Her Excellency Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani is the Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations.
Ambassador Al-Thani was appointed Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations in October 2013, the first woman to serve in this capacity. She is an internationally recognized leader and staunch defender of human rights and international law, climate action and sustainable development, mediation and conflict prevention, gender equality, and humanitarian action, and is at the forefront of efforts to advance international cooperation and protect the multilateral system.
She is also well known for her fight against impunity, injustice, and lack of accountability. She has authored and facilitated several landmark General Assembly Resolutions, such as a resolution welcoming the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar; establishing an International Day to Protect Education from Attack, which followed the adoption of a resolution on the Right to Education in Emergencies ten years earlier; a resolution on an International Day of Women Judges and on World Autism Awareness Day; and a key resolution on improving the effectiveness and coordination of military and civil defense assets for natural disaster response.
She has played a significant leadership role in a number of initiatives, including serving as Chair of the 61st session of the Commission for Social Development (2023), Chair of the Sixth Committee at the General Assembly's 70th session, and Chairperson of the Commission on Population and Development's 55th session (2017). She has co-facilitated several critical processes, such as the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council Reform (75th and 76th Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly); the intergovernmental negotiations on the Declaration for the Commemoration of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the United Nations (2020); the General Assembly Resolution establishing the modalities for the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action for Women (2019); the Review of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (2018); and the preparations for the high-level meeting to appraise the Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons (2017).
The President of the General Assembly recently appointed Ambassador Al-Thani to conduct consultations on the political declaration to be adopted by the SDG Summit in September 2023, meeting under the auspices of the General Assembly.
She started important United Nations Groups of Friends and now co-chairs the Group of Friends for Gender Parity, the Group of Friends for the Responsibility to Protect, the Group of Friends to Assist on the International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to Help Investigate Crimes Committed in Syria, the Group of Friends for Education and Lifelong Learning, the Group of Friends for Solidarity for Global Health Security, and the Group of Friends for the Responsibility to Protect.
Ambassador Al-Thani was previously the State of Qatar’s first female Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and as the General Consul of the State of Qatar to the Swiss Federation between 2011 and 2013. During her term, she held the prestigious post of Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Social Forum of the UN Human Rights Council (2012), the second woman to hold this appointment. She also represented the State of Qatar in the Executive Councils of the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization.
Ambassador Al-Thani sits on the boards of several international human rights, sustainable development, and women’s rights organizations. She has won many important awards, including being nominated as a Young Global Leader to improve the state of the world by the World Economic Forum in 2013. She has written opinion pieces as well as the foreword to the book Overcoming Smallness: Challenges and Opportunities for Small States in Global Affairs.