Partners & Associates

Anis Ben Brik is an associate professor and founding director of the Program for Social Policy Evaluation and Research (PROSPER) at the College of Public Policy, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU).

Before joining HBKU, Dr. Ben Brik served as director of the Family Policy Department at the Doha International Family Institute. He previously served as a senior policy advisor and consultant to many government ministries and organizations in the Middle East and North Africa region. He is the founding president of the MENA Evaluation Society and the Global Observatory for Family Research and Policies. He also serves as the MENA region Organizing Partner of the United Nations NGO Major Group. Additionally, he has published empirical research in a wide range of international peer-reviewed journals, including Children and Youth Services Review, Early Child Development and Care, Child Indicators Research, and Decision Sciences. His most recent publications include Families and Social Change in the Gulf Region (Routledge).

Ferdinand Eibl is Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at King’s College London. Ferdinand’s research focuses on the political economy of authoritarian rule in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), particularly in the areas of distributive politics, crony capitalism, and the political economy of civil-military relations. His first book, Social Dictatorships: The Political Economy of the Welfare State in the Middle East, was published with Oxford University Press. His articles have been published in the British Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, the European Political Science Review, and the Journal of North African Studies, amongst others.

Ghada Barsoum is a professor at the Public Policy and Administration at The American University in Cairo (AUC). Barsoum has more than seventy publications, including articles in top-tier peer-reviewed journals, technical reports, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, policy papers and a book on women’s employment. She writes and teaches on issues pertaining to social policies in the Middle East, women’s work and employment policies, green jobs, and higher education policies. She has consulted for a number of organizations, including the World Bank and a number of UN organizations. Barsoum obtained her PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto in 2005 and her master’s degree from AUC.

Hania Sholkamy is an Egyptian anthropologist with a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, The University of London. She obtained her BA and MA from the American University in Cairo (AUC). She is currently associate research professor at the Social Research Center of the AUC and National Coordinator of the Egyptian Government Conditional Cash Transfers Program. Prior to her current position she has been employed as assistant professor of anthropology in the department of anthropology of the AUC, has been a research associate at the International Population Council and was the Ioma Evans Pritchard Junior Research Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University. Her research interests and publications are mainly in the fields of gender, social policy and poverty alleviation, health, particularly reproductive health, population and qualitative methods. She has co-edited two volumes, one titled Categories and Contexts: Anthropological and Historical Studies in Critical Demography (OUP) with S. Szreter and A. Dharmalingam and another titled Health and Identity in Egypt (AUC press) with F. Ghanam.

Hicham Ait Mansour is an associate Professor of Sociology at Mohammed V University in Rabat. His main areas of research are social policy analysis, social protection, political participation of youth, migration as well as knowledge production in the social sciences in the Arab World. He is an associate member of the Arab Council of Social Science based in Beirut (Lebanon) and the Social Policy in MENA Network based at the University of Bath (UK).

He is the Director of the National Evaluation Body at the Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research (Since April 2023). Before that, he has been the Deputy Director of the same institution from July 2021 to 2023. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Mohammed V University in Rabat, as well as a Master’s in « Policy Research » from the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom. He was also a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the City University of New York in 2013-2014.

Ibrahim Ahmed Elbadawi is the Founder and Former Managing Director of The Economic Research Forum (since January 2017- August 2019; August 2020- present). He previously held the following positions: Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Republic of Sudan (Sept 2019-July 2020).  Appointed by the UN Secretary-General to the High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations (in December 2020).

Before joining the Economic Research Forum (ERF), he held several key positions: Director at the Economic Policy & Research Center, Dubai Economic Council (2009–2016); Lead Economist at the World Bank’s Development Research Group (from 1989); Research Director at the African Economic Research Consortium (1993–1998); and Professor of Economics at the University of Gezira in Sudan (1984–1989).

Elbadawi is co-editor (with Ishac Diwan) of the MENA Growth Commission Report (2022), published by ERF and the Finance for Development Lab. His recent edited books include Understanding and Avoiding the Oil Curse in Resource-rich Arab Economies (with Hoda Selim, Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Democratic Transitions in the Arab World (with Samir Makdisi, Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Ibtesam Al-Atiyat is an Associate Professor at St. Olaf College, previously served as Acting Director General at the UN Institute for International Leadership in Jordan. She holds a PhD from the Free University of Berlin and completed a postdoc at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden. As a Fulbright and Resident Scholar at the University of Wisconsin, and a Resident Scholar at the Kettering Foundation for Deliberative Democracy, her expertise lies in social movements and gender issues in the Middle East and North Africa. Notably, she edited “Uprisings and Gender Justice in the Arab World”, published by the Arab Network for the Study of Democracy and the Issam Fares Institute. She holds a PhD from the Free University of Berlin and completed a postdoc at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden. As a Fulbright and Resident Scholar at the University of Wisconsin, and a Resident Scholar at the Kettering Foundation for Deliberative Democracy, her expertise lies in social movements and gender issues in the Middle East and North Africa. Notably, she edited “Uprisings and Gender Justice in the Arab World”, published by the Arab Network for the Study of Democracy and the Issam Fares Institute.

