Expertise: Peace Negotiation and Mediation, Peacebuilding, Human Rights, Women’s Right, Transitional Justice, Gender, Peace, and Security.   

Languages: Fluent Arabic and English. 

Bio: Rasha Jarhum (@RashaJarhum) is a Gender, Peace, and Security Expert. She is the co-founder and Director of Peace Track Initiative, which is hosted at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa. Rasha was invited among seven women by the UN Special Envoy to Yemen to support the peace talks held in Kuwait in 2016. She has briefed the UN Security Council on Yemen and Women’s Rights in efforts to push for peace. She is an affiliated scholar with the American University of Beirut and an alumni of the Executive in Residence Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). She is also a 2016 New Voices Aspen fellow at Aspen Institute, USA.

Jarhum has more than 15 years of experience working to advocate for women, children, and refugee rights with many organisations in Yemen, the Middle East, and North Africa region. Some of which include UNICEF, ESCWA, UNDP, and JICA. She held the position of Regional MENA Gender and Advocacy Manager at Oxfam Regional Gender Justice Programme. Jarhum holds a master’s degree from the University of Nottingham in International Business Management. She is an award winner of the Women with Wings Award and a member of the Women Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL). She is also a founding member of the Women Solidarity Network in Yemen, a coordinator at the MENA1325 Network, and a member of the MENA regional Coalition of Women Human Rights Defenders.