Alia Harran Zureikat

Alia Zureikat currently serves as Adviser to the President of the Higher Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (HCD), Jordan’s leading public agency responsible for disability policy and advocacy. She has held this role since March 2015. In addition, she heads the International Relations and Co-operation Department, working to embed disability and human rights across national policies, programmes, and donor strategies. Her work ensures that international expertise and inclusive best practices are adapted to support and strengthen local and national initiatives.

Since October 2015, Zureikat has also worked closely with the Hashemite Commission for Disabled Soldiers (HCDS) in its engagement with the Invictus Games. She has acted as Co-Lead and Team Manager for Jordan’s delegation of servicemen and servicewomen participating in the Games. In recognition of her efforts, she was appointed to the Board of the Jordan Paralympic Committee (JPC) in August 2017, a position she held until June 2018.

In January 2021, she was named to the Advisory Board of the Naua Platform, under the Crown Prince Foundation. Her role focused on embedding a disability-inclusive perspective across the platform’s various initiatives. She served in this capacity until June 2022, when the platform underwent restructuring.

Previously, in January 2016, Zureikat was appointed by Royal Decree as a member of the Board of Trustees of Jordan’s National Centre for Human Rights, serving a full term until July 2019. She was reappointed to the Board in August 2023 for a term extending through to October 2024.

Zureikat began her career at the HCD in 2010 as the founding Director of Communications and International Relations. She established and led the department’s efforts in media outreach, advocacy, public awareness, and donor engagement.

She also co-authored a toolkit on inclusive decision-making, aimed at government, civil society, and media policy actors, developed under a European Union-funded initiative led by the British Council Jordan. The project, known as IDEAS (Inclusive Decision-Making for an Equal and Accessible Society), ran from 2013 to 2016. Zureikat served as the project’s principal consultant and co-facilitator of capacity-building workshops, designed to foster the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in decision-making processes.

Prior to 2010, she held various positions in Jordan and the United Kingdom, including roles in research, fundraising, and digital communications. She was also a member of Jordan’s official delegation to the United Nations during the Fourth and Fifth Sessions (2004–2005) of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Draft Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which was later adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006.

Zureikat holds a Master’s degree in Politics and International Relations and a Bachelor’s degree in European Studies, both from Royal Holloway, University of London. Her academic and professional achievements are underpinned by lived experience: she is a person with multiple disabilities, resulting from Cerebral Palsy acquired at birth. Her perspective continues to shape and enrich her work, both in Jordan and internationally.