Markus Loewe is Research Team Leader at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), in Bonn, Germany, and Honorary Professor for Social Protection and Inclusive Growth at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Science. He studied development economics and political science in Tübingen, Erlangen and Damascus and received his PhD from Heidelberg University. In 2015, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg offered him a chair in economics. His research focuses on social protection, poverty reduction, industrial policymaking, small and medium enterprise development, effects of corruption, demographic development and the concept of the social contract. His regional focus is the Middle East and North Africa. His more recent publications include “Drivers of change in social contracts in the MENA region” (special issue, Mediterranean Politics, 2024, ed. and main author of the conceptual article), “Disentangling the relationship between social protection and social cohesion: introduction to the special issue” (special issue, European Journal of Development Research, 2022, ed. with F. Burchi and D. Malerba), “Framing the emergence of new social contracts in Middle East and North African countries” (special issue, World Development, 2021), and “Handbook of social protection systems” (Edward Elgar, 2021, ed. with E. Schüring) and “Social protection in the MENA countries: prospects for a new social contract?” (special issue, International Social Security Review, 2018, ed. with R. Jawad).

Nizar Ben Salah is a Lecturer and General Secretary of the General Union of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Tunisia, and Head of the University Professors and Researchers Division within the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT).
He is an expert in labor rights and social policy.
With extensive academic and institutional experience, Professor Ben Salah has been a leading figure in defending the rights of higher education professionals in Tunisia. As General Secretary of the UGTT’s higher education federation since 2021, and previously in key union leadership roles at both local and regional levels, he has played a central role in shaping national dialogue on university reform, governance, and academic freedom. He is also a seasoned educator and researcher in mechanical engineering, committed to bridging technical expertise with social engagement.

Paul Makdissi is a professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Ottawa and a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran, and Turkey (ERF).  He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Inequality. Previously, he held positions at the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands). His main research areas are socioeconomic health inequality, multidimensional inequality, income inequality, and the distributive impact of taxation, subsidies, transfer programs, and public pricing. He was the president of the Société canadienne de science économique (the French Canadian economics association) for the 2021-2022 academic year. From 2017 to 2019, he was the thematic leader for the ERF’s Equity and Inclusive Growth research theme. He has consulted for many international organizations, ministries, and agencies in Canada.

Rachel Forrester-Jones is Director and Professor of the School of Health Studies at Western University (ON-Canada). She joined Western from the University of Bath (UK), where she was Professor of Social Policy, Head of the Department of Social and Policy Sciences, and the director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy. Prior to Bath, Dr. Forrester-Jones held the chair in Social Inclusion at the University of Kent (UK) and was Director of its Tizard Centre of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Her research explores the social determinants of health, with a focus on people with disabilities. She looks at healthcare through the eyes of those with disabilities and uses her training as a qualified Barrister to contribute to legal issues related to health in diverse communities.  

Rachel Sabates-Wheeler is a Development Economist with extensive experience in rural development, institutional analysis, migration and social protection, including 2.5 years leading research on Land Policy in Albania and 2.5 years in Rwanda working as Chief of Research and Social Policy for UNICEF.

A Research Fellow at the IDS since 2001, a Director of the Centre for Social Protection since 2006 and co-leader of the Rural Futures Cluster, Rachel’s primary geographic research focus is Eastern and Southern Africa – having worked in over 8 African countries.  Much of the analysis informing her work utilises mixed methods research and data analysis. She has led and been involved in a number of studies that explore understandings of risk and vulnerability both conceptually and empirically and has published numerous articles and books on these topics.

Rana Jawad is a Professor of Global Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, specialising in welfare systems and social policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Her research focuses on institutional change, programme design, and the politics of poverty and inequality, with key interests in social care, insurance, and assistance. She has expertise in Case Study design, Grounded Theory, Fuzzy Sets, and Policy Labs.

Rana also explores the role of religion in shaping social policy in both the UK and MENA, examining how faith-based values and actors influence service provision and policy narratives. More recently, her work has extended to the intersection of social policy, conflict, and peace building, with a focus on equitable peace in the MENA region.

She is co-founder and convener of the MENA Social Policy Network, an international hub for academic and policy collaboration in the region.

Yamina El Kirat El Allame earned her Doctorat d’état in Minority Languages, Cultures, and Identities. got her Ph.D. She is the director of the Moroccan Institute for Advanced Studies at Mohammed V University, and the coordinator of the UNIMED SUB-Network on migration. El Kirat was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Greenville Tech in 2010 with the program entitled “Direct Access to the Muslim World” where she helped in developing a program entitled “Middle Eastern Studies”. She was the local chair of MENASP 10^th Anniversary Conference held in Morocco on July 11-12, 2023. She has taught and carried out research in cultural anthropology, minority identities, languages and cultures, cultural representations and attitudes, gender issues, and language and educational policies, internationalization of higher education for more than 30 years. Her interest in all these issues stems from her personal experience and interest in the linguistic, cultural, social, educational and political issues in North Africa in general and the Moroccan context in particular. She is an international adviser and consultant in the field of international education, study abroad and language and educational policies.