Columnist for Foreign Policy

Shukria Barakzai is an Afghan politician, journalist, woman and human rights activist and prominent Muslim feminist.

She was born in Kabul on the 2nd of January, 1972. Her higher Bachelor’s degree is in Hydro- Meteorology and Geophysic from Kabul University.

Additionally, she has had over 20 years of experience in legislation and lawmaking including the Constitution of I.R of Afghanistan

She was the Ambassador of Afghanistan to Norway from 2016-2019.

She was also an elected member of the Afghan Parliament from 2005-2016.

Nov 2001-2008 She was the founder of Afghan Female Journalists Association and director of Asian Women Organisation. She was also Chief Editor of Aina e Zan (Women's Mirror) a weekly publication which ran until 2008.

She was among the Foreign Policy magazines ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’ in 2015.

She has won Prize for Human Rights in Italy. 2007

Awarded International Editor of the Year by the world press.org and Women of the Year by the BBC.

She is also among 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century.

Massoud Hossaini is a pulitzer Prize winning war photographer from Afghanistan.

Ilaha Omar is co-founder of Uplift Afghanistan, an umbrella fund focused on responding to the unfolding of impeding crises in Afghanistan.

Neelam Raina is an Associate Professor of Design and Development at Middlesex University, London. Her research interests include conflict, security, peace building, material cultures, gender, and livelihood generation.

Mina Sharif was born in Kabul during the Soviet occupation. Her family immigrated to Canada, where she grew up. In early 2005, she returned to Afghanistan, where she stayed until 2019, working for various private sector media organisations and NGOs, with a focus on learning content for children. She co-founded the Sisters 4 Sisters mentoring program for socially marginalised children in Afghanistan, and was the executive producer for the second and third seasons of Baghch-e-Simsim, the Afghan version of
Sesame Street.
She was also the Director of a television and radio series called Voice of Afghan Youth, a TV and radio series hosted by Afghan children throughout the country.
In her current role, Sharif works with numerous relief efforts for Afghanistan from her base in Canada.