Women’s March: Medinat’s service for the displaced and the needy

In addition to advising international organisation, Medinat Malefakis runs an NGO that helps the needy

At 32, Medinat Malefakis lives a fulfilled life as a wife and a mother; she also has her hands in many pies when it comes to humanitarian and anti-violent extremism activities.

A security expert, she runs an NGO and is also the go-to person when it comes to seeking advice on how to prevent violent extremism and assist its victims, especially in the Lake Chad Basin.

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In continuation of our series on Nigerian women who deserve recognition in the Women’s History Month, we hereby present a few things that stand Medinat Malefakis out:

• She is an international security and policy expert specialising in terrorism and humanitarian displacement in the Lake Chad Basin of West Africa.
• As a member, Independent Review Panel at the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) in Geneva, she provides expert technical assessment of preventing violent extremism (PVE) funding requests.
• She runs Fundamental Impact Project, a non-profit organisation delivering sustainable support to displaced persons and people in need in northern Nigeria.
• She worked for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Geneva, Switzerland, as a Crises and Humanitarianism Information Analyst for several African countries.
• She was Junior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
• She was a Research Fellow with the United States Institute for Peace (USIP).
• She has served as expert panel speaker for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and as consultant for NATO on preventing violent extremism.
• She has worked with the Toda Peace Institute in Japan as special advisor and with International Alert and the British Council as consultant.
• She delivered the keynote address at the 2020 conference of Build Up, a US-based think tank.
• Her voice carries a lot of weight in her field not only because of her expertise but also because she is an African woman and a Muslimah.