Faiza Jama Mohamed

Faiza Jama Mohamed is a leading voice in Africa on delivering legal equality for women and girls. As the Africa Regional Director, Faiza oversees strategic development, inter-governmental relations, along with program development and outreach. Since opening the Africa office in 2000, Faiza has generated over $10 million USD in projects benefiting Equality Now.

Originally from Hargeisa, Somalia, Faiza has over twenty years of experience working with international organizations, including CARE International and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).  An active member of the women’s movement in Somalia for many years, Faiza was instrumental in helping to develop a range of women’s organizations with a focus on promoting peace, gender equality, and advocating for women’s rights.

Faiza continues to play an active role in the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) Coalition, a coalition of organizations working across Africa committed to upholding the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol).

Faiza currently serves in the Board of Defend-Defenders and has previously served as a member of African Union Women’s Committee, the Kenya nominating committee for the Eisenhower Fellowship, the Equality and Justice Alliance Expert Group, the UN ECA Advisory Panel for the African Women’s Rights Observatory, and was part of the group that oversaw the planning of the African Women’s Decade 2010-2020, among others. In 2008, she received the Hunger Project’s Africa Prize for Leadership for Sustainable End of Hunger.

Faiza holds an undergraduate degree, with honors, from the Ahfad University-College for Women in Omdurman, The Sudan, and an M.B.A., with honors, from California State University, Fresno.

Outside of the office, Faiza enjoys reading, sports, and spending time with family and friends.

She is available for interviews in English and Somali.