[6][7] Akbar graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Smith College, before going on to become the first Afghan woman to complete postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford, where she was awarded a Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust scholarship and obtained an MPhil in 2011.
[14] In 2010, Akbar founded QARA consulting, a firm owned and run by young Afghans, based in Kabul.
[7] Between 2017 and 2018, she served as a senior advisor to Ashraf Ghani, the then-President of Afghanistan, on high development councils.
[4][5] Prior to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Akbar had called on the American government to consider the importance of civic space and the safety of civilians prior to US soldiers leaving the country, urging them to demand the Taliban to commit to a ceasefire, including the targeted killings of Afghan citizens, as a condition of American withdrawal.
She has called on international bodies including the United Nations to pressure the Taliban to lift their ban on girls attending school, as well as to cease their targeted killings of Afghans linked to the previous government.