Manal Omar

Manal Omar joined USIP as a program officer for the grant program in August 2008. Currently, she serves as Director of Iraq, Iran, and North Africa Programs under the Center for Post-conflict Peace and Stability Operations. Previously, she was regional program manager for the Middle East for Oxfam – Great Britain, where she responded to humanitarian crises in Palestine and Lebanon. Omar has extensive experience in the Middle East. She worked with Women for Women International as regional coordinator for Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. Omar lived in Baghdad from 2003 to 2005 and set up operations in Iraq. She launched her career as a journalist in the Middle East in 1996. UNESCO recruited her to work on one of her first lead assignments in Iraq in 1997-1998. Omar worked more than three years with the World Bank’s development economics group. She has carried out training programs on in Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Kenya and many other countries.

Omar’s activities have been profiled in the mainstream media by the Washington Times, the LA Times, the BBC, NPR, Glamour, the London Times and Newsweek. Her articles and opinion pieces have appeared in the Guardian, the Washington Post,Azizah Magazine and Islamica Magazine.

Omar is on the board of directors of Women Without Borders, an international NGO based in Austria and an active member of the American Muslim community. In 2007, Islamic Magazine named her one of the ten young visionaries shaping Islam in America. She holds an M.A. in Arab studies from Georgetown University and a B.A. in international relations from George Mason University.

Featuring Manal Omar …

United States Institute of Peace – Director of Iraq, Iran and North Africa Programs.

United States Institute of Peace Interview with Manal Omar about Iraq.

United States Institute of Peace 2011 Panel on Iraq with Manal Omar.

Manal Omar is the author of Barefoot in Baghdad: A Story of Identity-My Own and What It Means to be a Woman in Chaos (2010).

Co-author of Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq (Oxam Briefing Paper 2007).

Articles in the Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice – “Islamic Feminism” (2006), “Non-Govermental Organizations” (2006), and “Post Conflict and Reconstruction (2006)

Complete List of publications by Manal Omar.

Omar’s article, “Post Mubarak Egypt” through USIP.

Omar’s article, “Women and Rural Communities in Egypt” through USIP.

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