Impact
I have one mission: to build the financing, policy, and institutions that ensure mothers survive, children thrive, and women lead the peace.
It began in Libya, watching women hold communities together while being excluded from rebuilding them. That experience shaped a belief that has guided everything I've built since: the people who bear the consequences of systems should shape how those systems are designed.
Since then, I've built the financing, institutions, and coalitions that move power and capital to the people closest to the problem. Every number on this page is a person. A mother who made it through delivery. A child who got vaccinated. A woman who walked into a room where the decisions were being made—and changed what came out of it.
Founded Voice of Libyan Women (2011). Created Every Pregnancy (formerly For Mama), the first zakat-certified collaborative for maternal and child health, now used by 50+ organizations every Ramadan. Conceived and built The Beginnings Fund, a $600M+ collaborative reaching 34 million mothers and babies.
Co-architected the Sustainable Development Goals. UN High-Level Commissioner on Health, Employment and Economic Growth. Lancet-Georgetown Commissioner on Faith, Trust and Health.
$40
Billion+
Moved toward survival, prosperity & peace
9
Million+
TED TALK VIEWS
193
Countries
Impacted
4
MOVEMENTS created: Voice of Libyan Women, Every Pregnancy (For Mama), The Beginnings Fund, The NewNow
$1
Billion+
Directly Managed to support lives & livlihoods
4
UN
RESOLUTIONS
SHAPED
We are closer than most people realize to a world that works for the people it currently fails.
Dr. Alaa Murabit
What Changed
Initiatives & Outcomes
A turning point
in inclusive security
& peacebuilding
During Libya's revolution, women were keeping communities alive while being excluded from the formal political and peace process. Voice of Libyan Women began as an answer to that contradiction.
I created Voice of Libyan Women at 21, in the middle of the Libyan revolution, and built a women's movement in a country that had outlawed one. We launched the Noor Campaign across Libya, pioneering a faith-rooted approach to inclusive security that has since been replicated internationally.
Voice of Libyan Women
Founded · Peace & Security · Women's Leadership · FAITH-ALIGNED ADVOCACY, POLICY & MOVEMENT BUILDING
“Human Rights Watch called VLW’s work a “turning point in women’s rights globally.” The methodology has since been adopted across multiple countries and conflict settings.”
Created the First Zakat-Certified
Collaborative
for Maternal & Child Health
$125M+ Mobilized
50+ Organizations Running the Model
Every Ramadan, billions of dollars are given in zakat and sadaqah. Yet maternal and newborn health, one of the clearest expressions of saving a life, had never been intentionally designed into that financing ecosystem. I saw an enormous source of capital that development had overlooked, not because it didn't exist, but because no one had built the architecture to connect it to maternal and child survival. I created For Mama, now Every Pregnancy, to change that. It became the first zakat-certified collaborative for maternal and child health. It is now used by 50+ organizations every year to mobilize zakat, sadaqah, and Ramadan giving. In 2025, I spun For Mama out as an independent entity called Every Pregnancy, and I appointed a CEO to lead it.
Every Pregnancy (Formerly For Mama)
CREATed & ARCHITECTED · Faith-Aligned Capital · Maternal Survival · GLOBAL movement building
“500,000+ mothers and babies received services. Proved a new model of development financing that the sector had been slow to recognize.”
Co-Architect
193 Countries
Trillions Cataylsed
Global goals often measure what is easiest, not what matters most. Peace, justice, and institutions shape every development outcome, yet they were at risk of being sidelined. I co-architected the Sustainable Development Goals — fighting for the inclusion of Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) and making sure the framework centered the people with the most to gain and the least voice. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed me UN SDG Advocate. Antonio Guterres reappointed me.
The SDGs now guide how 193 countries align trillions of dollars in public and private capital with measurable outcomes in health, education, security, and poverty reduction.
The Sustainable Development Goals
Co-Architect · Global Governance · Systems Design · Global Advocate
“The operating system for global development across every country on earth. Appointed SDG Advocate by two successive UN Secretaries-General.”
Conceived of a $600+ million fund for
maternal and newborn health
Government co-financing built in
First of Its Kind
The money existed. Governments were committed. Philanthropy was engaged. What didn't exist was financing architecture that aligned all three. The Beginnings Fund emerged from that gap.
I conceived and co-developed the largest collaborative philanthropic fund dedicated to maternal and newborn health in Africa. From the original idea to the case to leadership, to the architecture co-developed with partners across the Gates Foundation and beyond, targeting the highest-burden countries on the continent.
The Beginnings Fund
IDEATED & Co-Developed · Health Financing Architecture · Maternal & Child Survival
“34 million mothers and babies reached. 300,000+ lives saved by 2030.”
