Professional Experience:
I have designed and managed projects for civil society organisations, governments and the UN, ranging from improving citizens and state relations, inclusive peace-building, women's economic and political leadership to prevention of gender-based violence. Capacity development of staff, partners and stakeholders has featured prominently in nearly all of them. In addition, I have developed monitoring and evaluation frameworks and systems as well as working as a lead consultant, monitoring and evaluation the European Commission-funded projects promoting women's economic empowerment in the Middle-East and North Africa. Since 2003, I have worked in fragile and conflict-affected countries such as Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, interfacing with civil society and political leaders and facilitating collaborations on the development of strategies for enhancing citizens-state relations, gender equality, social inclusion, women's economic and political leadership and for the elimination of violence against women and girls. I have an excellent track record in program management, capacity development, qualitative research, gender assessment, analysis and audit and in gender mainstreaming. In 2007, I conducted a comprehensive gender assessment in Jordan for the USAID. I have also worked with other donors including the European Commission, CIDA, DFID and SIDA. I have worked on projects in Tunisia, Egypt, Israel and Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Qatar and Afghanistan. In Tunisia, I conducted an evaluation of the world Bank-funded women in development project. In Iraq, I successfully supported the nascent women's movement to engage in dialogue with political leaders in securing a quota of 25% women's representation in the new Iraqi parliament. This was written into Iraq's constitution. For this work, I was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2005. As a follow-up to my work in Iraq on enhancing women's leadership skills, I designed and coordinated the Iraqi Women's Internship Program targeting political and civil society leaders who underwent a comprehensive program of capacity-building on leadership skills, conflict management and mediation skills in the UK and Canada. In addition to providing training and mentoring, I coached the participants on public speaking and presentations. In addition, the program participants
shadowed women ministers and parliamentarians to learn more about the complexities of state-citizens relations in a parliamentary democracy. A training of trainers' package, the participants cascaded their training to 600 women on their return to Iraq. In Palestine, I provided technical assistance to women entrepreneurs in devising their marketing strategies. In Afghanistan, I further developed the UN Women's model of one-stop-shop, improving the access of women and girls experiencing gender-based violence to essential services. Furthermore, I led on the implementation of UN Women's principal programs in Afghanistan.