Board of Consultants

Main Researcher in Al-Ahram strategic center in Egypt is a Former parliamentarian, Head of the "Political system" committee that is responsible for forming the Egyptian constitution in 2013. He has many articles in Arabic and French newspapers, in addition to a daily column and a weekly article in "Al Masry AlYoum" newspaper.

ASMA NOUIRA: is a professor of Political Science and Law at the University of El-Manar and an expert on Islamic studies and official religious institutions in Tunisia. Her special field of research is the relationship between the state and religion and religious actors. In 2011, she was appointed as one of the original members of the Committee of Experts to the Ben Achour Political Reform Commission where she worked on different legal projects concerning the democratic transition, such as the electoral code and a media code. She is co-founder and the current President of the Observatoire Tunisien de la Transition Démocratique (OTTD).

He is the Director of The Arab Institute for Development and Futuristic Research in Egypt. He is a well-known Arabic thinker, member of the board of the Center of Arab Unity Studies, and a writer interested in Transition to Democracy in Arab Countries. He began his career as a diplomatic attaché to Egypt in several countries and served as head of the international relations unit at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

He is the Head of Research at "the Common Area Initiative for Knowledge Sharing and Consensus Building", which oversees studies and reports related to the topics of national dialogues and reforms in Lebanon and a number of Arab countries. Karam received a PhD in political science and a postgraduate degree in Comparative Political Science from the Institute of Political Science in Provence University, France. He teaches political science at the Lebanese University as a contracting professor. In the past, he worked as a program director at the Lebanese Center for Studies, where his work focused on political and social transformations and on political reforms in Lebanon and the Arab countries. Karam is active in a number of civil society organizations working to defend civil and political rights and freedoms in Lebanon.

Khaled Mansour has been working since 1990 in human rights, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, and journalism with civil society, academic, media and international organizations. He worked in conflict, post-conflict and transitional situations such as South Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan. He was Executive Director of Egypt's leading human rights organization, EIPR (2013-2015) and Global Director of Communications for UNICEF (2010-2013). Since 2015, he has been an independent writer and consultant. He published four books and keeps a blog at khaledmansour.org

Nirvana Shawky is the MENA and international partnerships Director for Crisis Action. As a regional expert on humanitarian advocacy in conflicts, Nirvana has led effective global efforts on protection of civilians in humanitarian crises in the Middle East. Currently, in her current role, she has led international advocacy campaigns on different conflicts over the course of the last 8 years, from Sudans to Palestine, to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Western Sahara to Yemen – lobbying governments and international institutions as the UN, LAS and EU to ensure mitigation of civilian suffering caught in war.

Before joining Crisis Action, she was one of the founding team and played an integral role in the establishment of Al Shorouk (Egyptian independent daily newspaper) as their Opinion Page Editor (2008-2010). Preceding to that, Ms Shawky was the English section editor and political analyst in Al Ahram Democracy Review, a regional periodical dedicated to democratization, governance, and political development. She also worked as a researcher for Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, and academic lecturer on issues of international relations, as humanitarianism and conflict resolution and influencing powers in multilateral organizations. Nirvana studied political science and international relations in the American University in Cairo (AUC) and University of California, LA (UCLA), and is an Alumnus of Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Center for Security Studies -ETH Zurich (CSS) and Rockwood Leadership Institute, California.

Sabah Al Hallak: is a board member of the Syrian Women’s League, and League for Citizenship, she won first prize from the Organization of CAWTER Tunisia, on her research “Discrimination against Syrian women in personal status laws".

Assistant professor of History at Institut Préparatoire aux Etudes Littéraires et aux Sciences Humaines de Tunis (IPELSHT) – Tunis University, from 2011 till now. She has held several previous academic positions, so that she assigned to teach history, faculty of economic and political science at Cairo University, from 2004 to 2006. She also worked as an Assistant professor in History, in University of Gafsa in 2009/ 2010. Dr. Sonia has complete her PhD on Modern and Contemporary History from Provence University, France in 2008.

Programs Director at the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) since November 2011. Her work mainly entails research coordination and project management focused on development, governance and human rights policies. She is engaged in networking and cooperation with national and global civil society organizations and other development actors. She worked previously as Program Associate at the UNDP-Program on Governance in the Arab Region (UNDP-POGAR) and UNDP project on Anti-Corruption and Integrity in Arab Countries (UNDP-ACIAC) from 2007 till 2011. She holds a Master’s degree in International Trade Law from Beirut Arab University and a BA in Law from the Lebanese University.