Roya Rahmani

Before entering government, she worked for several nonprofits that primarily focused on women's rights and education. She received a bachelor’s degree in software engineering from McGill University in 2003 and a master’s degree in public administration and international law at Columbia University in 2009.

Rahmani spent several years working at nonprofits that focused on women's rights and education. At this time, her work focused particularly on family law reform in the Muslim context. She worked with Musawah to reform a marriage contract in Afghanistan to ensure more equitable family rights. Rahmani and Musawah "decided to prioritise the marriage contract because it seemed to be a feasible and practical remedy to secure the rights of women within families. Amending the family law required complex procedures, whereas the marriage contract only needed the Supreme Court’s approval”.

In May 2019, Rahmani criticized the Trump government after Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad engaged in direct talks with the Taliban, who have rejected engaging in talks with the Afghan government, saying "They are not our government, they are not our representatives" and that ending the war "should be decided by the people who are most affected by the process."

From June 2016-December 2018, Rahmani served as Afghanistan's first female ambassador to Indonesia, non-resident ambassador to Singapore, and first ever ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. She was the second woman appointed as an ambassador by President Ashraf Ghani, after he vowed to give women more leadership positions. She said Muslim women could introduce a narrative of a "dynamic Muslim", proving that religion is not a static force.

On 14 December 2018, Rahmani was appointed Ambassador to the United States by President Ghani, the first woman to hold the position. She took up the post just as President Trump announced his intention to withdraw troops from her country. She said, "women have been treated like a minority, but they are not a minority. Together, the women and the youth are actually a majority, and they are not willing to give up their rights. They are not willing to compromise their human rights and go back to the old days." She replaced Hamdullah Mohib, who had resigned three months earlier to become National Security Advisor.

Rahmani is married and has one daughter, born in 2014. She is a Muslim. She is a fluent in Dari, Pashto, and English, and has a basic understanding of Urdu and French.

Previously, she worked for Afghanistan's Ministry of Education as a Planning and Evaluation Advisor (2011). She later joined Ministry of Foreign Affairs, first as a senior advisor to the Deputy Foreign Minister (2011), then as Director General of Regional Cooperation Initiatives (2012-2016).

Rahmani joined the Afghan government, first in the Ministry of Education, then as a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Foreign Minister in 2011. From 2012-2016, she served as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General for Regional Cooperation. In this role she initiated and promoted important regional cooperation initiatives, like the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process.

In 2009, she completed a master's degree in public administration and international law at Columbia University in New York. She was a Fulbright scholar.

During this time Rahmani worked on a marriage document that secured equitable rights for the family and contributed to data collection at a national level. She received the Best Human Rights Activist Award from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in 2007 for her work on this document.

After graduating with her bachelor's degree in 2004, Rahmani returned to Afghanistan and worked for several Canadian nonprofits focusing on human rights, women’s empowerment, and education. She also worked part-time as a subject matter expert with the NATO Joint Forces Training Center, and a consultant to the New York Department of Education, the United Nations Secretariat in New York, the Department of Trade and International Affairs of Canada, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, Women Living under Muslim Laws, and other INGOs.

Rahmani returned to Kabul in 1998, but refused to leave the house rather than put on a burqa as the Taliban required. In 1999, she received a scholarship from the World University Service of Canada and went to McGill University, where she completed a bachelor's degree in software engineering. After graduating in 2004, Rahmani returned to Afghanistan and worked for various nonprofits, eventually deciding to alter her career focus and return to school. She says "It became like a mission in my life that if I could do anything, anything, to stop a bomb from going off and killing people, or even a person, if I could do that, my mission in life is completed."

Roya Rahmani (born May 1978) is an Afghan diplomat who has served as Afghanistan's first female ambassador to the United States and non-resident ambassador to Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic since December 2018. From 2016-2018, she served as Afghanistan's first female ambassador to Indonesia, first ever ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and non-resident ambassador to Singapore.

Rahmani was born in Kabul in 1978, a year before Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. After the Soviets left in 1989, the country descended into civil war. Her school was closed for months at a time due to the missiles hitting the city. In 1993, her family fled to Pakistan. She recalls “Starting in the ’90s, there was famine and drought, and during the 1992-96 civil war, we were literally pushed out of our homes. I remember our family hugging each other, thinking this would be the last night of our lives”.