Rania Abdel Naeem

Egypt

Social Policy (DPhil), 2017
Hertford College, Oxford

Funding: GRoW @ Annenberg

Passionate about alleviating poverty and improving the educational system in her country, before coming to Oxford Rania volunteered with Egyptian NGOs for ten years, working in deprived areas that lacked functioning health and education systems. Rania’s doctoral thesis “Beyond Electoral Politics: Crony capitalism, collective action, and public spending in Egypt” focused on the main causal factors that drove spatial variation in the distribution of physical infrastructure in Egypt under Mubarak. Rania has used the knowledge and expertise gained from her studies at Oxford as a consultant for the World Bank Group on nutrition-sensitive interventions in Egypt; Social Protection (SP) and Sanitation, Water and Hygiene (WASH) interventions.

Rania is currently the Social Protection Technical Lead (ILO Consultancy) for Beyond Group where she is developing a three-year action plan (2026–2028) for Lebanon’s National Social Protection Strategy with a focus on social assistance, social insurance, economic inclusion and labour activation, and social welfare programmes.