Ms. Mattar is bringing with her a vast working experience in development and political offices of the UN. She has also worked closely on issues of gender; equality; human rights; migrant workers; rights at work for all and children’s rights.
Prior to her appointment at ESCWA, she was the Director of the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria in Damascus where she managed to merge her developmental and political backgrounds. Before her functions in Syria, she was the Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Cairo (UNIC-Cairo), which covers the whole Arab region. During that same period she was asked to take the responsibility of the spokesperson for the then Special Envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.
Before joining UNIC-Cairo she spent a long time with the International Labour Organization (ILO) as the Regional Officer for the Basic Rights at Work, and Regional Information Officer. While at the ILO she managed a number of sensitive files including the responsibility of one of the major challenges of the Arab region, which is working children.
Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Mattar worked at different regional and international organizations such as the Arab Center for Childhood and Development.
Ms. Mattar has a vast experience in media where she spent a long time covering the region and other parts of the world especially during conflicts. She covered the Iraq-Iran War; the South Yemen; the Lebanese Civil War; the Israeli War on Lebanon in 2006 and the Bosnian War. Her media experience was with a number of international, regional and national media outlets such as the BBC; the Associated Press; Alkhaleej and Akhbar Alkhaleej daily newspapers, and the latest of which when she held the post of Editor-in-Chief of Alwaqat daily newspaper in Bahrain.
Ms. Mattar holds a Ph. D. in sociology of the media from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom.
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For more information:
Nabil Abu-Dargham +961-70-99 31 44
dargham@un.org
Mirane Abi-Zaki +961-76-04 64 02
abi-zaki@un.org
For more ESCWA news, please visit:
Website: www.unescwa.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/unescwa Twitter: @ESCWACIU
