Edwige_PictureEdwige began her career in HIV/AIDS policy development and research having worked with organisations such as Save the Children UK and the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDS. Eventually through her work at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, she began to engage more extensively in strengthening the role and capacities of civil society organisations globally to provide support and genuine alternatives to marginalised communities facing the impact of the AIDS epidemic. She supported the development of policy initiatives such as amending the guidelines for the participation of civil society on country coordinating mechanisms (CCMs), on Dual-Tract Financing and on the development of guidelines on Community Systems Strengthening (CSS). She also served as the civil society focal-point for three regions receiving Global Fund financing: the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and South and West Asia.

Following on from her role as Civil Society Adviser at the Global Fund, Edwige pursued a career in academia researching civil society organisations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in particular following the Arab Uprisings in 2011. She conducted her research among associations working with marginalised groups such as key populations affected by HIV, women’s rights organisations and human rights advocates in Egypt and Tunisia. During her period of research, she worked with the UNAIDS head office to develop a guidance tool on including CSS in Global Fund proposals. She also worked with the UNAIDS Regional Support Team in MENA to map civil society organisations across the region and to produce a strategy to work with these groups more effectively in the different countries. In addition, she has produced guidance for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and USAID to strengthen the involvement, care and support of people living with HIV in MENA.

Having completed her doctoral research on civil society in the transition to democracy in Tunisia, Edwige now acts as a Senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London lecturing on civil society and NGOs as well as Associate for ASAP. Based in England, she speaks English and French, and has undertaken an extensive study of Arabic. Her main skills are in research, community and stakeholder involvement and consultation, workshop facilitation, writing and policy development, in particular relation to civil society and organisations working with vulnerable and marginalised communities.

I believe in the notion of alternatives, and I fundamentally believe that civil society in all its manifestations can create and provide profound alternatives to the way the international community ultimately responds to the global AIDS epidemic.