Suhailah Akbari, born in September 1990 in Takhar Afghanistan, is Director for International and Regional Cooperation at the Legal Unit of the President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and an associate professor of law at Takhar University where she teaches Afghanistan’s trade and financial laws and international trade law courses. She holds a bachelor’s in law from Kabul University, an LL.M through Fulbright Scholarship from the University of Washington and a PhD in law from Passau University in Germany. Ms. Akbari's legal expertise surrounds Afghanistan's foreign trade legal regime and the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). She also is a lawyer holding Afghanistan’s bar Association’s certificate, civil society and women rights activist and advocates for gender equality. She has used her lawyering and professorship career to promote the right to equal higher education for girls in Takhar and has received multiple awards for her social and women rights activism. She has also worked in various positions with national and international organizations such as with the GIZ, Moore Afghanistan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan as a consultant, and with the Counterpart International Organization as a capacity building master trainer.