Dr Edwige Fortier

Edwige Fortier holds a PhD in Development studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where she also received her MSc in both Politics in the Middle East and Development Studies (2000 and 2010). Formerly a Civil Society Advisor with the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, she has worked more than 20 years as a development practitioner in HIV/Aids-related policy development and research. Through her work at the Global Fund, she supported the development of policy initiatives such as modifying the guidelines for the participation of civil society representatives in national multi-stakeholder mechanisms and on the development of guidelines on Community Systems Strengthening (CSS). While there she served as the civil society focal-point for three regions receiving Global Fund financing: the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and South and West Asia.

Following on from her role as Civil Society Adviser at the Global Fund, Edwige undertook her doctoral research on civil society organisations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in particular following the Arab Uprisings in 2011. She conducted her research among associations working with marginalised groups such as key populations affected by HIV, women’s rights organisations and human rights advocates in Egypt and Tunisia. During her period of research, she  worked with worked with the UNAIDS Regional Support Team in the Middle East and North Africa to map civil society organisations across the region. In addition, she has produced guidance for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and USAID to strengthen the involvement, care and support of people living with HIV in the Middle East.

Her research interests include the Middle East and North Africa, international development, civil society, transitions from authoritarian rule, democratisation, neoliberalism, vulnerable and marginalised groups, human rights, multilateralism, non-governmental organisations and HIV/Aids.

Publications

• Contested Politics in Tunisia: Civil Society in a Post-Authoritarian State
  Cambridge University Press, April 2019.
• "Transition and Marginalisation: Locating Spaces for Discursive Contestation"
  in Arab Spring and Peripheries: A Decentring Research Agenda, edited by Daniela Huber, Lorenzo Kamel (Routledge, 2016).
• "Transition and Marginalisation: Locating Spaces for Discursive Contestation"
  in Arab Spring and Peripheries, Mediterranean Politics, Volume 20/Issue 2, 2015.