Hajer Naili is CIVIC’s Director of Communications. She is a former journalist and a communications-media expert with over 16 years of experience working to elevate the voices of people affected by conflict, forced displacement, and humanitarian crises. Experienced in providing strategic leadership and overseeing communications and media efforts, she has led global media outreach efforts, social media engagement, content production, and story placement and distribution to raise global attention on the plight of displaced people and populations caught in conflict.
Prior to joining CIVIC, she served as the Roving Regional Media and Communications Adviser at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Central and West Africa, where she covered and documented the humanitarian consequences of conflict across the region. Her field missions included Northeast Nigeria, Mali, Cameroon, Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic. Before joining NRC, she was the Communications and Social Media Officer at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Washington, D.C. She also served as the Communications and Media Manager at The Soufan Center, and more recently, as the Media Relations Manager at Project HOPE.
She started her career in France as a radio reporter and anchor covering global affairs and social justice issues. She later shifted focus to cover women and gender issues to report on the role of Arab women in the Arab Spring, the effects of displacement for Syrian refugee women and girls, and the motivations pushing French female teens to join ISIS.
She graduated from the French University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis with a Bachelor’s degree in Information and Communications.