Seida Saric

Seida Saric serves as the Director of Žene za Žene International Association Sarajevo, an independent local organization dedicated to women’s empowerment, in association with Women for Women International. She previously served as the first Country Director for any Women for Women International country program from 1998 to 2015, managing programs that served nearly 62,000 women in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1993 to 2015.

Under Ms. Saric’s leadership, Women for Women International developed its yearlong program to provide women vocational and business skills training, rights awareness, health education, and emotional and financial support. She also pioneered a successful microcredit program that provided loans to nearly 30,000 women totaling more than USD $55 million. In places like Srebrenica, she has worked to bridge religious and ethnic divides between communities and to rebuild trust through joint programming for women.

Ms. Saric is a frequent guest at seminars and conferences around the world advocating for gender equality. Her portfolio of experience includes work in Care International and Save the Children and her educational background spans from engineering to business.