Mr. Md. Nojibur Rahman has joined as Principal Secretary to the Hon’ble Prime Minister on 1 January 2018. Prior to this appointment, he served as Senior Secretary, Internal Resources Division (IRD), Ministry of Finance, and Chairman, National Board of Revenue (NBR) for three years since January 2015. Under his guidance and supervision “Good Governance and Modern Management Framework” was introduced at NBR. During his tenure, NBR attained a tax-payers friendly as well as business and investment-friendly image and also exceeded revenue collection targets for three consecutive fiscal years i.e. 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17. Earlier he served as Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) and also as Secretary, Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) under the Ministry of Planning.
Born on December 31, 1960, Mr. Rahman obtained a Bachelor of Social Science (BSS) and Masters of Social Sciences (MSS) in Sociology in 1982 and 1984 respectively from the University of Dhaka. He studied at the Australian National University (ANU) under the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) and obtained Graduate Diploma and Masters in Development Administration in 1998 and 1999 respectively. He also undertook a Parliamentary Internship during March-May 1999 in the Australian Parliament.
Mr. Rahman served as Economic Minister at the Bangladesh Permanent Mission to the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 2009 to 2012. He was Vice President of the Executive Board of UNDP, UNFPA, and UNOPS. Besides, he worked as the Lead delegate of Bangladesh at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), UNICEF, and UN Women Executive Boards.
He actively took part in the negotiation process for the system-wide coherence Resolutions (2009-2010), the 4th UN Conference on LDCs (2011), and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development-UNCSD/Rio+20 (2012) to promote and protect the interests of LDCs. He was a member of different Advisory Committees of UNDP and UNFPA.
A member of the 1982 regular batch of Bangladesh Civil Service Administration Cadre, he previously worked as the Director-General (Additional Secretary) of the Department of Environment (DOE), Joint Secretary in the Local Government Division (LGD), Deputy Secretary (UN) in Economic Relations Division (ERD) and Private Secretary to the Hon’ble Speaker of Bangladesh Parliament. He has got the experience of working in the Field Administration, Rajuk, Foreign Office, ERD, BNCC, and the Bangladesh Embassies (in Myanmar and Vietnam) abroad.
He has a number of publications to his credit. His book on ‘Protocol Management and International Etiquette’ (1997) has been well acclaimed among others by the Parliamentarians and the Public servants. His other books titled ‘Independence of the Speaker: Westminster Model and the Australian Experience’ (2000) and ‘Ombudsman in Bangladesh-a step towards good governance (2001) were published respectively by the Institute of Parliamentary Studies (IPS) of Bangladesh Parliament and the UBS Publishers and Distributor Ltd in New Delhi, India. His last two books ‘Speaker and Ombudsman: Ethics and Good Governance’ and ‘Protocol Management & International Etiquette-Revised Edition’ (2017) have generated huge interest among public servants.
He visited many countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, North America, and South America to lead Bangladesh and UN delegations and to participate in numerous seminars and conferences held under the aegis of the United Nations (UN), Commonwealth Secretariat, Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), ‘Colombo Plan’ and SAARC Secretariat.
Mr. Rahman is married to Mrs. Nazma Rahman who is a writer and a singer. They have two sons, Fuad Rahman and Farabi Rahman.