Ghaidaa Motahar

Research Topic:

Country: Yemen

Columbia Global Center: Amman

Ghaidaa Motahar is a researcher-practitioner from Yemen specializing in gender studies, humanitarian governance, and peacebuilding in conflict-affected settings. She obtained her MA in Political Science from the University of Warsaw, Poland (2013), and her PhD in Gender Studies from the University of Malaya, Malaysia (2026), with a thesis examining the effectiveness of humanitarian aid in empowering women in Yemen during the armed conflict. 

Ghaidaa brings twelve years of field experience with the United Nations and international non-governmental organizations in Yemen and the Asia-Pacific region. She has served as Associate Political Affairs Officer with the UN Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA), Humanitarian Affairs Officer with UNOCHA in both Yemen and the Regional Office in Bangkok, Social Cohesion Specialist and Access to Justice Advisor with UNDP, Conflict Resolution Officer with FAO, and Gender Programme Manager with Oxfam. 

Ghaidaa's expertise spans gender and conflict, women's participation in peacebuilding, humanitarian coordination, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA), social cohesion, and results-based programme management. She has lectured on gender and humanitarian assistance at Sana'a University's Inclusive Development Research Centre. Her research at the Columbia Global Center in Amman develops the concept of gendered reputational violence, which is the deliberate weaponization of social norms and media incitement campaigns to delegitimize and suppress women humanitarian workers from participation in the public sphere. Ghaidaa’s work examines how reputational attacks function as a gendered tool of suppression in Yemen's conflict context, with the aim of generating evidence-based policy recommendations to strengthen the protection of humanitarian workers and women in particular.  She published peer-reviewed journals, thinktank platforms, and policy outlets, covering themes such as gender justice, displacement, social cohesion, and humanitarian access.