Composition of the group

The group will be composed of around 15 members, including some men and few European experts. Members of the group should be acknowledged to be of a high profile, with regional expertise and credibility. They can come from government, parliament, civil society or academia. The group should have a balance of the different fields of knowledge, i.e. politics, economics, legal issues, media, sociology and culture. They should also be believers in and advocates of gender equality. They should have demonstrated work experience related to women’s empowerment that is acknowledged by governments, NGOs or gender activists in the region. Members of the group will serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of their institutions. However, some of them will be selected because of their ability to influence governments to adopt gender equality measures based on their regional professional positions. These include the Director of the UN Economic/Social Commission for Western Asia, and the Director of the UNDP Arab Bureau. Membership in the group will represent all 10 countries covered by the project.

The group will meet at least once every year. The RWEL team will organise their meetings in a different country each time, will develop the agenda for each meeting and will be responsible for producing a detailed report to be disseminated after each meet.

The following is the proposed membership list:

Mervat Tellawy (Egyptian national - Mervat.Tellawy@UNESCWA.org)

She is the Executive Secretary for the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), and has been for the last four and a half years. ESCWA has a gender and development programme, which is responsible for monitoring the implementation of Beijing Platform of Action at the regional level with both governments and NGOs. The programme also works closely with all women’s machineries in countries of the region and assesses their activities in gender mainstreaming. ESCWA also produces different studies and publications on gender issues.

Ms Tellawy was the Secretary-General of the National Commission of Women in Egypt before she took up her position at ESCWA. She was also the Minister of Social Affairs in Egypt and Ambassador of Egypt in Austria and in Japan. She has held several leadership positions in the United Nations intergovernmental processes, including the Commission on the Status of Women, the International Committee of the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Cairo Conference on Population and Development. She was the Deputy Director of the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW).

At the national level, she has been closely involved with developmental issues, including anti-poverty programmes, gender equality, and business and building partnership with non-governmental organizations. She is also involved in the gender and peace building initiatives.
She has a Bachelor Degree in both political science and business administration from the American University in Cairo and has studied international relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies at Geneva University.Go Up

Amat Al Aleem Ali Alsoswa (Yemeni national – AmatAlAleem.Alsoswa@undp.org)

She was appointed in late 2005 as Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator of UNDP and Director of its Regional Bureau for Arab States. Ms Alsoswa leads 500 UNDP staff covering the 17 country offices in the Arab region with the 18th office located in the Palestinian Territories.
The UNDP Arab Bureau is responsible for issuing the UN Regional Human Development Report on the Empowerment of Women. It also has a strong gender programme implemented in all Arab countries. Before taking this position, Ms Alsoswa was Minister of Human Rights in Yemen and has served previously as Yemen’s Ambassador to Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.
The intersection of democracy and women’s empowerment in the information age has been a focus of Ms Alsoswa’s career. A long-time advocate for increasing political participation of women, she led the Yemeni Women’s Union before joining the Ministry of Information in 1997, and remained in post until 1999.

Ms Alsoswa holds a B.A. in Mass Communications from Cairo University and an M.A. in International Communications from the American University in the U.S.A. Her Arab Bureau is engaged in a range of activities from capacity building to policy formulation within a region that has a wide diversity of needs due to its varied economic bases. Go Up

Soukeina Bouraoui (Tunisian national – contact@cawtar.org)

She is the Director of the Centre of Arab Women for Training and Research (CAWTAR) based in Tunis. The Centre was established in 1993 with the aim of contributing to the improvement and promotion of Arab women’s role and status in the development process. It is an independent regional institution promoting gender equality in the Arab world through research, training, networking and advocacy. The Centre works on four programmes: gender and globalisation, Arab adolescent girls, women and decision making, and Arab women and the media. The Centre networks with all Arab countries to facilitate exchange of experiences, coordinate, mobilise and give support to existing and future efforts carried out by different policy players such as Arab governmental institutions, NGOs, research and training institutes as well as international and regional institutions active in the field of Arab women development. The Centre has produced and published periodical reports about gender related issues for the Arab region such as gender and globalisation, Arab Adolescent Girls and Women and Decision Making

