Dr. Rola Dashti MP

Dr. Rola Dashti, a winner of a Global Citizens award for 2009, and King Hussein Humanitarian award for year 2005, listed among the top 20 businesswomen in the Arab World by Financial Times and among the world’s 100 most powerful Arabs in 2007 and 2008 by Arabian Business, and is a member of the advisory council for Arab Human Development Report for 2009 (Human Security in the Arab World). More recently, in March 2011 Dr. Dashti was named one of the 150 Women Who Shake the World by NEWSWEEK magazine.       

Dr. Dashti lobbied for the May 2005 decree allowing Kuwaiti women to vote and run for parliamentary elections for the first time. She was the first woman to file her papers at the election department, when the registration opened, and she herself was a candidate in the 2006 parliamentary election. In the 2009 parliamentary elections she and three other women won seats to become the first women to enter the Kuwaiti parliament setting the stage to deepening the role of women in politics and decision making.