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Farwa Zafar, brings 30 years of experience in international development working with the United Nations and leading international organisations, civil society and academia at the grassroots, national, regional and international levels. A champion for women and girls, gender equality and youth empowerment she is a keen advocate for inclusive governance, addressing discrimination and violence, youth empowerment and promoting socio-economic development. She has been affiliated with the Karim Khan Afridi Welfare Foundation for over five years where she has promoted and developed programmes for early drug prevention education and awareness amongst other advocacy efforts. She was elected as Board Member of the KKAWF in Feb 2023.
At the United Nations, New York she has worked at UN Women, the UN Department for Economic & Social Affairs and United Nations Development Programme. She has contributed to the development of the UN-SWAP – a system- wide accountability framework for gender equality and empowerment of women spearheaded by UN Women and launched in 2012.
In Pakistan, as a team member, she developed and established the gender programme framework at UNDP and lead efforts to improve programming in the security and justice sectors to vulnerable groups’ rights for access to justice, address VAW and promote juvenile justice with the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office Rule of Law Programme. Girls’ education, inclusive political participation, gender in humanitarian action are other areas of focus in her work.
She has developed & managed programmes for legislative /civil society strengthening; parliament watch; youth leadership and training in politics through youth parliament; dialogues for peace building, and regional parliamentary exchanges. Previously she has served as Assistant Director, Centre for Pakistan Studies, Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University, New York & as Assistant Professor QAU, Islamabad where she directed, developed & delivered programmes on Pakistan’s foreign & defence policies.
Farwa began her career at the European Union in Brussels, Belgium followed by the United Nations Development Programme, New York and received her Master’s in International Affairs from School of International Affairs, Columbia University, New York and Masters in Political Science from Punjab University, Lahore. She is a global coalition member of Every Woman Treaty-a global campaign to end violence against women.
