Summary Biographies of Speakers and Resource Persons at the Arab Forum on Social Policy Opening Ceremony: Social Policy in Today’s Development Context Bader Al-Dafa Bader Al-Dafa of Qatar is the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). He has recently served as Ambassador of Qatar to the United States and Permanent Observer to the Organization of American States (OAS), he played a special role in promoting access to education and the arts in the ArabAmerican community and among other minority populations in the United States. Mr. Al-Dafa has represented Qatar as an Ambassador to the Russian Federation, France, Egypt, and Spain. He has also served as the non-resident Ambassador to Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, and Mexico, and served as Director of the European and American Affairs Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Al-Dafa’s career has also included service with international NGOs, where he supervised programs for building housing for families with limited income in Africa and participation in land mine removal programs in the Balkans. In addition, he has actively participated in fund- raising programs with various children’s hospitals that support the social needs of children in Asia and in North America and helped in raise funds and support for the empowerment of women in North Africa and Central Asia. He has also been involved in organizing conferences on democracy and free trade and inter-religious dialogue. Mr. Al-Dafa received his Masters in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University and his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Economics from Western Michigan University in the United States. He has been awarded the Order Du Mérite from the Republic of France.
Khalid Mohammed Ali Al Kamda As Director General of the Community Development Authority of Dubai H.E. Mr. Khaled Al Kamda play an effective role in leading the team work of the Authority to achieve its vision and the organization of the social development sector, consistent with the objectives of social development which was announced by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai within the Dubai Strategic Plan 2007-2015. H.E. Al Kamda started his career in 1985 as assistant director of information technology in the Emirates Airline which has given this position extensive knowledge in the field of automation and information technology .In 1987, he was promoted to become Director of Data Systems Marketing Management where he was responsible for the management of sales and marketing related activities in the Emirates Airline. In 1990, he was appointed director general of the Emirates Airline in the Gulf region, the Middle East and Africa. In 1992, H.E. Al Kamda was appointed Senior General Manager, Emirates in the Gulf region, and the nbecame vice-president where he was responsible for the implementation of the various partnership projects in the region in 1995. H.E. Al Kamda has varied experiences of professional, include many different sectors, where he served as Vice Chairman of the Board, "Istithmar World" in 2006 and served as Managing Director of the "Dubai Islamic Bank" from December 2007 to October 2009, where he remains a member of its board of directors Until today. His Excellency Mr. Khaled Al Kamda holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Melbourne Institute of Technology in Florida, the United States in 1985, a Master Degree in Business Administration from Cranfield School of Management, UK in 1995.
Session 1: A new paradigm for Integrated Social Policy Frederico Neto Frederico Neti is the Chief of the Social Development Division of UN/ESCWA in Beirut. He has a wide range of work experience in the economic, social and environmental fields, accumulated during 19 years of service in the UN system. He was previously the Chief of the Urban Economy and Finance Branch at UN-HABITAT in Nairobi, where he dealt with urban employment issues, rural-urban economic linkages and municipal finance. Mr. Neto began his UN career at Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York, covering several sustainable development issues, including water resource management and climate change. He was a member of the Secretariat of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and was responsible for several chapters of the Annual UN Flagship publication World Economic and Social Survey. He is also the author of many articles in several areas of international development policy. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Masters degree in Urban Economics from University College London.
Mohammad Ghadeyeh Mohammad Ghadeyeh is a lecturer at Bir Zeit University’s Faculty of Contemporary Arab Studies on development issues in the Arab countries. He was previously the Director of Planning and the Director-General for institution-building and human development in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation - Palestine. Mr. Ghadeyeh was also the Former Director of Kanaan Studies and Publications House (Cyprus – Damascus). Most recently he worked with ESCWA and the Palestine Ministry of Planning as the National Coordinator of the integrated social policy project, which culminated in the production of a report and National Conference in June 2009. His areas of expertise include: the preparation of national development plans; macro and sectoral social development plan; integrated social policy design; preparation of reports and national poverty plans and strategies to combat poverty; human development reports; the Millennium Development Goals, the preparation of national employment strategies and strategies for training and vocational education and technical experience in the work of the operating funds and social protection; small and micro-credit; banks for the poor and issues of good governance. Mr Ghadeyeh holds a Holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Academy of Social Sciences in Sofia – Bulgaria
Wenyan Yang Wenyan Yang is currently Acting Chief, Social Perspectives on Development Branch in the Division for Social Policy and Development of DESA. She works with the Commission for Social Development and leads the preparation of the publication Report on World Social Situation . Previously, as Acting Chief of the Coordination and Outreach Unit, she was responsible for overall outreach and communications activity in the UN Division for the Advancement of Women and for facilitation of the Non-Governmental Organization participation in the UN intergovernmental processes. She started her UN career as an economic affairs officer in the Macroeconomic and Development Policy Analysis Division, contributing to the major departmental publication World Economic and Social Survey.
