Rola Dashti

Rola A. Al-Dashti (born 1964[1]) is a Kuwaiti government minister. She is one of the first female MPs elected in the Kuwaiti parliament. She is the minister of state planning and development affairs. Dashti lobbied for the May 2005 decree permitting Kuwaiti women to run for parliamentary elections for the first time.[2] She was the first woman to file her papers at the election department, when the registration opened,[3] and she herself was a candidate in the 2006 parliamentary election.[4] In the 2009 parliamentary elections, she and three other women won seats to become the first women to enter the Kuwaiti parliament.

Education

Rola Al-Dashti holds a Ph.D. in Population Economics from Johns Hopkins University.[2] She has lectured, conducted and managed research in development and applied economics particularly in regard to the country's recent quest for modernizing its economic, financial, and social processes.

Career

She has held positions in the R&D institution Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (Manager, Economics Department), worked as Senior Economist at the National Bank of Kuwait and provided consultancy to the World Bank. She also managed all the contracts signed on behalf of the government of Kuwait for the Emergency and Reconstruction Program during the invasion-to-post liberation period (1990/1991).

Dashti, presently the elected Chairperson of Kuwait Economic Society (first woman to chair the society since its establishment in 1970), is also a member of the executive committee of Young Arab Leaders (Kuwait Chapter), and member of Al-Fatat Club. She has been involved in several volunteering activities since her undergraduate years, where she worked with the International Red Cross in Lebanon to assist refugee families from the south in 1982. She was involved in various activities for the economic empowerment of women in the Republic of Yemen. Dashti is an activist advocating for gender equity in the State of Kuwait, particularly the women's suffrage right. She lobbied for the May 2005 decree allowing Kuwaiti women to vote and run for parliamentary elections for the first time.

In 2005, Rola Dashti was the winner of The King Hussein Humanitarian Award[2] and has been involved in several volunteering activities since her undergraduate years, where she worked with the International Red Cross in Lebanon to assist refugee families from the south in 1982. She has also been involved in various activities for the economic empowerment of women in the Republic of Yemen. Dashti is an activist in the MENA region advocating democratic reform, fighting for gender equity and increasing the role of women in public life.

Dashti has contributed to the efforts to energize civil society institutions to turn them into a major driving force behind economic, social and political reform. Developing work in these institutions also became one of her main focuses since her election as chairman of Kuwait Economic Society.

Rola Dashti was listed among the world's 100 most influential Arabs for 2007[5] and 2008.[6] She was the first woman elected to chair the Kuwaiti Economic Society, which was founded in 1970.[4] In addition to serving in this position, Dashti heads an international consultancy firm in Kuwait focusing on privatization and activation of SMEs, she is a member of the executive committee of Young Arab Leaders and is the founder of the Women Participation Organization.

In 2009, she won the parliamentary election, ranking the seventh place in her political district. In the Parliament she currently chairs the social affairs, labor, and health committee. [7]

In 2010, she received the Council of Europe's North–South Prize[8] together with Mr Mikhail Gorbachev. The prize was presented by Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva at a ceremony in the Portuguese Senate Room at the National Parliament.

In October 2011, she was also appointed to the budget committee and the "responding to the Amir's speech" committee. [9]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Voice of America - Kuwaiti Women Appear on Political Landscape This Election
  2. 1 2 3 Kuwait Economic Society - About Board of Directors
  3. ↑ Welcome
  4. 1 2 Vital Voices - Global Advisory Council Bios
  5. ↑ Power 100, The World's Most Influential Arabs, Rank List 2007 - ArabianBusiness.com
  6. ↑ Power 100, The World's Most Influential Arabs, Rank List 2008 - ArabianBusiness.com
  7. ↑ "Interview with Dr. Rola Dashti, Member of the Kuwaiti Parliament". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2010-03-09. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
  8. ↑ Council of Europe North South Prize
  9. ↑ "Kuwaiti parliament selects permanent, short-term cmtes". Kuwaiti News Agency (KUNA). 2011-10-25. Retrieved 2011-11-06.

References

Tetreault, Mary Ann. "Advice and Dissent in Kuwait." Middle East Report 226 (2003):36-39.

Etheridge, Jamie. "Progress on Political Rights for Kuwaiti Women." Christian Science Monitor (2005): 7.

External links

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