Cultural manager and activist. Basma El Husseiny is now leading the organisation Action for Hope, based in Beirut, that seeks to provide cultural relief and cultural development programmes to communities in crisis, with a focus on refugees and impoverished communities. She has been involved in supporting independent cultural projects and organizations in the Arab region for the past 30 years.

Basma was the Arts Manager of the British Council in Egypt (1988-1998) and the Media, Arts & Culture Program Officer for the Ford Foundation in the Middle East and North Africa (1999-2003). In 2004 she founded Cultural Resource – Al Mawred Al Thagafy, the Arab region’s leading independent cultural organization, and was its director until September 2014. In 2006 she also co-founded the Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC), and was a founding trustee until 2009. She also co-designed the Master’s Degree in Cultural Policy and Cultural Management at the Hassan II University in Morocco.

Basma is a UNESCO expert in cultural governance, member of the Arab Cultural Policy Group, previous member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Cultural Policy and Management, at the Bilgi University in Istanbul and the Egypt representative of the Arterial Network (Africa’s largest cultural network).