Jean Begg CBE (7 October 1886 – 15 February 1971) was a New Zealand welfare worker, educator, and YWCA administrator.

[4] Begg was a teacher at a missionary school and ran a health clinic in American Samoa as a young woman,[1][5] and helped to establish the Samoan Nursing Service.

[2] During and immediately after World War II, Begg was director of the YWCA in the Middle East and North Africa,[9] setting up YWCA programs, including lodgings, weekly concerts in Egypt and a mobile library.

[10][11] She worked in Lord Louis Mountbatten's South-East Asia Command, at hospitals for former prisoners of war in Singapore,[12] and served on the Middle East Welfare Council.

[13] "The problems that beset the world will never be solved unless they are approached in a spirit of helpfulness and sacrifice," she declared in a 1945 speech.