Bassma_Kodmani
Bassma Kodmani
Syrian academic (1958–2023)
Bassma Kodmani (Arabic: بسمة قضماني; 29 April 1958 – 2 March 2023) was a Syrian academic who was spokesperson of the Syrian National Council. She was the executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, a network of independent Arab research and policy institutes working to promote democracy in the Arab world.
This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2023) |
Until 2011, she was the senior advisor to the director of the academic program at the Académie Diplomatique Internationale.[1] From 2007 to 2009, she was a senior advisor on international cooperation to the French national research council and an associate researcher at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (CERI-Sciences Po) from 2006 to 2007. She also was a senior visiting fellow at the Collège de France from 2005 to 2006.
From 1981 to 1998, she set up and directed the Middle East Program at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) in Paris and was an associate professor of international relations at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée.
Kodmani led the Governance and International Cooperation program for the Middle East and North Africa at the Ford Foundation. She then became a senior adviser on international cooperation to the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Kodmani was also the recipient of the 2011 Raymond Georis Prize for Innovative Philanthropy established by the Mercator Fund “a prize honouring outstanding contributions to European philanthropy” for the role of her organization the Arab Reform initiative in promoting democracy in the context of the Arab Spring.[2]
Kodmani died on 2 March 2023, at the age of 64.[3]
Bassma Kodmani held a doctorate degree of political science from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. She authored multiple books, academic papers and articles in French and English on the issue of the democratization in the Arab world, the Palestinian diaspora, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the strategies of Arab states towards Islamist movements, political change in North Africa and regional security. Her last book to date is "Abattre les Murs" (Breaking the Walls) published in 2008.