Biography

“Policy expert in the making by the day, Listening to music and reading by night.”

Shadwa’s opportunity to enter Egyptian civil society came after graduating from the Lebanese American University, when she was awarded the Lazord Fellowship at the American University in Cairo. The Lazord Fellowship gave her exactly what she needed at that time, as a fresh graduate living abroad who yearned to work on policy reforms in Egypt. She believes that without the Lazord Fellowship, she would not be where she is today.

Prior to graduating from college, she knew that she wanted to work in governance and policy implementation. Accordingly, through the Lazord Fellowship, she worked as a governance coordinator on a joint project between the European Union and the Egyptian Ministry of Trade. This was a rich learning experience for her as it gave her a macro-vision of how policies are formulated; introduced her to high profile governmental officials; and propelled her inside three different ministries for almost a year.

Afterwards, she felt that it was time to take a more micro-visioned path to acquire more hands-on experience. Subsequently, she applied to a monitoring and evaluation position at Yomken.com,  a thriving regional platform that works on solving pressing social and industrial challenges by coordinating with multiple actors through a grassroots participatory approach across the Middle East.

Shadwa is currently working as a policy researcher at the Egyptian Financial Regulatory Authority, where she is actively contributing to the shaping of public administration practices in Egypt.