Raya Haffar al-Hassan

Position: Finance Minister

Biography: Lebanon’s first prominent female cabinet minister, Raya Haffar al-Hassan, is one of the new appointees to the coalition cabinet.

A close confidante of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, she previously led a UN development programme aimed at supporting decision-making at the office of the prime minister. Al-Hassan belongs to Hariri’s Future Movement and, as such, is the leading Sunni member of the cabinet.

The 43-year-old mother of three has taken on one of the toughest briefs in government – managing the country’s massive public debt and ensuring that key targets adopted in 2007 under Lebanon’s Paris III debt commitments are delivered.

She is expected to be a proponent of privatisation. Al-Hassan worked on the government’s economic and social reform agenda under the Paris II and Paris III International Donor Conferences, and in the 1990s advised finance ministers.

Contact: (+961) 1 642758/9