Dr Omar Abdul-Monem Rifai is Director-General of the WANA Institute,as well as Senior Advisor to HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan.

From 2015 until 2017, he was Director of the Arab Affairs Unit and the Representative of the Commissioner-General at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Amman. Prior to that, Dr Rifai was Secretary-General of the Jordanian Foreign Ministry (twice), President of the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy, and the first Executive Director of the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) Forum.

Dr Rifai joined the Jordan's Diplomatic Service in 1975 and served in its missions in Cairo,Bern,New York,London and Washington between 1976 and 1994. From 1994 to 1996, he held the positions of Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Director of the Special Bureau at the Foreign Ministry in Amman. He was also a member of the Jordanian delegation to the Jordan-Israel peace talks in 1994. In 1996, Dr Rifai was sworn in as Ambassador,and till 2008 he headed Jordan’s diplomatic missions in Israel, Italy and Egypt, and was also Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the Arab League in Cairo. From 2003 until 2005, and from 2009 until 2019, he was a part-time lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at various universities in Jordan, as well as regularly lecturing foreign students in Study Abroad Programs. Dr Rifai holds a number of Jordanian and foreign decorations.The career diplomat is a graduate of Harvard and Georgetown Universities.