[1] During the 1990s he worked with Aid Agencies and NGO's involved in humanitarian and post conflict programs in Afghanistan.
[2] During the First Karzai cabinet, he joined the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development as policy advisor in 2002 and subsequently was appointed Deputy Minister for Programs in January 2004, becoming responsible for a developmentbudget of over 300 mln dollar.
Mr. Zia was described by The Globe and Mail as one of the most active and dynamic of the Afghan cabinet, known for getting out of Kabul and pushing hard to drive reconstruction money out to the communities where projects are picked by locally chosen councils.
[4] According to the website of de ministry of rural rehabilitation and development, the soft-spoken Mr. Zia was the most-traveled minister of the Karzai cabinet, and possibly also the most popular.
[6] After his tenure as minister, Zia became CEO of Tadbeer, an Afghan consulting firm in the governance, development and security field.