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Queen Noor also chairs the King Hussein Foundation (KHF), and its partner, the King Hussein Foundation International (KHFI) founded in 1999 to promote and build on King Hussein’s humanitarian vision and legacy in Jordan and abroad The foundations promote cross-cultural dialogue and understanding and are advancing social, economic and political opportunity throughout the region.

KHFI, headquartered in the United States sponsors the annual King Hussein Leadership Prize (KHLP) which recognize individuals, groups or institutions that demonstrate inspiring and courageous leadership in their efforts to promote sustainable development, human rights, tolerance, equity and peace.

Past recipients have included Professor Muhammad Yunus, Médecins Sans Frontières , Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu , Mary Robinson , OneVoice (Israel-Palestine), Seeds of Peace, The Arab Human Development Report, Dr. Rola Dashti (Kuwait) , Saliha Djuderija (Bosnia Herzegovina). The KHLP is awarded at an annual dinner and dialogue that serves as a platform for next generation peace-builders attended by world leaders such as President Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan.

In April 2007, at the Tribeca Film Festival, the foundation launched the Media and Humanity program to highlight, support and expand access to film and media projects that reflect tolerance and understanding of our common humanity- shared values, rights and aspirations across social, economic, political and cultural divides.

Queen Noor has assumed an advocacy role in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). As Patron of Landmine Survivors Network (LSN), she hosted the first “International Conference on Landmine Injury & Rehabilitation in the Middle East” in Amman in 1998 and successfully lobbied for Jordan’s ratification of the Ottawa treaty. She announced the critical 40th ratification of the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty at the United Nations on October 1, 1998, detailing new measures to universalize the treaty and to assist survivors.

She has traveled to Central and Southeast Asia, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, advocate with governments, support NGOs, and visit with landmine survivors struggling to recover and reclaim their lives. Queen Noor has testified before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus appealing for humanitarian assistance and justice for hundreds of thousands of landmine victims worldwide.

Her Majesty has been a frequent visitor to the former Yugoslavia and has conducted missions in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo. She acts as Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), created to promote conflict resolution through the search for, recovery, and identification of missing persons from the armed conflicts in the regions of the former Yugoslavia. The commission’s Forensic Sciences Programme incorporates the use of scientifically accurate DNA methods in an effort to obtain near indisputable evidence of a missing person’s identity. Through her efforts, a Law on Missing Persons has been created and a Missing Persons Institute has been established in Bosnia.

At the invitation of Presidents Andres Pastana and Alvaro Uribe Velez, she has undertaken several humanitarian missions to Colombia to try to negotiate a series of humanitarian accords with the leaders of the country’s guerilla insurgency on landmines, child soldiers and kidnappings, to promote mine awareness programs in rural and conflict areas with UNDP, and oversaw the destruction of Columbia’s last arsenal of anti-personnel mines in a ceremony at which President Uribe asked her to continue her advocacy against the use of APMs especially in civilian areas and to call for support for the rapidly increasing number of Colombian casualties.

In 2004 and 2005 Queen Noor, an expert advisor to the United Nations traveled to Central Asia to advocate for adoption and implementation of the Ottawa Treaty throughout the region and for multi-sectoral commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in Tajikistan. The goals – ranging from halving extreme poverty to providing primary education by 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to world wide to meet the needs of the worlds poorest. A land locked country with remote access to world markets; (or: isolated with remote, mountainous, inaccessible boarders”) President Emomali Rakhmonov’s signing of Initiative on Poverty Reduction witnessed by Her Majesty in 2005 was a crucial step towards improved regional cooperation to attain the MDG’s.

HM: I’m threading together the pieces for Education for Peace, UWC, etc for your review shortly

Queen Noor is actively involved in a number of international organizations advancing global peace-building and conflict recovery. She is the president of the United World Colleges, Chair of the United Nations University International Leadership Academy, Trustee of the Aspen Institute, Refugees International (RI), World Wildlife Fund International (WWF), Conservation International (CI), Founding President & Honorary President Emeritus of BirdLife International. In 1995, she received the United Nations Environment Program Global 500 Award for her activism in environmental protection and advocacy and is Patron of the World Conservation Union, the Landmine Survivors Network (LSN) and advisor to Women Waging Peace, and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

In recognition of her efforts to advance development, democracy, and peace, Queen Noor has been awarded numerous awards and honorary doctorates in international relations, law and humane letters.

She has published two books, Hussein of Jordan in 2000 (KHF Publishing) and Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life (Miramax Books) in 2003, a New York Times best seller published in 15 languages.

(Queen Noor speaks Arabic, English, and French. She enjoys skiing, water skiing, tennis, sailing, horseback riding, reading, gardening, and photography.)