Her Majesty Queen Noor is an international public servant and an outspoken voice on issues of world peace and justice. 

 

She plays an active role in promoting international exchange and understanding of Arab and Muslim culture and politics, Arab-Western relations, and conflict prevention and recovery issues such as refugees, missing persons, poverty and disarmament.  She has also helped found media programs to highlight these issues. Her conflict recovery and peacebuilding work over the past decade has focused on the Middle East, the Balkans, Central and Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. 

 

Queen Noor’s work in Jordan and the Arab world has focused on national needs in the areas of education, conservation, sustainable development, human rights and cross-cultural understanding. She is also actively involved with international and UN organizations that address global challenges in these fields. 

 

Since 1979, the initiatives of the Noor Al Hussein Foundation (NHF) which she chairs have transformed development thinking in Jordan and the Middle East through pioneering programs in the areas of poverty eradication and sustainable development, women’s empowerment, microfinance, health, environmental conservation, and arts as a medium for social development and cross-cultural exchange, many of which are internationally acclaimed models for the developing world. NHF provides training and assistance in implementing these best practice programs in the broader Arab and Asian regions through the Jubilee Institute, the Institute for Family Health, the Community Development Program, Tamweelcom—the Jordan Micro Credit Company (ranked the regional MFI leader and eighth best performing in the world), the Information and Research Center, the National Center for Culture and Performing Arts, and the National Music Conservatory. 

As chair of the King Hussein Foundation, Queen Noor dedicates the Sun Microsystems Center at the Foundation’s Jubilee School for exceptional students, a pioneer in distance and computer-assisted learning.

 

Queen Noor also chairs the King Hussein Foundation and the King Hussein Foundation International (KHFI), which she founded in 1999 to build on King Hussein’s humanitarian vision and legacy in Jordan and abroad through national, regional and international programs that promote education and leadership, economic empowerment, tolerance, and cross cultural dialogue and media that enhance mutual understanding and respect among different cultures and across conflict lines. 

 

KHFI awards the annual King Hussein Leadership Prize to individuals, groups or institutions that demonstrate inspiring and courageous leadership in their efforts to promote sustainable development, human rights, tolerance, equity and peace. Past recipients of the Prize are Professor Muhammed Yunus (2000), United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) (2001), Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization (2002), Mary Robinson (2003), Médecins Sans Frontières (2004), The Arab Human Development Reports, Dr. Rola Dashti, Saliha Djuderija, and OneVoice (2005), Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Seeds of Peace (2006), and green energy entrepreneur Robert Freling (2008).

As President and Honorary President of United World Colleges, Queen Noor and Nelson Mandela unite to foster peace and international understanding through the global education initiative.

 

In May 2007, KHFI launched a Media and Humanity Program during New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival to promote film and media projects that highlight shared values, rights and aspirations across social, economic, political and cultural divides with special emphasis on the Middle East and Muslim world. Her Majesty was also co-founder of the Alliance of Civilizations Media Fund, a not-for-profit initiative by private media, the United Nations, and global philanthropists to promote and support media content that enhances cross-cultural understanding. In October 2009 the Alliance merged with Soliya, a non-profit industry leader in using new media technologies to foster cross-cultural understanding.

 

Queen Noor has traveled extensively throughout the Balkans since her first humanitarian mission in 1996 after the fall of Srebrenica. She is a Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) created through the Dayton Accords to promote reconciliation and conflict resolution through the search for, recovery, and identification of missing persons from the armed conflicts in the Balkans. She has supported the development of ICMP's groundbreaking forensic DNA identification system, which is the leading provider of DNA-assisted identifications to governments worldwide dealing with catastrophes and human rights cases, and she has overseen ICMP’s families/community reconciliation programs and advocated with the leaders of BiH to finalize the establishment of The Missing Persons Institute, critical to resolution of the tragedy of tens of thousands of missing and murdered in the 1990s Balkans conflicts. 

During a four day visit to Liberia, Queen Noor paid a moral-boosting visit to Jordanian peacekeeping troops and joined President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson in groundbreaking ceremonies for several new schools.

 

She has assumed an advocacy role in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and has traveled to Central and Southeast Asia, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America to advocate with governments, support NGOs, and visit with landmine survivors struggling to recover and reclaim their lives.  She has testified before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus appealing for humanitarian assistance and justice for hundreds of thousands of landmine victims worldwide.

 

At the invitation of President Andres Pastrana and President Alvaro Uribe Velez, Queen Noor has undertaken several humanitarian missions to Colombia to try to negotiate a series of humanitarian accords with the leaders of the country’s guerilla insurgency on landmines, child soldiers and kidnappings, to promote mine awareness programs in rural and conflict areas with UNDP, to advocate against the use of anti-personnel mines especially in civilian areas, and to oversee the destruction of Columbia’s last arsenal of anti-personnel mines.

At the invitation of President Alvaro Uribe Velez, Queen Noor has undertaken several humanitarian missions to Colombia to negotiate various peace accords and de-mining agreements with rebels.

 

In 2004 and 2005, as an expert advisor to the United Nations, Queen Noor traveled to Central Asia to advocate for adoption and implementation of the Ottawa Treaty throughout the region and for multi-sectoral commitment to the Millennium Development Goals in Tajikistan, one of the world’s poorest countries.

                                                                     

A long-time advocate for a just Arab-Israeli peace and for Palestinian refugees, she is a board member of Refugees International and an outspoken voice for the protection of civilians in conflict and for displaced persons around the world. She has visited Pakistan to assess and promote support for Afghan refugees during the war, and is advocating for international support for more than 2.5 million Pakistanis forced to flee government-militant clashes in the northwest region, as well as nearly 5 million Iraqis displaced in Iraq and in Jordan, Syria and other countries after the 2003 Iraq conflict.

Queen Noor meets with Iraqi refugees and volunteers at a healthcare services program run by the Noor Al Hussein Foundation and Jordanian Red Crescent for thousands of displaced Iraqis living in Jordan.

Queen Noor is actively involved in a number of international organizations advancing global peace-building and conflict recovery. She is a founding leader of Global Zero, an international movement to eliminate nuclear weapons, and an Advisor to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Seeds of Peace, Council of Women World Leaders, Women Waging Peace, and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

She is also President of the United World Colleges, Trustee of the Aspen Institute, Refugees International, America Near East Refugee Aid, and Conservation International, Patron of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and Founding President and Honorary President Emeritus of BirdLife International.

 

In recognition of her efforts to advance development, democracy and peace, Queen Noor has been awarded numerous awards and honorary doctorates in international relations, law and humane letters.  In the past year, Queen Noor has been honored with the 2009 Healing the Planet Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility, the 2009 Global Environmental Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, the 2008 Amigo de los Niños Award from Save the Children, and the Humanitarian Award from International Relief and Development.

 

She has published two books, Hussein of Jordan (KHF Publishing, 2000) and Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life (Miramax Books, 2003), a New York Times best seller published in 17 languages.

 

Queen Noor has four children, Their Royal Highnesses Princes Hamzah and Hashim and Princesses Iman and Raiyah, and three grandchildren, Princesses Halaah bint Hashim, Haya bint Hamzah, and Raiyah bint Hashim. 

 

 

For more information, please see:

www.KingHusseinFoundation.org

www.NoorAlHusseinFoundation.org