Ms Bouraoui was a professor of Law and has created the first Centre for Research on Women in North Africa (CREDIF) in Tunisia before she joined CAWTAR. Go Up

Reem Abu Hassan (Jordan national – Reem@obeidatfreihat.com)

Active in the non-governmental sector. She holds a law degree and has been practising law. She is now the Vice President of the newly established Arab Women Lawyers Association based in Amman, Jordan with affiliation to the American Women Bar Association. The Association has members who are mainly women lawyers and judges from all over the Arab world. Ms Abu Hassan is also associated with the newly established Human Rights Council presided by Mr Obeidat, the ex- Jordanian Prime-Minister.

She specialises in family protection and women’s legal issues and also serves as the Vice President of the Jordanian Society for Protecting Victims of Family Abuse. She has conducted several researches on honour crimes and violence against women in Jordan. Go Up

Amal Nuri Safar (Libyan national – Tel: 3614301, Fax 3614301)

She is the Secretary of the Social Affairs of the General People’s Congress. She is also a member of the Pan-African Parliament from Libya. She is an advocate of changing gender discriminatory laws such as the nationality law and calls for more participation of Libyan women in the political sphere.
Ms Wassyla Tamzali (Algerian national – Wassyla.tamzali@wanadoo.fr)
She is currently the President of the Algerian Forum of the Mediterranean Women and a member of the office of the grouping Maghreb-Equality. She was the Director of the UNESCO programme for the Promotion of the Conditions of the Mediterranean Women. She has studied law and previously worked as a diplomat.

She is one of the signatories of a manifest against anti-Semitism, Islam-phobia and misogyny and advocates freedom of thought. She is a strong advocate of women’s human rights and for the implementation of CEDAW convention.

Ms Nouzha Skalli (Moroccan national – Nouzhaskalli@menana.ma)
She is a Member of Parliament. Since 1976, she ran for every single legislative and local election in the country. She has been hailed recently as one of the new breed of Muslim activists, striving to improve their societies working with religious traditions. Ms Skalli originally trained as a Pharmacist but has always been very active in the political sphere. Go Up

Gihad El Khazen (Lebanese national –
www.Allied-media.com/Arab-American/al_hayat_arabic_daily_newspaper.htm )

He is the Editor in Chief of the famous Arabic daily newspaper, El Hayatt, which is the foremost international daily newspaper for the Arab-speaking market. It is published in London and widely distributed in all Arab countries. Its objective reporting and independent point of view has enhanced its reputation as the most authoritative and respected voice in the Arab press and the yard stick by which other Arab newspapers are measured. El Hayatt is one of the few daily newspapers that address gender issues in a positive and sensitive way. Go Up

Hannan Ashrawi (Palestinian national – www.miftah.org)

She is both an academic and a well known political activist. She has a Doctorate in Medieval Literature from the University of Virginia. Dr Ashrawi understands cultural boundaries and makes Palestinian issues clear, especially to people outside the Middle East. She was the Palestinian Minister of Higher Education. In 1998, she resigned from the government in a protest against political corruption. She was the Palestinian spokeswoman for the peace talks with Israel, founded MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, aimed at fostering the principles of democracy and effective measures on the free and candid exchange of information and ideas. Whether she is fighting for the cause of her people, or standing up to corruption and abuse of power by her own leaders, Dr Ashrawi has consistently set an example of courage. She is an inspirational figure, with a high profile in the whole region and projects the image of a strong woman. She is also a strong national and international advocate for women’s rights and one who defies gender lines. She has high profile negotiating skills, and is articulate and analytical.

