Dr. Azza Karam serves as the Senior Advisor on Culture at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), where she coordinates fund-wide outreach with faith-based partners and chairs the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on FBO (faith-based organizations) partners on the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), and development. Before she joined UNFPA, she was the Senior Policy Research Advisor at the United Nations Development Program in the Regional Bureau for Arab States. Karam also worked as special advisor on Middle East and Islamic Affairs and director of the Women’s Programs at the World Conference of Religions for Peace and as a senior program officer at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. She has served as lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and as the program manager at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict at the Queens University of Belfast. Karam also served as consultant to international organizations in the Arab region, Central Asia, and Europe. Her publications include Transnational Political Islam (2004) and Islamisms, Women and the State (1998).