Humanitarian Diplomacy Initiative (HDI) 

Sultan Barakat is a Distinguished Professor at the College of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He is a renowned scholar in the study of war-torn societies and their recovery. He has supervised over 20 PhDs in politics and post-war recovery and graduated a generation of MA peacebuilders and reconstruction specialists. Professor Barakat founded and directed the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute from 2016 to 2022 and previously led the post-war reconstruction unit at the University of Work from 1993 to 2019. He has published extensively, with recent books including Russia’s Approach to Post-Conflict Reconstruction. He is an Associate Academic with the Geneva Centre for Humanitarian Studies at the University of Geneva.

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Professor Karl Blanchet is a professor in humanitarian public health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, and the director of the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies. Karl is also the co-chair of the CHH-Lancet Commission on Health, Conflict and Forced Displacement and the co-Chair of the Lancet Migration Europe. Karl is also the academic director of InZone, a University of Geneva academic project offering university courses for refugee populations. He was the guest editor of the Lancet European Regional Health Special issue on Migration, Health and Equity published in May 2024. Before joining the University of Geneva, he worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Professor Erin McCandless directs the Qatar-South Africa Centre for Peace and Intercultural Understanding at the University of Johannesburg and is a senior advisor at the Centre for Mediation in Africa at the University of Pretoria. In 2024, she served as distinguished visiting professor of public value at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) in Doha. With three decades of academic and practical experience across 25 countries, her expertise includes leading multi-stakeholder applied research and policy dialogue, conducting training, and facilitating strategy processes with national and international actors on a wide range of conflict, peace, humanitarian, development and environmental issues and their nexuses.

Muhannad Hadi is a deputy special coordinator, resident and humanitarian coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) since April 2024, bringing close to 35 years of international experience in humanitarian and development work. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Hadi served as the regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria Crisis (2020-2024). And has previously served as WFP’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe (2015-2020), WFP’s regional emergency coordinator for the Syria Crisis (2012-2015), and WFP representative/country director in Syria (2009-2012). Mr. Hadi began his career in 1990 with the International Committee of the Red Cross and has since worked for WFP in Yemen, Sudan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Mr. Hadi has extensive senior leadership experience, having led operations in various complex settings with a strong focus on advocating for access, leading inter-agency collaboration, promoting protection for civilians, and enhancing accountability to affected populations, and is a renowned expert in Middle Eastern Affairs and a frequent speaker on the affairs of the Arab world.