Head Statistical Policies and Coordination Unit, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)
Expert with over 25 years of experience in statistical research, capacity building and program development in the United Nations.
Academic qualifications: BSc. Statistics, Mustansyriah University Baghdad-Iraq, MSc. Demography (Population Studies) American University Beirut (AUB) Lebanon, with 25 years work with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).
In-depth experience in the areas of Gender Statistics, Disability Statistics, Development Goals including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Experience in data quality and metadata including dissemination and communication of statistics.
Advisory services to the member countries in the ESCWA Region in areas of development of gender and disability statistics programs; implementing specialized surveys on violence against women and disability; and enhancing national capacity building activities to produce and monitor development indicators for users and producers of statistics.
Under the ESCWA Statistics umbrella Program on Gender Statistics, since 1997, (https://www.unescwa.org/our-work/gender-statistics-0), I developed (the first) Outreach Program integrating the Gender Statistics Toolkit for the Arab countries, and presented it, as a side event, in the meeting of the UN Statistical Commission in New York in 2018. The Toolkit Program is a free of charge, user-friendly e-learning software for country level implementation. (https://elearning.unescwa.org/). Formulated a curriculum on Gender Statistics, and delivered it at the national workshops organized by the National Statistical Offices of the member countries in the region.
On personal initiative, I Developed the Disability Statistics Programme at the Statistics Division at ESCWA in 2016. The Programme aims to improve the collection; analysis and availability of data on persons with disabilities by improving statistical capacity of the member countries to compile and disseminate comparable data through development of methodology, standards and classification. I organized a number of workshops and inter-agency expert group meetings in relation to this subject (https://www.unescwa.org/our-work/disability-statistics). I was the Co- author of the first Regional Guidebook on Improving Disability Data Collection and Analysis in the Arab Countries: https://www.unescwa.org/our-work/260170/resources.
My work on enhancing the capacities of member countries ' national statistical systems and improving quality of data is a continuing undertaking. It includes preparing numerous parliamentary publications on needs assessments of the national statistical systems in the areas of development indicators, gender and quality of data and metadata for the Statistics Committee, as well as the ‘Latest paper on Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender equality indicators: data availability in Arab countries '. (https://www.unescwa.org/sites/www.unescwa.org/files/page_attachments/gender_indicators_data_availability_2017_e.pdf).
I developed the first Dashboard at ESCWA on Arab Development Monitor for Societal Progress (http://www.dataforall.org/dashboard/escwa/index.php/home/index). And worked on enhancing cooperation between users and producers of statistics an outcome publication on ‘Effective use of statistics in evidence-based policymaking -- conceptual framework ' (2013).
Developed 13 statistical glossaries in different fields in the English and Arabic languages available on the Statistics Division portal https://www.unescwa.org/sub-site/statistics-information-portal
Lead the preparation of numerous UN ESCWA publications including:
Acted as the Regional Coordinator of the World Bank for the International Comparison Programme in the ESCWA region, and as the Officer at the Program Planning and Coordination Division.
Specialties include: Capacity building in areas of Gender Statistics, Disability Statistics, and Development Indicators (SDGs & MDGs).