Ms. Azita Berar Awad

Director of the Employment Policy Department, ILO

Ms. Azita Berar Awad is the Director of the Employment Policy Department of the ILO which is leading ILO’s work on support to design and implementation of employment strategies in coherence with national development strategies of specific countries and in the framework of the global strategies for Decent Work and a Fair Globalization. The mission includes promoting employment as a central concern of economic and social policies and developing greater integration and coherence of employment goals, both in terms of quantity and quality in the framework of national strategies for Decent work and for poverty reduction. Ms Berar co-manages ILO’S programme on the Informal Economy that cuts across strategic objectives of Employment, Social Protection, Rights and social Dialogue.
Before her current position, Ms. Berar was the Director of the National Policy Group in the Policy Integration Department, promoting coherence of economic and social policies in pursuance of the organization’s Decent Work goals in the national and international policy agendas. From 1999 to 2002, Ms. Berar Awad was the Director of the Arab States Multidisciplinary Advisory Team and the Deputy Director of the ILO’s Regional Office for Arab States based in Beirut. Prior to that Ms. Berar Awad has led several technical units and programmes in the ILO responsible for research, policy analysis and technical cooperation in the areas of employment policies, poverty reduction, gender equality and targeted labour market policies.
She has led numerous inter-disciplinary missions .She is the author of numerous publications in the areas of decent work, employment, poverty reduction, gender and the informal economy.  She holds post graduate degrees in Development Economics and Political Science from  the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.