Session 2: Global Experiences in Social Policy Katja Hujo: Katja Hujo is a Research Coordinator in the Social Policy and Development Programme, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, where she manages projects on Financing Social Policy and Migration and Social Policy in Developing Countries. Prior to joining UNRISD in 2006, Katja worked as a research fellow at the Latin American Institute at Free University Berlin (FUB). She studied economics and political science in Tübingen and Berlin (Germany) and Córdoba (Argentina), and holds a Ph.D. in economics from FUB.
Arne Backer Groenningsaeter Arne Backer Groenningsaeter is a researcher at the Oslo based Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, where his field of research is comparative social policy, living conditions of vulnerable groups and welfare delivery. His career started as a social worker, and he was president of the Norwegian Union of Social Workers from 1989 – 1993. Then he was General Secretary for the International Solidarity Committee of the Norwegian Labour Movement for a couple of years before he took the position as Managing Director for Centre for International Studies at Fafo in 1995. He was Director for Fafo South Africa from 2002 – 2004 and Research Director for Social Policy and Welfare State issues from 2004 to 2007. He has for many years been involved in research cooperation with the Middle East, Southern Africa and the Baltic States. During the last years he has been strongly engaged in projects concerning social aspects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These projects involved Russia, South Africa and Norway. His engagement also includes ethics and values in social work and social policy. He was from 2002 to 2008 head of the Permanent Committee on Ethics in the International Federation of Social Workers.
Peadar Kirby Peadar Kirby is Professor of International Politics and Public Policy, and director of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society, at the University of Limerick. His latest publications are Explaining Ireland’s Development: Economic Growth with Weakening Welfare, Social Policy and Development Paper No. 37, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD, 2008), Power, Dissent and Democracy: Civil Society and the State in Ireland, co-edited with Deiric Ó Broin (A&A Farmar, 2009) and Transforming Ireland: Challenges, Critiques, Resources, co-edited with Debbie Ging and Michael Cronin (Manchester University Press, 2009
Session 3: National Experiences in Integrated Social Policy Mohammad Al Bakkar Bin Haidar Al-Harthy Mohammad Al Bakkar Bin Haidar Al-Harthy has held the post of Executive Director of Social Benefits in the Community Development Authority in Dubai since July 2008. His functions include policy formulation and direction in support of social groups with limited income. Prior to his appointment at CDA, Mr. Al-Bakkar acted as General Manager of Beit Al Khair Society since 1995. He is also a member of several associations and institutions, both domestic and international, most notably the General Secretariat of the Arab Charities Conference (Lebanon), the Arab Network for NGOs, and a founding member of both the Forum on Self-improvement, and the Forum on Culture and Science. Mr. Al-Bakkar’s professional experience is also varied and includes many different sectors, where he worked in a private company in the field of irrigation and agricultural equipment in Al Ain, then moved to Dubai Equipment Co. (DEC), where he held various positions in the marketing department. He has served as a director responsible for the introduction of new products to compete with existing equipment in the market in the area of marine engines and diesel equipment in the Delta Machinery Supply (DMS) and has won certificates in honor of his outstanding efforts and success of the introduction of the product to the domestic market.
