Physician · Founder · Peacebuilder · Security & Capital Architect

Security begins with survival.

Alaa Murabit builds sovereign resilience architecture: the financial, institutional and trust infrastructure societies need to protect human life before crisis.
Dr. Alaa Murabit

Dr. Alaa Murabit builds the financial, institutional and trust infrastructure that lets people—and countries—make more of their own decisions. Usually before the emergency. Occasionally while everyone else is still scheduling the first meeting.

At 21, in her final year of medical school in Libya during the revolution, she watched women hold communities together amid bombardment while being excluded from every room where the country’s future was being designed. She created Voice of Libyan Women from that moment of contradiction—and its Noor Campaign moved change through the language communities already trusted: the same insight that later powered Every Pregnancy—and everything she has built since.

That conviction has guided everything since—from shaping UN Security Council processes and the architecture of the SDGs to placing the survival and flourishing of women, children and adolescent girls at the centre of how peace is financed.

She has worked to show that faith-aligned capital can help finance global health and development. Alaa created Every Pregnancy (formerly For Mama), demonstrating that religious obligation can be built into the architecture of how the world funds survival. She also originated The Beginnings Fund and secured its initial anchor funding of $300 million. Together, these models have mobilized more than $780 million for maternal and newborn health in three years.

At 500 Global she built the Sustainable Growth practice—blended finance for security, health and prosperity in frontier markets—including a first-of-its-kind global health financing partnership between Gavi, the GCC and 500 Global, and the Health Scale Up Facility. Her current work turns demonstration into standard: infrastructure countries can adopt to finance resilience before the crisis, not after. The sequence is deliberate: survival, trust, systems, scale.

“I have one mission: to build the financing, policy, and institutions that ensure mothers survive, children thrive, and women lead the peace.”
Dr. Alaa Murabit
The record

Nearly two decades of impact.

$40B+Capital mobilised or advised
$1B+Capital directly managed
300K+Lives the Beginnings Fund is projected to save
193Countries her work reaches
34MMothers & babies it is built to reach
4UN Security Council processes shapedWomen, Peace & Security · Global Study on UNSCR 1325
6Institutions originatedVoice of Libyan Women · Every Pregnancy · The Beginnings Fund · Omnis Institute · The New Now · Co-Agency: Emerging Leaders Lab
$130M+Faith-aligned capital mobilizedThrough Every Pregnancy (formerly For Mama), created and architected by Dr. Murabit
40+Countries advisedAt head-of-state & executive level
2UN Secretaries-GeneralSuccessive appointments as UN SDG Advocate
9M+TED Talk views
“Alaa Murabit is a force for change and a global champion of women’s rights.”
President Jimmy Carter
“There are very few voices in the world like that of my sister, Alaa Murabit.”
Leymah Gbowee · Nobel Peace Laureate
“She has changed not just what is possible, but how we think about what is possible.”
Annie Hohlfält · Chair, WIN WIN Award Jury
Recognition

Honors & Recognition

Meritorious Service Cross Canada
Governor General of Canada · 2018
TIME100 Health
TIME · 2024
Forbes 30 Under 30
Forbes · 2017
BBC 100 Women
BBC · 2014
Young Global Leader
World Economic Forum · 2022
Harvard Radcliffe Fellow
Harvard University · 2020–2021
100 Most Influential Women in Canadian History
Government of Canada · 2018
New York Times Thomson Reuters Trust Women Hero Award
Trust Women · 2013
MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bellagio Center Resident
The Rockefeller Foundation · 2024
Woman Inspiring Change
Harvard Law School · 2017 · Youngest Honoree
Lancet Profile
Lancet · 2024
Canada’s Woman of Impact
Government of Canada · 2021
WIN WIN Gothenburg Sustainability Award
WIN WIN Award · 2026
Aspen Institute Spotlight Scholar
Aspen Institute · 2017
Ashoka Fellow
Ashoka · 2014
James Joyce Award
University College Dublin · 2019
Nelson Mandela Changemaker
PTTOW! · 2018
Gender Equality Top 100 — Top 20
Apolitical · 2019
25 Under 25 — Young Women to Watch
Newsweek / Women in the World · 2013
CNN Leader
CNN · 2021
WIRED Global Thought Leader
WIRED
Marisa Bellisario Award — International Award
Fondazione Marisa Bellisario · 2013
Top 25 Women of Influence
Women of Influence · 2018
Voice of the Year
BlogHer / SheKnows Media · 2018
Global Hero
SAFE Magazine / Together for Girls · 2014
Canada’s 30×30
Bay Street Bull · 2017
Woman of the Year
MAX · 2019
Global Citizen Award
Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation · 2018
Global Goals Leader
Vanity Fair · 2023
The Architecture
Built to outlast the builder.
Proof in practice

