Mediators

Ambassador Cecilia Attard-Pirotta, currently Malta’s Ambassador to Israel, is a Maltese diplomat and has worked on Mediterranean, European Union and Commonwealth issues. She has also worked on projects for underprivileged girls, with a focus on education and improving the status of women. She has specialized in Mediterranean Affairs and her exposure to the realities prevailing in this Region, as well as her conviction that women’s participation in peace building processes in the Mediterranean is crucial, has instilled in her the conviction that women need to further engage in transforming and sustaining democracy, preventing conflict, as well as securing peace and security; this is what motivated her to join the group of founding members of the MWMN. While working on peace-related projects, She repeatedly underlines that peace is only the beginning of any reconciliation, not the end. Reconciliation requires numerous societal tasks, if it is to succeed and hence her engagement in promoting dialogue between women from different communities.

Maria Hadjipavlou, is a retired Associate Professor from the University of Cyprus. She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Change from Boston University, was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University and member of its International Conflict Analysis and Resolution Program. She cofounded the Center on International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University. She published widely on gender related issues, conflict resolution and peacebuilding on which she also coordinated a number of research projects and is often invited to universities and international fora to share her experience. She conducts training in conflict resolution and gender awareness building especially in conflict situations including for UNFPA and has trained women in several countries. She is currently working on a book on 40 years of peace engagement work in Cyprus. Her book Women and Change in Cyprus: Feminisms, Gender and Conflict (I.B.Tauris, 2010) has become a reference book. As an activist, she was a founding member and president of the NGO “Cyprus Peace Center”; of “Hands Across the Divide”; and a co-founder of the Cyprus Academic Dialogue and the “Gender Advisory Team” working exclusively on implementing and integrating UNSC Resolution 1325 in the Cypriot negotiations. In 2015, she was appointed member of the Technical Committee on Gender Equality advising peace negotiators on gender equality provisions. She has been a founding member of the MWMN because she strongly believes that women’s meaningful participation in peace processes and post conflict peace building is not only a democratic right but has also proven to contribute to sustainable peace and gender equality efforts. She has been instrumental in establishing the MWMN/Cyprus Antenna in 2019.

Ms. Bouchamaoui is a shareholder and administrator of the Hedi Bouchamaoui Group. In May 2011, she was elected President of the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA), being the first women to be appointed in this position. In 2013, UTICA, together with the Tunisian General Labour Union, the Tunisian Human Rights League, and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers, launched “The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet”, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for their successful mediation between political and social actors. She has been identified as one of the most influential business women in Africa and has been nominated by the Deauville Partnership « Best Business Women of the Arab World » in 2013 during the G8. Additionally, in 2014 she was a laureate for the « Business for Peace Award ». In these past years, she has been involved in several Foundations promoting education, equality and dialogue for a sustainable peace. Additionally, in October 2017, she was elected Vice President of the European Centre for Peace and Development, established by the UN, within the University of Peace in Belgrade. In June 2018, she became a member of the council at the San José Peace University in Costa Rica. The French President, Emmanuel Macron, nominated her president of the Steering Committee of the Summit of the Two Shores held in June 2019 and invited her to become member of the Consultative Council on gender equality. She joined the MWMN to share her experience and to contribute to helping find peaceful solutions to the conflict afflicting the world.

Zineb Touimi Benjelloun, from Morocco is a career United Nations development practitioner. She served the organisation in various capacities and in different countries: Research and Training Officer with INSTRAW in New York and the Dominican Republic; Assistant Representative with UNFPA in Morocco; Regional Programme Director for North Africa with UNIFEM; United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Albania and Kuwait. In these various capacities she has led and developed United Nations programmes and projects addressing the sustainable development challenges and priorities of the countries served, including violence against women, women’s leadership and political participation, gender and transitional justice and women’s economic empowerment.