Majdi Al-Maliki Majdi Al Maliki is the director of Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute for International Studies at Birzeit University Ramallah, where he teaches courses on social development, social methodology and social policies. He is an expert on social development and social policies in Palestine, and has worked as a consultant with several local and international institutions. He was the main author of the "National Report on Social Policy in Palestine 1994-2008”. He has published several papers, articles and books in his field of interest. The more recent were "Mapping of Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations in West Bank and Gaza Strip", "Palestinian Youth Participation in Decision-making: Reality and Prospects", "Towards a Sociology of Civil Resistance: Palestinian Society during the second Intifada", "Social and Economic Characteristics of the Informal Sector in the West Bank and Gaza Strip", "Le néoclientélisme comme stratégie d’adaptation de la société palestinienne pendant l'Intifada d'El - Aqsa : facteurs et déterminants". He has obtained his Ph.D. from Nanterre University, Paris in 1994. He
Sahar El-Tawila Sahar El-Tawila is the National Project Director of the Social Contract Center, a joint project between UNDP and the Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), The Cabinet, Egypt. The SCC aims at providing first class policy advice and policy options, coordinating and monitoring the implementation of the MDGs-based poverty action plan and promoting among various stakeholders a vision for a new social contract rooted in principles of democratic governance and modern concepts of citizenship. She is also the Associate Professor of Statistics/Cairo University; her main areas of expertise include monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs, statistical analysis of large data sets, and sampling. She joined the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo during 1992-2001, where she managed and was responsible for the design and implementation of five large national surveys in Egypt. She was also a consultant to UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA, and the World Bank on numerous projects. Ms. Sahar Al-Tawili has a Ph.D. in Statistics from Cairo University and Diploma of the Special Program in Demography, from the Office of Population Research/Princeton University and, a Diploma in Sampling Design from the Institute of Social Research/The University of Michigan.
Session 4: Social Protection in the region Ghassan Khalil Ghassan Khalil is an adviser for Social Policy and Strategic Planning in the Community Development Authority (CDA) in Dubai. Mr. Khalil has held key leadership positions, such as the legal adviser to the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Secretary General of the Higher Council for Childhood in Lebanon, President of the Higher Technical Committee for Childhood in the Arab League and the President of the Beirut Center for Human Rights. He has also served as regional adviser for numerous organizations, including the ILO and UNICEF. Mr. Khalil is an expert in the field of training and curriculum design. Has co-authored books on National Education and civic education in Lebanon and worked to integrate human rights into school curricula in several countries. He has field experince in more than 40 countries, and has held the position of head of the UNICEF child protection program in Iraq, Bangladesh and the Gulf region. Mr. Khalil received a law degree from the Lebanese University, before specializing in Human Rights at Columbia University in New York City, where he gave lectures on the Rights of the Child. He has received an international honorary diploma from the U.S. Institute in recognition of his sustained and outstanding contributions in the field of human rights.
Susan Joekes Susan Joekes is a Senior Program Specialist within the Globalization Growth and Poverty Programme based in Cairo at the International Development Research Center’s (IDRC) Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa. Her areas of specialization include competition policy, business regulation, international trade and labour markets, with special reference to gender analysis. Prior to joining IDRC in 2000, she worked at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UNCTAD, and the International Center for Research on Women in Washington D.C., and the World Bank. She holds degrees in economics from the University of Edinburgh and Oxford University. Her recent publications include Competition and Development: The Power of Competitive Markets.
Nada Al-Nashif Nada Al-Nashif was appointed Regional Director of the Regional Office for Arab States in Beirut, in January 2007. She has prioritized the roll-out of Decent Work Country Programmes for the region for particular emphasis on enhanced employment policies; support to entrepreneurship culture; social dialogue mechanisms with vibrant workers’ and employments’ engagement; and enhanced social protection for all. Continuing support to constituents in the Arab World has been at the core of the Regional Office’s results – based programming that integrates “UN Form” initiative and revitalized partnership approaches. Ms. Al-Nashif joined the ILO from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) where she has worked since 1991. Her last assignment with UNDP was Chief, Regional Programme Division, Regional Bureau for Arab States, in UNDP New York (2005-2006). Prior assignments included responsibilities in country office (Lebanon, Libya) and at Headquarters in the Office of the Administrator. Ms. Al-Nashif holds a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Balliol College, Oxford University.
Ziad Abdel Samad Ziad Abdel Samad is the Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), based in Beirut, since 1999. ANND brings together 30 NGOs and nine national networks from 12 Arab countries active in the fields of social development, human rights, gender, and the environment. The network, established in 1997, focuses on developing the capacity of Arab civil society organizations and promoting democracy, human rights, participation and good governance in civil society and among governments. It has been an active participant in a number of United Nations conferences, WTO negotiations and the World Social Forum. Mr. Abdel Samad is also a member of the Lebanese Negotiating Committee for the accession in the WTO. He sits on the International Council of the World Social Forum and the Coordination Committee of Social Watch, an international network of citizen coalitions that monitors the implementation of the commitments made at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen. Mr. Abdel Samad is a member of the Board of Directors of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. He is a member of the UNDP CSO Advisory Committee to the Administrator. Mr. Abdel Samad is the President of the National Steering Committee of the UNDP Local Initiative Facility for Urban Environment (LIFE) program in Lebanon and General Manager of the Centre for Developmental Studies (MADA), a Lebanese centre for social and economic studies and research.
