Kuwait’s biggest economist female figure and is widely seen as one of the world’s most influential Arab women. Dashti is the president of the Kuwait Economic Society, making her the first woman to chair the society since its establishment in 1970, and is an activist fighting for gender equality in Kuwait, particularly the women’s suffrage right. In May 2005, she lobbied for the decree allowing Kuwaiti women to vote and run for parliamentary elections for the first time, which led to Kuwait assigning its first female cabinet minister. She became a candidate in the parliamentarian election in 2007.
Dashti received a PhD in Population Economics from Johns Hopkins University. She also lectured, conducted and managed research in development and applied economics particularly in regard to the country’s recent quest for modernising its economic, financial, and social processes.
At the moment, she heads an international consultancy firm in Kuwait focusing on privatisation, and activation of SMEs. Previously, Dashti held key positions in R&D institutions such as the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, and worked for major local and international financial and development institutions such as the National Bank of Kuwait and provided consultancy to the World Bank. Additionally, she managed all the contracts signed on behalf of the government of Kuwait for the Emergency and Reconstruction Program during the invasion-to-post liberation period 1990/1991.
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