Moustafa Ayad is the current Executive Director for Africa, the Middle East, and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), overseeing more than 20 programmes globally, and has more than a decade’s worth of experience designing, developing, and deploying multi-faceted P/CVE, elections, and gender projects in conflict and post-conflict environments across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. He has experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kenya, Senegal, as well the United States, with a range of government and non-governmental partners on violent extremism, conflict resolution and strategic communications.
Moustafa also has experience working across these regions with community organizations, media outlets, and regional/global production hubs on the creation of multi-platform media content aimed at empowering youth, supporting civil society, and strengthening national and local stakeholder capacity. He has similarly supported the design and development of conflict resolution programmes with warring parties in Yemen and Syria. He has advised the United Nations, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, the US Department of State, and other global and regional actors on the strategic use of counter and alternative narratives, as well as P/CVE practices and programming. Moustafa’s research on the use of social media platforms by extremist groups and their supporters has been featured in the BBC, The Times, VICE, CNN, NPR, Wired, and The Daily Beast.
