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Mary Kawar
Mary Kamel Kawar (Arabic:ماري كامل قعوار ) is the incumbent (since June 2018) Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in Jordan. she is a social scientist and development practitioner for more than 25 years in economic and social policy areas focusing on employment, youth, gender and family.

Education
Kawar received her BSc on Anthropology from Tufts University. She then moved onto the London School of Economics and Political Science where she gained a MSc in Social Policy and Planning and subsequently a PhD in 1997. Her thesis was on Gender Employment and Life Course: The Case of Working Daughters in Amman Jordan. The thesis examined changing female employment patterns in Jordan with particular reference to youth, gender and urbanization. Unlike previous generations, women currently marry at a later age, have relatively high education levels and have access to expanding employment opportunities. However, young women are experiencing a new life cycle trajectory: single employed adulthood. Given that Jordanian society has traditionally been based on rigid gender and generation hierarchies, the study explored the implications of the new trends at two main and inter-related levels: the workplace and the household.

Career
Kawar is currently (as of June 2018) serving as the Minister of planning and  International Cooperation in the Government of Jordan where she leads work on development frameworks and financing for development.

Kawar Started her career as a researcher in the Jordanian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation focusing on human development issues followed by an engagement with the World Bank’s activities on skills development in Jordan. She later embarked in a career with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) between 1997 and 2017 with occasional breaks to serve the Jordanian Government. Among her principal responsibilities has been as an advisor to the Ministry of Labour to assist in promoting a new agenda for labour relations and worker rights in the context of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

She held various senior positions at the ILO dealing with employment, training, youth, gender and refugees at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva and the Regional Office of all Arab States in Lebanon. Her last post was in Dar Es Salaam where she was Country Director for Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.

During her years in the Arab region, she spearheaded the ILO’s response to the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis post-2011 on the Jordanian and Lebanese labour markets, and assisted governments in developing employment policies and programs promoting a balanced approach to increasing employment and welfare both of refugees as well as national citizens.

In Africa, as Country Director, she was instrumental in promoting decent employment creation through tripartite dialogue between Governments, employers and workers at local level and also at regional level and among donors. She oversaw the development and implementation of national policy frameworks that also incorporated the effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Through her dedication to social development globally and also publications and work in the Arab region and Africa, Kawar has earned international recognition in the areas of economics and social development, bridging the development and humanitarian divide in  conflict affected countries and more broadly social transformation.