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HER MAJESTY QUEEN NOOR OF JORDAN
Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan is
an international humanitarian activist and an outspoken voice on
issues of world peace and justice. She was born Lisa Najeeb
Halaby, to an Arab-American family distinguished for its public
service. After receiving a B.A. in Architecture and Urban
Planning from Princeton University in 1974, Queen Noor worked on
international urban planning and design projects in Australia,
Iran, the United States, and Jordan.
Since her marriage in 1978 to King Hussein, Queen Noor has
founded and sponsored numerous activities to address national
changes in education, health, sustainable development, women’s
empowerment, human rights and cross cultural understanding. She
is also actively involved with international and UN
organizations that address global challenges in these fields.
Queen Noor has played a major role in promoting international
exchange and understanding in the areas of Middle Eastern peace
and development, Arab-Western relations, conflict prevention and
recovery issues such as refugees, missing persons, poverty and
disarmament.
Since 1980, the initiatives of the Noor Al Hussein Foundation
(NHF) which she chairs have advanced and modernized development
thinking in Jordan progressing beyond traditional
charity-oriented social welfare practices to integrate social
development strategies more closely with national economic
priorities. NHF, founded in 1985 by royal decree, was
established to consolidate Her Majesty’s diverse, expanding
development work. NHF programs are internationally
recognitionized models for the Arab and Muslim world in the
areas of poverty eradication, women’s economic empowerment,
micro-finance, and cross cultural exchange.
To date, NHF carries the largest portfolio in development and
economic empowerment programs in Jordan. Fifty three income
generation projects have been established across Jordan.
Additionally, 43 small to medium enterprises are being launched
to enhance community based organization’s economic productivity
to become social and economic partners in the development of
their country. On a regional level, NHF’s Village Business
Incubator (VBI) for women, which promotes women’s active role in
the labor market through business training and linkages with
marketing and lending institutions, is being replicated in
Syria, and in Saudi Arabia, NHF is providing assistance that
will promote women entrepreneurship and provide business and
vocational training services to women producers.
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 include Professor Muhammad Yunus (2000), The UN
Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) (2001), The Jordan Hashemite
Charity (2002), Mary Robinson (2003), Médecins Sans Frontières
(2004) The Arab Human Development Report (2005), Dr. Rola Dashti
(Kuwait) (2005) Saliha Djuderija (Bosnia Herzegovina) (2005),
OneVoice (Israel-Palestine) (2005) Archbishop Emeritus Desmond
Tutu (2006), and Seeds of Peace (2006). The KHLP is awarded at
an annual dinner 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 to advocate with
governments, to support NGOs, and to 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.
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 Colombia’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; 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.
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.
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.)
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