Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini


Sanam Naraghi Anderlini is an author and a consultant to the United Nations on the subject of women and conflict. In 2013 she is the gender adviser to the UN Department of Political Affairs' Standby Team of Mediation Experts. She founded the non-governmental organization, International Civil Society Action Network in 2006, which is based in Washington, D.C., and advises and trains women activists around the world. She is a board member of the National Iranian American Council.

Early life and education

Naraghi-Anderlini was born in Iran and is a granddaughter of Prince Hossein Farman-Farmian. She was educated at Oxford Brookes and Cambridge University, graduating in 1994 with an MPhil. in Anthropology.

Career

Naraghi-Anderlini lobbied the U.N. Security Council to pass Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000, a measure that mandates member states to protect women in conflict and to give women an equal voice in peace processes. She wrote about that experience in the book Women Building Peace: What they Do, Why It Matters, which deals with gender and conflict.
Anderlini is one of a several activist women worldwide who monitor and report about the implementation of Resolution 1325 and subsequent U.N. resolutions dealing with gender and violence. She served on a UN advisory committee for that purpose.
Naraghi-Anderlini has also written and spoken on U.S.-Iran relations and other issues pertaining to her native country, as well as conflict resolution activism and analysis. She has held posts at International Alert, Forum for Early Action and Early Warning, and was director of the Women's Policy Commission of Women Waging Peace. Her work on gender and conflict has involved her with women peace activists in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Liberia, and elsewhere for the U.N. Population Fund, the U.N. Development Programme, and UN Women.

Writing

She is coauthor, with Kumar Rupesinghe, of Civil Wars, Civil Peace: An Introduction to Conflict Resolution, What the Women Say: Participation and UNSCR 1325, and articles for openDemocracy, Foreign Policy, and others. Her books and papers have been cited extensively by other writers on the topic of conflict and gender.

Affiliations and memberships

Naraghi-Anderlini is a member of the board of the UN Democracy Fund, a Senior Fellow of the MIT Center for International Studies, and a Non-Resident Associate of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.