Thoraya Obaid
Dr. Obaid is the former Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) /former United Nations Under-Secretary-General. Previous to this position, she was the Director of Division for the Arab States and Europe at UNFPA and Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. Dr. Obaid has also served as the Chair of Women20 (W20) Saudi Arabia, a G20 engagement group focused on gender equity. Presently she is a member of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, established by the World Health Assembly and co-chaired by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Prime Minister Helen Clark. The Panel is in the process of preparing its report to the WHA’s session in May 2021. From 2013 to 2016, Obaid served as one of the first group of 30 women appointed to the Shura Council, an advisory body to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is also one of three women who received the King Abdulaziz Medal of the First Degree for her international service. In 1975 she established the first women’s development program in Western Asia. This program helped build partnerships on women’s issues between the United Nations and regional and national NGOs and provided technical and financial support to the Member States. From 1975 to 1992 she was the Social Affairs Officer at ESCWA, responsible for the advancement of women. Between 1984 and 1985 she was a member of the League of Arab States Working Group for Formulating the Arab Strategy for Social Development. From 1992 to 1993 she was Chief of Social Development and Population Division at ESCWA. In 1996, Dr. Obaid chaired the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Gender in Amman, and in 1997 she was a member of the UN Inter-Agency Gender Mission to Afghanistan. Dr. Obaid is the recipient of numerous awards: Forbes named Obaid among the world’s 50 Most Powerful Arab Women in 2004, and she received the United Nations Population Award Individual Laureate in 2015. Dr. Obaid was the first Saudi Arabian woman to receive a government scholarship to study in the United States. She has a doctorate in English Literature and Cultural Anthropology from Wayne State University in Michigan. She received a B.A. in English Literature and Sociology from Mills College in California.