Shaista Aziz: Gender, Islamophobia and International Development 

International development remains a largely white space accused of perpetuating colonial ideologies around people of colour and especially about women of colour. 'Saving Muslim women' is a political project in itself.  This talk critically examines how the aid industry's political ideologies and own lack of intersectional representation impacts on the response that it delivers and how gendered Islamophobia in the aid and development sector does the exact opposite of the 'do no harm' and instead removes women of their agency and dignity.

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist and writer specialising on identity, race, gender and Muslim women. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Globe and Mail, New York Times, BBC and Huffington Post. She's a broadcaster and political commentator and the founder of The Everyday Bigotry Project seeking to disrupt narratives around race, Islamophobia and bigotry. She's a former Oxfam and MSF aid worker and has spent more than fifteen years working across the Middle East, East and West Africa and across Pakistan with marginalised women impacted by conflict and emergencies. Most recently she was working in Borno state, North East Nigeria. She is also a member of the Fabian Women's Network Executive Committee.

She's the co founder of Intersectional Feminist Foreign Policy seeking to influence the creation of an ethical feminist foreign policy that does no further harm to women and girls and that brings the voices, lived experiences and expertise of women excluded from policy discussions based on their intersectional identities.