Bangladesh’s first Chief Heat Officer Bushra Afreen won’t draw any salary from DNCC: Arsht-Rock

Arsht-Rock, a Washington-based non-profit organisation, has confirmed the appointment of social entrepreneur Bushra Afreen as its chief heat officer who will work in Dhaka North City Corporation area but will not draw any salary from it.

“No DNCC funding will go to Ms. Afreen,” a spokesperson at Arsht-Rock told UNB in reply to an e-mail on Monday, noting that Arsht-Rock appointed Bushra to be chief heat officer and have chosen Dhaka North as the first city in Asia for extreme heat management intervention.

Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock)  set out to reach one billion people worldwide with resilience solutions by 2030. 

Arsht-Rock selected Afreen, daughter of Dhaka North Mayor Atiqul Islam, after putting her through rigorous three panel interviews with various Arsht-Rock experts and advisors.

After two-years of experience appointing and supporting eight other CHOs (Miami-Dade, U.S.; Athens, Greece; Freetown, Sierra Leon; Monterrey, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; Melbourne, Australia; and UN-Habitat, the spokesperson said, "we have full confidence in Afreen’s expertise and abilities to bring significant value to the community of greater Dhaka North City."

Afreen will be supported by Arsht-Rock to build a plan for her role and, in partnership with local experts and community representatives, bring public information campaigns and other near-term solutions to the extreme-heat impacts community members are experiencing.

As a partnership, Afreen will lean on many expert stakeholders and organizations from public, private and social sectors to inform and accelerate work to protect people from extreme heat.

She is a social welfare executive who has advanced changes within Bangladesh’s garment sector to protect workers and deliver a more sustainable product.

Among the initiatives Afreen spearheaded was the creation of a task force to reduce heat on garment industry production floors.

Afreen earned a B.A. Honours in Global Development Studies and Drama from Queen’s University in Canada.