Karen AbuZayd profile 800x600 womanleader GWLvoices
Her voice

(No quotes, all interviews discussed refugees and migration)

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BIO

Ms. Karen AbuZayd is a senior official of the United Nations. She is currently serving as a Commissioner on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. In 2016 she was appointed United Nations Special Adviser on the Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants held on September 19, 2016. The Summit resulted in the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants.

Prior to this she was a Commissioner-General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from 2005 to 2010. In August 2000, Ms. AbuZayd became an Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations,  appointed to the post of Deputy Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

She worked at UNHCR for almost 20 years, where she worked in Southafrica, Geneva, Sarajevo and lastly she worked as Chef de Cabinet to High Commissioner Sadako Ogata and as Regional Representative for the United States and Caribbean. 

She currently serves on the board of directors of UNRWA USA, a Washington-DC based nonprofit which aims to educate the general American public about the situation of Palestine refugees and generate support for UNRWA’s work. She is a current member of the board of directors at the Middle East Policy Council in Washington, D.C.