Partners see what the work costs and what drives it. No layered fees, no surprise scope.
Inclusion by design
Women, displaced people and people with disabilities are planned for at the design stage or the plan is incomplete.
Say no clearly
If we are not the right team, or the design will not hold, we tell the partner before the contract, not after.
Where we work
Five regions, staffed by people from them.
We work where recovery and growth are happening at the same time. Language, access and trust are part of the capability, so delivery teams are drawn from the region.
Primary region
Middle East and North Africa
Our deepest footprint. Urban planning and accessibility, education systems, and reconstruction sequencing where services and infrastructure are recovering together. Arabic language delivery.
Region
Sub-Saharan Africa
Agriculture and food systems, water security, health access and climate adaptation, with an emphasis on smallholder market access and community health delivery.
Region
South and Central Asia
Education, agriculture and climate resilience programmes, supported by Urdu, Pashto, Punjabi and Hindi language capability across the delivery team.
Region
Latin America
Urban resilience, food systems and disaster recovery planning, with Spanish language delivery and local institutional partnerships.
Home base
North America
Our operating base, and a working market in its own right. Food and beverage operations consulting, supply chain and cold chain design, quality and food safety systems, and programme management for United States and Canadian clients. This is also where our academic collaborations, funding relationships and diaspora partnerships are built.
Five regions, one delivery standard
Leadership
Two founders. One insistence on work that holds after handover.
25+Years
PhDVirginia Tech
ISOCARPVice President
Dr. Wafa Al-Daily
Co-Founder and Executive Director
International development, urban governance and recovery, institutional transformation, global partnerships
An international development and urban planning leader with more than 25 years advancing urban governance, institutional transformation, recovery and reconstruction, higher education and inclusive development across the United States, the Middle East and North Africa, and other international contexts. She leads EHAAR's development practice, which is to say the largest part of what the firm actually does.
Her work focuses on urban governance, recovery and reconstruction, and sustainable development in fragile and conflict affected contexts. It starts from the physical reality of a place. Where people live, how far they travel for a clinic or a classroom, what the road network can still carry, and which repairs would return the most access to the most people. That spatial discipline is what separates a recovery plan that gets funded from one that gets used.
As Co-Founder and Executive Director she provides strategic leadership for the firm's international portfolio, guiding partnerships and initiatives that connect policy, research, institutional capacity and implementation. That work has engaged governments, universities, international organisations, development partners and communities, including through initiatives with the World Bank, UNICEF and Virginia Tech.
Her career spans academia, government, non-governmental organisations and the private sector across the United States, the Middle East and North Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, advising organisations including the United Nations, the Social Fund for Development in Yemen, Saudi NCAAA, the Qatar National Research Fund and MENASA World. The through line is policy development, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, organisational strengthening and knowledge exchange, applied where institutions are under the most pressure.
If the plan only works while we are standing in the room, it is not a plan. It is a visit.
Selected contributions
- Contributed to the development of accessibility guidance for Yemen with the World Bank and international partners.
- Led and supported STEM education reform, institutional strengthening and higher education development in Palestine and the wider region.
- Supported urban recovery, reconstruction, resilience and inclusive planning in fragile and crisis affected contexts.
- Designed and facilitated strategic planning, governance and capacity building processes for universities, public institutions and development organisations.
- Built partnerships among governments, universities, international organisations and local stakeholders to advance inclusive and sustainable development.
- Contributed to international knowledge exchange through leadership roles in global urban planning and metropolitan development organisations.
Leadership roles
- Co-Founder and Executive Director, EHAAR International, LLC, since 2020
- Vice President for Governance, Strategy and Policy, and Executive Committee member, ISOCARP
- Board Member and Arabia Chapter Lead, International Metropolitan Fellowship, previously Global President
- Senior member, executive support team to the former UN-Habitat Executive Director
- Director, Reconstruction Unit, Sana'a University
- Board Member and Secretary General, Gulf International Forum, Washington DC
Previously
- Associate Director for Global Initiatives, Virginia Tech
- Faculty in architecture and planning, Sana'a University, since 1997
- Senior Expert, Virginia Tech CIRED
Education and honours
- PhD, Planning, Governance and Globalization, Virginia Tech
- MS, City and Regional Studies, Rutgers University
- B.Sc. Architectural Engineering, Sana'a University
- AAUW International Fellowship, American Association of University Women
Practice and languages
- Certified practitioner, Kirton Adaption-Innovation
- Trained in leadership development, intergroup dialogue and future faculty preparation
- Fluent in English and Arabic, working knowledge of French and Russian
Speaking and convening: keynote speaker at UN GFHS and the World Urban Forum, moderator and panellist at COP29, the ISOCARP Congress and the Gulf International Conference in Washington DC. Presented at WUF13 in Baku on Yemen housing recovery and urban governance.
15+Years
HarvardMaster of Management
Fortune 100Operations
Mr. Hameed Khattak
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Operations
An executive with over fifteen years of global leadership in manufacturing, supply chain and operations. He runs delivery: the commercial discipline that keeps a programme on schedule and inside its cost.
His passion for helping people, combined with industrial experience in food safety and security, led him to establish EHAAR alongside Dr. Al-Daily. He has shaped the firm's mission to deliver sustainable, systems based solutions in food security, health, education and post-crisis reconstruction, particularly in underserved regions.
His career spans operational leadership at Fortune 100 food and beverage companies, managing multi-site teams, complex regulatory frameworks and budgets in excess of fifty million dollars, with regional experience across North America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia. That experience translates directly into agriculture and food security work, where the failure points are usually handling, storage and logistics rather than production. Most recently it included a sustained on site consulting engagement with Gehl Foods, an aseptic food and beverage manufacturer, working process, quality and throughput with the plant leadership team through 2025.
Leads across the pillars
- Agriculture, food security and food systems
- Supply chain, cold chain and logistics
- Programme delivery, budget and cost control
- North America operations
Focus
- Aseptic and ready to eat manufacturing
- Food safety and quality systems
- Multi-site team building and workforce development
- Operational handover to local teams
Education and certification
- Master of Management, Harvard University
- B.Sc. Computer Information Systems, Saint Leo University
- Certificates in Strategic Management and Business Communication, Harvard University
- Better Process Control Systems, University of California
Languages
- Fluent in English, Urdu, Pashto, Punjabi and Hindi
- Conversationally proficient in Arabic and Korean
Work with us
Talk to the people who will do the work.
There is no account layer between you and the team delivering the engagement.
Partner with us
Tell us the problem and who has to live with the result.
We will come back with an honest read on whether we are the right team, and what a first phase would look like.
- Emailinfo@ehaarinternational.org
- Phone+1 202 738 1004
- Webwww.ehaarinternational.com
- RegionsMENA, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central Asia, Latin America, North America