Nadia Hadad Biography

Nadia Hadad has been a Board member since 2017. She is an electromechanical engineer specialising in mechanical design, water resources engineering, human ecology, environmental coordination, and philosophy. Throughout her career, she has worked with NGOs and governments across multiple regions including India, Ecuador, Palestine, Senegal, Morocco, and Cameroon.

Nadia holds several advisory and leadership roles. She is Vice President of the Brussels City Advisory Council of Persons with Disabilities and a member of the Brussels Region Advisory Panel. Nationally, she contributes to organisations such as GRIP, BROG, and DOP VBB, and represents GRIP within UNIA’s Belgian Supervisory Commission monitoring CRPD implementation.

At the international level, she is Co-Chair of the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) and serves on the Executive Committee of the European Disability Forum (EDF). She has also been a member of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency Platform since June 2017 and contributes to the Academic Network of European Experts on Disability (ANED).

Nadia is also a Board member of the Damiaan Foundation at KU Leuven, where she promotes inclusion of persons with disabilities. A committed human rights activist from a young age, she continues to advocate for a fully inclusive society.

Her early work focused on water-related projects, vocational training for craftsmen and marginalised youth, and the empowerment of women’s groups through technical support. She also collaborated with UNDP on the development of locally produced “Multifunctional Platforms” to improve daily working conditions in rural communities.

Nadia later transitioned into development cooperation, and was a Disability Inclusion Policy Officer at PHOS (Platform on Disability and Development Cooperation). She is actively engaged at European and international levels, contributing to EU and UN task groups within the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC), where she advocates for inclusion and the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

She regularly delivers lectures and trainings on inclusive cooperation, the CRPD, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to universities, ministries, NGOs, and Disabled Persons’ Organisations (DPOs). In academia, she serves as an external thesis coordinator on adapted technologies and disability-related topics.