Empowering Women Changemakers in the Middle East: Opportunities and Challenges

The panel will be followed by a networking event and a gallery tour. Light food and drinks will be served.

The Middle East Institute’s (MEI) Arts and Culture Center invites you to an in-person panel conversation and networking event exploring the rise of women changemakers in the Arab world and Iran.

The panel will hear from leading experts who have worked to support and invest in women changemakers in the Middle East and globally. Panelists will discuss pathways to success; the role that women play in social change and peacebuilding; and the challenges and pressures they are up against in the face of repressive regimes, economic instability, conflict and entrenched patriarchies.

The panel is part of MEI’s programming highlighting its current exhibition, Louder Than Hearts: Women Photographers from the Arab World and Iran, focused on women and resilience in the region. 

Speakers

Nadereh Chamlou
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council

Saba Ghori
Vice President of Global Network and Regional Engagement, Vital Voices

Merissa Khurma
Director, Middle East Program, Wilson Center

Kathleen Kuehnast
Director, Women, Peace, and Security Program, USIP

Suzanne Kianpour (Moderator)
Foreign Affairs & Political Reporter, BBC News

Extended Speaker Biographies

Nadereh Chamlou is currently a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and an international development advisor. She is a former Senior Advisor of the World Bank, where over a 33-year career, she held managerial, technical, coordination, and advisory positions in diverse fields such as economic management, corporate governance, private sector development, financial markets, environment, infrastructure, and Gender. Her regional experience extends to Latin America, South Asia, East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East & North Africa. She has authored seminal publications, is a frequent speaker at international conferences, and serves on boards of several organizations promoting research, empowerment, and innovation.  She was educated at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Graduate School for Economics. She is the recipient of The International Alliance for Women’s 2015 “Making a Difference” Global Award.

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Saba Ghori is a seasoned diplomat and violence against women expert, having worked for over two decades on women’s rights, human rights, rule of law, access to justice and entrepreneurship with a focus on women in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  Saba currently is Vice President for the Global Networks team, which oversees Vital Voices Global Partnership’s (VV) human rights and gender-based violence programming, including the Voices Against Violence initiative and the Urgent Assistance Fund, which has helped thousands of women’s rights leaders, their local organizations and survivors of violence throughout the years, as well as VV’s crisis response efforts to evacuate and support Afghan women leaders. Saba’s role is to activate and provide support and opportunities to the women leaders in VV’s vast network of 20,000 women.  Prior to that, Saba was a Senior Gender Advisor on South Asia and Violence Against Women at the Department of State including the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and US Embassy Islamabad.

Merissa Khurma is the program director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. She was a non-resident fellow in the International Security program at New America. She has leadership experience working on a range of development projects in the Middle East that focused on economic development, the Syrian refugee crisis, education, youth, gender development, and governance. Additionally, Khurma served as director of the Office of Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein (2010- 2013) and as press attaché and director of the Information Bureau at the Embassy of Jordan in Washington, D.C. (2003-2010). Khurma has a master of public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, a master of science in international security and foreign policy from Georgetown University, and a bachelor of art in political science from McGill University. She is also a leadership development practitioner with a focus on Adaptive Leadership, Public Narrative & Community Organizing. Merissa speaks Arabic and French.

Kathleen Kuehnast is the director of the Women, Peace and Security portfolio at USIP, where she oversees the Institute’s work on the gendered impacts of violent conflict, drawing upon U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, emphasizing the critical role women play in all aspects of peacebuilding. Since 2012, Kuehnast has served as a founding partner of the Missing Peace Initiative, which is focused on ending conflict-related sexual violence by bringing a survivor-centered focus to research, policy and practice. Since 2010, she has also spearheaded the U.S. Civil Society Work Group on Women, Peace and Security, of which USIP is the secretariat. Kuehnast’s most recent publication is the chapter “Gender and Armed Conflict” that appears in the volume “The Gender and Security Agenda: Promoting Equality and Peace in the 21st Century.” She was the 2015 recipient of the Perdita Huston Human Rights Award from the U.N. Association of the National Capital Area.

Suzanne Kianpour is an Emmy-nominated journalist and anchor specializing in global security and the Middle East. She is the founder and CEO of Helmet to Heels™, a digital brand that merges news, travel, and fashion to amplify the voices of extraordinary women worldwide. This initiative builds on her impactful career at the BBC, including the award-winning series “Women Building Peace,” a collaboration with the Georgetown Institute of Women, Peace, and Security. Suzanne’s documentary “Out of the Shadows” explores the covert conflict between Israel and Iran, showcasing her depth in handling sensitive geopolitical topics. This work earned her a nomination for Presenter of the Year by the Association of International Broadcasters in London in November 2023.Throughout her career spanning over a decade, Suzanne has traveled to more than 80 countries, securing exclusive interviews with prominent figures like Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, former President Obama post-Iran Nuclear Deal, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and other global leaders

 

(Photo by ABBAS MOMANI/AFP via Getty Images)