Shatha Mahmoud is a gender and development expert with over 15 years of experience supporting governments, UN agencies, and civil society across the Arab States. She specializes in gender-responsive governance, women’s economic empowerment, political participation, and addressing gender-based violence, with a proven ability to integrate gender perspectives into policies and institutional systems.

She has held senior advisory roles with UNDP and UN Women, where she contributed to regional gender strategies, designed women’s economic empowerment programmes, and built partnerships to influence national policy agendas. Her work has ranged from leading gender analyses in Jordan’s education sector with USAID, to managing UNDP’s SDG5 initiatives in Kuwait, to conducting institutional assessments for the Jordanian National Commission for Women.

Shatha holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from the University of Kent and is certified as an ILO Participatory Gender Audit Facilitator and in Project Management for Development (PMD Pro). She is widely recognized for her skills in capacity building and participatory methods.