World Press Freedom Day 2017

Khadija El Bennaoui is an independent arts practitioner working in the intersection of the artistic practices, cultural policy and research in and from Africa & the Arab world. She worked as consultant and researcher for international funding and development agencies such as the European Cultural Foundation, the Information & Research Center at King Hussein Foundation, Mimeta, Arterial Network, Al Mawred, the Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC), EUNIC and Drosos Foundation for which she successfully implemented various missions in Africa, the Arab world and Cuba. Her work covers a wide range of topics from support to structuring independent artistic scenes, funding, grantmaking, netoworking, freedom of expression and contemporary artistic creation, etc. El Bennaoui played a major role in developing support for the mobility of cultural practitioners within Africa, as the director of Art Moves Africa (AMA) mobility fund. She was also consultant to the Young Arab Theatre Fund (YATF), convening and managing four successful and important symposia for members of independent arts and culture spaces in Middle East & North Africa (MENA). El Bennaoui is currently contributing to the 2017 Global Report on the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the diversity of Cultural Expressions.