Region: Lebanon
Roba El Husseini
Roba El Husseini is a journalist, having spent the past decade working with the French news agency AFP in Beirut, covering war-torn Syria and crisis-hit Lebanon, relaying breaking news and resulting human tragedies. Roba has reported on numerous military operations launched by various actors in Syria—a country bursting with regional and global powers. She has also deployed multiple times to Syria and Iraq to cover battles against the Islamic State group in Mosul, Raqa, and the jihadists’ last stronghold of Baghouz. In Lebanon, Roba covered the unprecedented 2019 protests against a corrupt ruling elite, the deadly Beirut port blast, and years of economic fallout that threaten to push the country…
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Saleh Barakat
Saleh Barakat is an expert in contemporary Arab art and founded the Agial Art Gallery in 1991 and Saleh Barakat Gallery in 2016, both in Beirut. As the executive manager of the two galleries, he has participated in building major collections of modern and contemporary Arab art. With a strong business background with decades of experience in the art sector, Saleh is deeply engaged in developing a healthy market environment for creative expression in the Arab world. He has curated several pan-Arab exhibitions including the IXth Francophone Summit in Beirut, the 2003 World Bank Summit in Dubai, and "The Road to Peace: Painting in Times of War 1975-1991" at the…
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Jad Maalouf
Jad Maalouf is a judicial inspector with the Lebanese Judicial Inspection Commission, which is tasked with monitoring the judiciary and investigating and prosecuting corruption and misconduct. Jad is dedicated to working with public institutions to initiate and implement sustainable reforms and to promote integrity and transparency. For the past decade, he has focused on anti-corruption work and participated in drafting some of the main laws that have been enacted to combat and prevent systemic corruption and to increase transparency and access to information. He also leads a team working on the Implementation Review Mechanism for the UNCAC and the corruption risk assessment of laws and regulations. Jad’s work focuses on…
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May Akl
May Akl is a founding member of the Free Patriotic Movement and advises the President of Lebanon, Michel Aoun, on a wide range of political and media issues. Earlier in her career, May worked as a reporter at An-Nahar newspaper and as a press officer in the office of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.She is a lecturer at the Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, where she also earned her BA, MA, and PhD degrees. May is also a member of the Media and Communication Committee of the Free Patriotic Movement, where she served on the party's Central Committee in 2007.
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Gilbert Doumit
Gilbert Doumit is a founding and Managing Partner of Beyond Group Europe, a change-driven international consulting firm that specializes in three integrated practices: Public Policy & Management, Organizational Learning & Development, and Innovation & Technology Integration, with projects in South Asia, Africa, Caucasus, the Middle East and Gulf countries. For the last two decades, Gilbert has been advising policy makers, the United Nations, the World Bank, development partners, and civil society organizations to innovate and transform their social, economic and governance policies, strategies and systems. At the Yale School of Management, Gilbert has facilitated, for three consecutive years, a leadership development seminar within the Master’s of Advanced Management at the…
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Sally Abi Khalil
Sally Abi Khalil is a humanitarian and development practitioner with twenty years of experience in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria. She is currently Middle East and North Africa Director of Oxfam International and has served as chair of the Lebanon Humanitarian INGO Forum. As the first Lebanese woman to run a major international NGO within the Syria Response in Lebanon, she has led humanitarian response programming, programs supporting youth and women with social innovation and social entrepreneurship initiatives, promoted the right to decent work, worked for the establishment of civil society networks, and promoted feminist approaches towards leadership and collective action. Sally’s career has followed the trajectory of…
More InformationEpisode 44: 2020 World Fellow Sally Abi Khalil
Sally Abi Khalil talks about her work as the Country Director of Oxfam in Lebanon, the 4 August 2020 blast which destroyed the port of Beirut, the Lebanese protest movement, and how Doughnut Economics can help Lebanon build back better.
More InformationEpisode 9: 2017 World Fellow Ibrahim Ajami
Ibrahim Ajami is son of a Lebanese father and a Liberia mother. He spent his whole life in Liberia growing up in a country immersed in civil war. He was a medical student during the Ebola epidemic. He hopes one day to be the Minister or Health in Liberia.
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