Middle East and North Africa
Middle East and North Africa
Noha El-Mikawy serves as representative for the Ford Foundation's Middle East and North Africa office in Cairo, Egypt. She oversees all of the foundation's grant making in the region. Noha's work concentrates on issues of equity, inclusion and civic engagement by supporting transparency, integrity and accountability; social, economic and cultural rights; creative arts; media; and higher education. The work of the Cairo office aims to achieve results with long-lasting impact through making grants for research, dialogue, and training to government, non-government and academic organizations.
Before joining the Ford Foundation in 2012, Noha served as a team leader for democratic governance at the UNDP regional center in the Arab States Region and as global policy adviser who connected governance and poverty reduction themes—with a special focus on legal empowerment of the poor—to social and economic rights. She supervised a number of global and regional UNDP initiatives in the areas of nationally owned governance assessments and legal empowerment. She helped produce a number of UNDP knowledge products, including a guide for gender-sensitive measurement of social services, reflections on programming for accountable, local governance, youth empowerment and informal social networks in the Arab region.
Previously, Noha led Middle East focused comparative research on political economy and institutional analysis at the Centre for Development Research at the University of Bonn, Germany, in collaboration with the Economic Research Forum for the Arab States, Iran and Turkey. She began her career lecturing and writing on politics of the Middle East at the American University in Cairo, Free University of Berlin and Erlangen-Nuremberg University. Noha has written two books on politics of reform in Egypt and one comparative book on processes of economic reform, participation and legislation in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco.
Noha holds a Ph.D. and M.A. both from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Issues and Initiatives
Noha El-Mikawy manages the regional strategy in the Middle East and North Africa integrating the following initiatives:
| Issue | Initiative |
|---|---|
| Democratic and Accountable Government | |
| Human Rights | |
| Educational Opportunity and Scholarship | |
| Freedom of Expression | |
| Sexuality and Reproductive Health and Rights |
Noha El-Mikawy is a member of the following initiative teams:
| Issue | Initiative |
|---|---|
| Human Rights | |
| Educational Opportunity and Scholarship | |
| Freedom of Expression |
Team
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Noha El-Mikawy
Representative
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Ghada Abdel Tawab
Program Officer
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Clarisa Bencomo
Program Officer
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Montasser Kamal
Senior Program Officer
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