Voice of Libyan Women

Trusted authority changes systems.

Dr. Murabit founded Voice of Libyan Women at 21 during the Libyan revolution—a movement across 35+ cities that made faith a tool for women’s rights rather than an argument against them.

Founded 2011 · Libya
Explore Voice of Libyan Women →

Every Pregnancy

Trust can mobilize capital.

Dr. Murabit created Every Pregnancy, formerly For Mama—the first zakat-approved Muslim philanthropic collaborative, building religious obligation into the architecture of how the world funds survival.

$130M+ faith-aligned capital
Explore Every Pregnancy →

The Beginnings Fund

Financing architecture reaches scale.

Originated by Dr. Murabit with $300 million in initial anchor funding—projected to save 300,000+ lives and built to reach 34 million mothers and babies.

$300M anchor funding
“The people closest to crisis are the architects of peace. That is the spine of everything I build.”
Dr. Alaa Murabit
The Person Behind the Work
The origin story

Medical school taught her how bodies fail. Libya taught her how countries do.

She was in her final year of medical school during the Libyan revolution. Women were keeping families, neighbourhoods and basic services functioning through bombardment—and being excluded from the rooms designing what came next.

She has spent the years since closing that distance.

How it started →
Dr. Alaa Murabit speaking in Libya during the revolution
Speaking in Libya during the revolution, at 21.
The official bio

Dr. Alaa Murabit is a physician, founder and security strategist. Over nearly two decades she has mobilized more than $40 billion in capital across 193 countries, shaped four UN Security Council processes, and helped architect the Sustainable Development Goals. At 21, during the Libyan revolution, she founded Voice of Libyan Women—a movement across 35+ cities that made faith a tool for women’s rights rather than an argument against them. She created Every Pregnancy (formerly For Mama), the first zakat-approved Muslim philanthropic collaborative, and originated The Beginnings Fund—models that together have mobilized more than $780 million for maternal and newborn health in three years. Today she is building the infrastructure countries need to finance resilience before the crisis—and serves as Board Chair of Girls Not Brides and Managing Partner at 500 Global. Her work was recognized by Human Rights Watch as a turning point in the global movement for women’s rights; her TED Talk has over 9 million views.

Speaking

Speaking that moves hearts & minds.

Power. Faith. Peace. Capital. Women. Security. And who still gets to make the decisions.

Security begins with survival

Human development, health and resilience as national-security architecture.

Who gets to decide?

Sovereignty, institutional power, fragile states and the location of judgment.

Sacred capital

Faith, trust, Islamic social finance and new architectures for financing human survival.

From TED to the United Nations, boardrooms to universities, she translates complex systems into arguments people can remember—and decisions they can act on.

Get in touch →
Dr. Alaa Murabit speaking on the TED stage
On the TED stage.
“One of the leading global-health and inclusive-security experts of her generation.”
Harvard Radcliffe Institute
“Widening the frame around women’s health—treating it as central to economies, security and functioning societies.”
TIME
“Among the women leaders who challenge norms, lift other women and girls, and change the country for the better.”
Justin Trudeau · then Prime Minister of Canada
Shift Notes
Shift Notes — Alaa’s field notes from inside the work: on capital, power, what is coming, and how we stay human inside it.

The defining problems of our time will not be solved by the systems that created them.

If you are working on survival, trust, or the architecture of peace—and you are serious about building what does not yet exist—I want to hear from you.

Start a conversation →