Lamees El-Hadidi (Egyptian national – Address: Egyptian Television, Corniche El Nile, Cairo)
Ms El Hadidi is a graduate of Adham college of Mass Communication at the American University in Cairo. She worked as News Desk Editor in NBC’s Cairo bureau. She then became the Senior Reporter with Kul an-Nas, a pioneering private sector magazine, and later the Chief of

Correspondents of Alam al Youm, the first dedicated business daily Arab newspaper, which set out to be the Financial Times of the Arab world. She subsequently became MBC Dubai Correspondent.
In 1996 she moved back to Cairo and became Managing Editor of Alam al Youm and Business Correspondent for MBC. She also returned to TV as Al-Jazeera Business Correspondent. She remains Managing Director of Alam al Youm.

She has a Master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the American University in Cairo. She runs a now very famous and widely watched TV programme, discussing political and economic issues. She was selected to develop and plan for President Mubarak’s election campaign. She is gender sensitive and advocates women’s rights in all her activities. Go Up

Daad Moussa (Syrian national)

A practising lawyer who is very active in the field of women’s rights. Her expertise is in family law and violence against women. She is well connected and works closely with women’s groups who are lobbying to have the Syrian Government issue a law that can permit them to register their organisations and work officially in Syria. She is well acquainted with the situation of women in the Arab region and participated in many meetings on women’s rights in Egypt, Jordan and the rest of the Arab countries. She is a member of the taskforce of the SIDA funded project on the Regional Network of Ombudsmen Offices in the Arab region. Go Up

Dr Hoda Badran (Egyptian national – hbadran@aaw.link.net)

She is presently the President of the Alliance for Arab Women, considered to be one of the few strong women’s NGOs in Egypt. The Alliance works closely with networks of NGOs from the majority of the Arab countries.

The Alliance is engaged in activities aimed at the political and economic empowerment of women and has 300 members including members from a number of Arab countries beside Egypt. It has an ECOSOC status with the UN and has been selected to represent the Arab NGOs during the Beijing Conference.

Dr Badran has a Ph.D in Community Organisation from Case/Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and was the Chairperson of the International Committee of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. She was also the first Secretary General of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood in Egypt. She has been the Gender Officer of the UNICEF Regional Office in Beirut and has been UNICEF’s Representative in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Go Up

Korel Goymen (Turkish national – goymen@sabanciuniv.edu)

A Senior Research Associate of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV). TESEV is an independent think-tank which forms a bridge between academic research and the policy making process. It carries out research based on scientific principles and seeks to share its findings with the widest possible audience. Go Up

Nawal Ammar (American/Lebanese/Egyptian national)

She is a Professor of Justice Studies and the Director of the Women Studies Programme at Kent State University. Dr Ammar is an Arab American with an Egyptian father and a Lebanese mother. Her areas of research have focused on justice and gender issues including Muslim and Arab women, Islam and ecology, and restorative justice. Her recent research has included work on women in Islam, Arab women and domestic violence, battered immigrant women, and Arab women’s legal rights. She has worked with Arab Americans, Egyptian, Bahraini, Lebanese and Omani women on a variety of issues regarding women’s rights and gender equality. Her published work is used as reference by Arab researchers in gender issues. Go Up

Wendy Harcourt (Italian national – wendyh@sidint.org)

She writes extensively in the field of gender and development and has led several research and policy programmes for the Society for International Development (SID), the UN, and European NGOs on globalisation, reproductive rights, and culture and communications. She is the Programme Adviser for SID, Editor of its quarterly journal and Chairwoman for the Development Europe Network (WIDE) in Belgium, a European network of development NGOs. She is a gender specialist and a human rights activist. She can draw from WIDE’s broad constituency of established channels for policy advocacy and lobbying in Europe. Go Up

Emma Bonino (Italian national – ebonino@europarl.eu.int)

She is a Member of the European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common security and Defence Policy, and a Board Member of the International Crisis Group (ICG). She was elected to the European Parliament in 1979 and re-elected in 1984 and 1999. She has been an advocate against FGM in the Arab countries and also a member of Mrs Mubarak’s Peace Initiative. She has a high profile in the Arab countries and in Turkey. Go Up

The following is a summary table listing proposed candidates for the Reflection Group and reasons why they were selected: