The Policy Initiative - Team

Hala Bejjani is currently the MENA Program Director with International Media Support (IMS – Denmark). Prior to this, she had successfully managed Kulluna Irada for three years, positioning it as a main actor and interlocutor for political change in Lebanon. Hala is an experienced management professional and has worked in Paris, Edinburgh, Doha, and Beirut. She held senior and upper managerial positions in various organizations ranging from NGOs focused on sustainable social development (Mouvement Social) to media companies (Al-Akhbar and Planet News Business), and insurance companies (Bankers Assurance). She spent over two decades of her early career as a business consultant at KPMG Peat Marwick in Paris and Arthur Andersen in Edinburgh. She studied business, finance, and marketing in Paris IX-Dauphine and holds an MBA from Edinburgh University.

Karim Daher is an international business lawyer and tax adviser with wide experience in tax planning and restructuring. He teaches Tax Law and Public Finance at Saint Joseph University of Beirut and has facilitated courses on taxes and transparency in other universities. He has been heavily involved during the past decades in legislative commissions for the modernization of the Lebanese financial and commercial laws and has represented the Beirut Bar Association (BBA) at the parliament for the drafting and adoption of several fiscal and anti-corruption laws and rules. He was appointed in February 2020 on behalf of Lebanon as one of the experts of the United Nations’ High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI Panel) for achieving the 2030 Agenda. He was also a member of anti-corruption committees of the ministry of justice and of the Beirut Bar, and has attended on behalf of the Lebanese ministry of finance sessions on fiscal law and governance issues at the IMF's Institute for Capacity Development. He is now chairing the BBA’s committee for the right of depositors. He is also one of the main founders and current president of the Lebanese Association for Taxpayers’ Rights (ALDIC), a non-governmental organization aimed at enhancing tax ethics and compliance. He holds an MA in business law and taxation, as well as post-graduate diplomas in private law and finance.

Nizar Saghieh is a Lawyer and Researcher who co-founded the Legal Agenda and has acted as its executive director since 2011. He is also a member of the editorial team of The Legal Agenda–Lebanon and The Legal Agenda–Tunisia. He is a pioneer of the use of strategic litigation in Lebanon to advocate and defend causes related to civil, economic, and social rights and liberties. He is also a leading expert in social policymaking, especially in relation to judicial independence, public property, the environment, marginalized groups, and public and union freedoms. He has published research and helped draft bills on judicial independence, people who disappeared during the Lebanese civil war, drug users, harassment in the workplace, workers’ rights, and various other topics.

Dr. Mona Fawaz is a Professor in Urban Studies and Planning at the American University of Beirut. She recently co-founded the Beirut Urban Lab at AUB, a regional research center invested in working toward more inclusive, just, and viable cities. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies at Harvard University during the 2014/15 academic year and in summer 2017. Fawaz’s research spans across urban history and historiography, social and spatial justice, informality and the law, land, housing, property and space, as well as planning practice, theory, and pedagogy. She is the author of over 50 scholarly articles, book sections, and reports in Arabic, French, and English. She has also worked as a consultant, advising on urban and regional development as well as housing, land, and property issues. Fawaz serves on the editorial board of Planning Theory, Society and Space, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. She is also a board member for the Arab Council for Social Science and the Century Foundation International and a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.

Nisreen Salti is an associate professor of economics at the American University of Beirut. She works on development economics and political economy. Her research is on inequality and inequity in resources, access, and outcomes, with a focus on health. She is especially interested in marginalized communities, particularly refugees, including their health and labor market outcomes. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Development Economics, World Development, Social Science and Medicine, the Lancet, and the International Journal for Middle Eastern Studies among others. She has been an active participant in local and regional policy debates, engaging policy makers and analysts in government and in various multilateral organizations and arms of the UN. She holds a Masters in Public Affairs and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.