Edy Semaan

Edy Semaan joined CGAP in August 2020 as the Arabic FinDev Gateway Editor. He is in charge of content development and promotion, knowledge and outreach partnership management with key institutions, and the organization of online peer engagement for financial inclusion practitioners and policymakers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Edy has over 7 years of experience in news reporting, news editing, and public communications. He worked at The Daily Star Lebanon as a junior reporter on the Lebanon desk team, covering a range of front-page stories on the latest political and cultural developments from Beirut to the borders with Syria. He also has a range of experiences in policy writing and analysis, including at the European Parliament on the team of MP Eva Kaili and at the Center For Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as part of the Europe Program. Before joining CGAP, Edy was a Government Relations and Communications Fellow at the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C. Over the course of his academic and professional careers, Edy has been the recipient of several awards, including a U.S. State Department’s Global UGRAD Award in 2013 and a David Rubin First Amendment Prize in 2018.

Edy holds an M.A. in International Relations and an M.S. in Public Relations from Syracuse University in New York. He majored in Journalism and Media at the Lebanese University in Beirut. He is fluent in Arabic, French, and English. When not sourcing or editing content for the Arabic Gateway, Edy is busy reading and writing about Middle East politics with a focus on his home country of Lebanon.