Sana Afouaiz is an award-winning, gender expert, women advocate, and public speaker on global feminism and women issues in the MENA region. She is the author of “Invisible Women of the Middle East”. She has spoken in 40 countries at universities, panel discussions and international events.
For the past five years, Sana advised United Nations, European Commission, corporate institutions and other organisations on gender agenda. She was also heavily involved in SDGs discussions, she helped drafting several resolutions and recommendations on gender in New York, Bali, Geneva, and Paris and presented to UN representatives, including the former Secretary-General Ban-ki-Moon.
In 2015, she established Womenpreneur Organisation, a network that supports more than 500 female entrepreneurs every year to grow their initiatives, leadership and their social impact. Through her work, Sana reached thousands of women and convened over 20 global events across different countries, to drive visibility, social impact, and resources for women in the ecosystem and beyond.
She is also the co-founder of Womenquake, a global movement, that revisits and critically examines the beliefs, myths and ideas about gender in different cultures. She uses her platform to advance the equality agenda through story-telling, social campaigns, as well as sharing tools to empower women. These experiences led her to organise several campaigns including reforming a Moroccan law that allowed rapists to marry their victims to avoid jail.
Sana is Advisor Mentor for Queen’s Young Leaders; an initiative of the Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and The Royal Commonwealth Society, she assists this initiative on areas related to women empowerment and influencing policy.
In recognition of her achievements, Sana was named among 10 top inspiring women in the MENA region by the World Bank. Sana was also nominated among SE100 most inspiring Social Innovators in the World by Social Enablers, she was awarded Ashoka Changemaker Award, and she was named Influential female entrepreneur by Knowing Arabia, Watching Arabia and among 5 most inspiring and talented women by Moustacho.
In 2018, Sana was nominated by Ariane de Rothschild Foundation among 18 social entrepreneurs to become a Fellow and Ambassador of social impact and cross-cultural dialogue.
She also appeared on various channels and media; at the Huffington post, Devex, PeopleTV, El Pais, NATO Association, Le Matin, Orange Magazine, Wada7, KAWA, Moustacho…
Sana reaches thousands of women and young girls every year and is passionate about challenging societal norms, spark conversions surrounding social taboo and lift the cover on unspoken realities.