Laury Haytayan

Since 2011, she has been leading the parliamentary capacity development portfolio at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) in the MENA region, focusing on the legislative and oversight roles of Arab parliamentarians in advancing reforms in the Middle East Oil and Gas sector.

Previously, she was in charge of regional grass root projects focused on promoting the role of women in development and policy making in several GCC countries, specifically in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

She also worked as grant manager, advocacy specialist and trainer for several international NGOs, including International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA), and Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA),[4] focusing mainly on civil society democracy campaigns in Lebanon and Iraq.

Since 2004, Haytayan started working with different stakeholders such as youth, women, devastated communities and parliamentarians to build "pro-active" societies, and to promote a culture of accountability and transparency, and rule of law in public spheres and institutions.

Haytayan received the Gold Shield of Excellence Award by the Arab Women Council in 2014 for her role in promoting social responsibility.

She is quoted saying: In many cases throughout the global oil and gas industry those companies bidding for - and sometimes winning - petroleum contracts have close ties to the government through connections that influence the award.

"[14] [15] She also wrote an article for the magazine about the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and how it could benefit a country such as Lebanon [16] [17] Haytayan was interviewed by L’Orient Le Jour after receiving the Golden Award from the Arab Women Council in Dubai, for her achievement in “Social Accountability.

In this interview she stressed on the need to have women role models in the region to encourage young ladies and women to pursue a career in difficult domains such as politics and public affairs” [18] [19] During an interview with NOW News, she said: The more Civil Society is informed, better it will be able to advocate for a more transparent and accountable process, building the capacity and technical expertise is crucial especially the sector is not developed yet.