$1 Billion+ Managed
Global team of 50+
20+ Health Portfolios
As inaugural Global Advocacy Director at the Gates Foundation, I led a $1B+ portfolio spanning 21 health strategies and a team of 50+. I drove resource mobilization across the Foundation's major health financing platforms — Gavi, the Global Fund, CEPI — contributing to the $40B+ mobilized for global health and development. I created the Foundation's first global women's health advocacy strategy, led its programmatic assessment in fragile settings, and built its Fragile, Conflict & Violence community of practice.
Gates Foundation: Global Health Policy, Program Advocacy and Communications Strategy
Inaugural Director · Institutional Transformation · 20+ HealtH PORTFOLIOS · Investment director
“The women’s health strategy contributed to the McKinsey-WEF finding of a $1 trillion annual GDP opportunity in closing the women’s health gap — reframing women’s health as an economic imperative.”
40+ Countries
Sovereign and Multilateral
I advise governments, sovereign wealth funds, and multilateral institutions across 40+ countries on health financing, security architecture, women's leadership, and sustainable development. Senior external expert advisor to Bain & Company on financing, sustainability, health, resilience, and philanthropy strategies.
Strategic Advisory to Governments & Institutions
Personal Advisory · Head of State Level
What life has taught me:
I build from my own lived experience because proximity changes what you see.
The people carrying the greatest burden usually have the clearest understanding of what needs to change.
Most global problems are coordination problems disguised as funding problems.
Faith is one of the world’s most powerful infrastructures of trust and collective action. When ignored, systems lose legitimacy and reach.
Money follows structure. Lasting change follows trust.
Institutions are acts of optimism (and faith!). They assume tomorrow is worth designing for.
I have never believed women should be invited into peace. I believe they are already holding it together.
Most scarcity is engineered. Most abundance is unlocked through better design.
The work is always about the same people: mothers, children, and people whose voices shape what happens next.
Real progress is when survival is no longer the ceiling of human experience.
The money to build the world we say we want already exists. What's been missing is the architecture to move it to the people doing the work.
Dr. Alaa Murabit
Policy Changed
Resolutions & Frameworks
Across two decades of work across peace, health, and global development, I shaped the following resolutions and frameworks:
-
UN Security Council Resolution 2122 (2013)
Women's Participation in Conflict Prevention
Strengthened women's roles in conflict prevention and resolution, requiring regular briefings on women, peace, and security in country-specific situations.
-
UN Security Council Resolution 2242 (2015)
Women & Countering Violent Extremism
Integrated women, peace, and security into the counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism agendas, recognizing women's leadership in prevention.
-
UN Security Council Resolution 2467 (2019)
Justice for Survivors of Sexual Violence
Advanced a survivor-centred approach to conflict-related sexual violence, strengthening accountability and access to justice for survivors.
-
UN Security Council Resolution 2493 (2019)
Full Implementation of the WPS Agenda
Called for full implementation of the Women, Peace and Security framework, demanding meaningful participation of women at all stages of peace processes.
-
Sustainable Development Goals (2015)
The Global Development Framework
Co-architected the 17-goal framework now adopted by 193 countries, with a particular focus on Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.
-
UN High-Level Commission (2016)
Health, Employment & Economic Growth
Commission recommendations target 40 million new health sector jobs, closing an 18 million health worker shortfall, and measurable health access improvements for billions.
Institutions Built
What Carries On
Voice of Libyan Women
CREATED · 2011
The first organization to center women's faith leadership in Libyan peacebuilding. Methodology replicated internationally and shifted how the world understood the relationship between faith, women's rights, and security.
The Beginnings Fund
Conceived & Co-Developed · 2022
$600M+ collaborative — the largest dedicated to maternal and newborn health in Africa. 34M reach. 300K+ lives by 2030. Designed to meet African governments where their health systems already operate, strengthening the workforce, facilities, and referral networks that governments themselves run.
Omnis Institute
Co-Created · 2016
Independent non-profit empowering emerging local leaders on critical global issues.
Every Pregnancy (Formerly For Mama)
Created & ARCHITECTED · 2023
The first zakat-certified collaborative for maternal and child health. $125M+ raised across three Ramadans. 50+ organizations now use the model every Ramadan, including Every Pregnancy — the independent entity spun out in 2025 to carry forward its own portion of the work.
The New Now
Co-Created · 2017
A coalition of next-generation global leaders, modeled on The Elders, convening to address the defining challenges of our time.
Sustainable Growth Practice, 500 Global
Created Practice · 2025
The Sustainable Growth practice within 500 Global, bringing private-sector capital to climate, development, and security across the economies that the global financial system has historically priced out.