Session 5: National Experiences in Social Protection Maha Yahya Maha Yahya a socio-urban specialist with two PhD’s in the social sciences and humanities from MIT and the AA and around 17 years of academic and professional experience. Currently, she is the Regional Advisor on Social Policy. In this capacity she is addressing social policy and development issues in the 14 member countries of ESCWA. Prior to joining UN-ESCWA she was the director and principle author of the National Human Development Report at UNDP entitled Toward a Citizen’s State and of two supplementary works Education and Citizenship and One Hundred and One Stories to tell. She is also the founder and editor of the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies (MIT-EJMES). Prior to joining UNDP she worked as consultant on a rich variety of issues such as region wide social policy analysis, socio-urban evaluations, cultural heritage, poverty reduction, housing and community development, and post-conflict reconstruction in various countries including Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. She is a board member of several organizations including LCPS and the MIT-Enterprise Forum for the Arab region and is the author of Towards Integrated Social Development Policies in ESCWA Countries: A Conceptual Analysis (ESCWA) and the co-editor of Secular Publicities: Visual practices and the transformation of national publics in the Middle East and South Asia (University of Michigan, 2009).
Hania Sholkamy Hania Sholkamy is an Egyptian anthropologist with a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. She is currently assistant professor at the Social Research Center of the American University of Cairo-AUC- and is also affiliated with the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program of the university. She has previously held positions with the department of anthropology at AUC, and has been a Research Associate at the International Population Council and was the Ioma Evans Pritchard Junior Research Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University. Her research interests and publications are mainly in the fields of health, particularly reproductive health, gender, population and qualitative methods. She has been a member of various professional associations including The Reproductive Health Working Group (current), the Committee on Anthropology and Demography of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (1998-2002) and the Advisory Committee of the Middle East Awards program of the International Population Council (2002/3). She is also a member of the executive committee of the Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies of the AUC, A fellow of the Economic Research Forum, and a member of the International Faculty of the Arab Gulf University in Bahrain.
Khadija Zahzah Khadija Zahzah is the Acting Director of the Policy Department and expert in strategic planning at the Community Development Authority (CDA) in Dubai. She has more than 23 years of experience in the field of human development at the regional and international levels. Ms. Zahzah has a proven track record in building partnerships between government, civil society and the private sector, in addition to wide experience in the field of early learning, education policy, capacity-building and social development. Ms. Zahzah has worked with a number of leading development institutions including UNESCO, UNICEF and the Aga Khan, both in the Gulf and the Levant, Iraq and North Africa. Prior to joining the Community Development Authority, she served as Director of the Aga Khan Education Services in the Early Learning Center, and an adviser to the Arab Gulf Fund for Development Nations. Ms. Zahzah has published research and studies in a number of professional publications such as the Saudi Medical Journal and the International Journal of rehabilitation. Ms. Zahzah holds a Diploma in education policy and planning from Harvard University and a Master's degree in human development from Pacific Oaks University and a Bachelor’s degree in special education from the University of Long Beach, California.
Omar Razzaz Omar Razzaz is the Director General of the Social Security Corporation (SSC) in Jordan. Dr. Razzaz has won several merit and academic awards; he has several publications in refereed journals, and serves on the boards of several academic, international, private, and not-for-profit institutions. Prior to joining SSC, he worked for ten years in the private Sector Development, and the Infrastructure and Finance Departments of the World Bank with country experience in Eastern Europe central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. His last assignment with the World Bank was as Country Manger for the Lebanon office. Prior to joining the World Bank, Dr. Razzaz was an assignments professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology holding the Ford International Chair. He received his PhD in public policy and planning with concentration in Economics from Harvard University in 1991, a post Doctorate from Harvard Law School in 1995, and Masters in International Development and Regional planning from MIT in 1987.
Saidatulakmal Mohd: Saidatulakmal Mohd is the Chairperson of the Economics Section at the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. She joined the university in 2005 upon the completion of her Ph.D. thesis in the same year. Prior to teaching at Universiti Sains Malaysia, she has taught in various private colleges in Malaysia. She has engaged in extensive research on Social Security and Elderly Well Being covering South East Asian countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia. Her current research is on the elderly well-being in rural urban area in Indonesia. In addition, she is also actively researching in tourism economics and her current research in this area is the forgotten heritages of Pulau Pinang.
