Nadia Hadad Biography

Board member since 2017. Nadia is an Electromechanical engineer specialising in “Mechanical conception”, water resources engineering, human ecology, environment coordination, and philosophy who has worked for several NGOs and governments around the world. She has worked in different areas, from water related projects to training of craftsmen and young people excluded from education, to training and supporting local women’s groups in technical issues.

Nadia is an external thesis coordinator for students on “Adapted Technologies” and now also on disability issues. She does research in several areas. She gives lectures and trainings on inclusive cooperation, the UN CRPD and SDGs at universities, ministries, NGOs, DPOs and more.

Nadia Hadad has been a human right activist from young age. Previously, she worked as an engineer in different areas, from water related projects to training of craftsmen and young people excluded from education, to training and supporting local women’s groups in technical issues. Her team produced machines to facilitate their daily work. She was collaborating with the UNDP to produce with the locals “Multifunctional Plate-Form”. She worked for several NGOs and Governments in India, Ecuador, Palestine, Senegal, Morocco, Cameroon and others. Later on, she became a Disability Inclusion Policy Officer in the field of development cooperation, with PHOS (Platform on Disability and Development Cooperation). Since then, she has been a member of the EU and UN Task groups at IDDC (International Disability Development Consortium), where she has lobbied for inclusion and the follow up of the implementation of the CRPD. She gives lectures and trainings on inclusive cooperation, the UN CRPD and SDGs at universities, ministries, NGOs, DPOs and more. Nadia is an external thesis coordinator for students on “Adapted Technologies” and now also on disability issues. She does research in several areas. She is also a Board member of the “Damiaan Foundation: inspiring and engaging” at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), where she works on inclusion of disabled persons.

To reclaim real inclusion in society for each person with disabilities, she joined the Boards of several national organizations like GRIP (Equal Rights for each person with disabilities), BROG (Brussels Healthcare Council) and DOP VBB.

Nadia is the Vice President of the Brussels City Advisory Council of Persons with Disabilities and a member of the Brussels Region Advisory Panel.

She is a member of the Belgian Supervising Commission inside UNIA, the independent mechanism for the implementation and monitoring of the UN CRPD in Belgium, for GRIP.

On the international level, she is a Board member of the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL). She is also a member of the Executive Committee of the European Disability Forum (EDF).

Since June 2017, Nadia has been a member of the Advisory Panel of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s Fundamental Rights Platform and she is a member of the Academic Network of European Experts on Disability (ANED).

Nadia has a degree in Electromechanical Engineering, specialising in “Mechanical conception”, water resources engineering, human ecology, environment coordination, and Philosophy.