After obtaining B.Sc. degree from the Faculty of Agriculture & Forestry at the University of Mosul, he went to the UK and obtained MSc degree in Rural Social Development from the University of Reading in 1984. For several years he worked as a lecturer in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Salahaddin in Arbil, Iraq. In 1996, he left Iraq for the Netherlands and joined the Third World Centre at the University of Nijmegen as a Research Fellow in development studies.