Afghan Biographies

Dalil, Soraya


Name Dalil, Soraya
Ethnic backgr. Uzbek
Date of birth 1970
Function/Grade Ex Ambassador
History and Biodata

2. Previous Functions:
Suraiya Dalil was the Minister designate Health 20100109, but was not confirmed by Wolesi Jirga 20100116.
Suraya Dalil Planning Deputy Minister and acting Minister (20100118),
nominated again as Minister MoPH (20120215)
Soraya Dalil Minister of Public Health MoPH (20120305 -20140930)
Suraya Dalil acting Minister (20140930)
Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations Office at Geneva (20151102)

3. Biodata:
dalil_drMrs. Suraya Dalil Suraiya Suraya Daleel Soraia was born 1970 in Kabul and went to medical school in Afghanistan in the late 1980s Dalil’s family remained in Kabul until she graduated from medical school in 1991.

Her parents were both teachers at the Kabul Teachers’ Training College and both worked in the education sector for many years. She graduated from Zarghona High School in Kabul in 1985 and studied medicine at Kabul Medical University (1986-1991). She graduated with highest honors and first in her class from KMU in Dec. 1991. In 1992, she began residency training in general surgery at Ali Abad Hospital where she worked for less than a year when she was forced to leave Kabul because of intense fighting and insecurity. Just months after she graduated from the Kabul Medical Institute the Najibullah regime fell and the Mujahedin took over. Dalil is said to be a Abdul Rashid Dostum confident.

Dalil moved more than 150 miles north with her parents, two sisters, and two brothers to Mazar-e-Sharif. Based in Mazar-e-Sharif, she worked (1992-1993) as an emergency physician for Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres), caring for refugees from neighboring war-torn Tajikistan. Then, as a medical officer (1993-1994) for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), she established a clinic at a transit center for refugees returning from Pakistan and Iran. The IOM program shut down as weather and a lack of security made traveling too difficult, and Dalil took a job with UNICEF Mazar-e-Sharif, where she has worked on immunization and nutrition initiatives (1995) for the last decade.

During those difficult years, she became familiar with the work of UNICEF in the field. She eventually joined the UNICEF sub-office in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1994, and started conducting nutritional surveys and immunization campaigns in camps for displaced people in the northern regions.

When the Taliban reached Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998, she was forced to flee. This time, she decided on short notice to leave the country. Dalil's family, which now included her husband and the first of two daughters, fled to Islamabad, Pakistan (19998-2002). Over the next few years, Dalil, wearing a burkha and accompanied by her husband, regularly traveled over the border to Afghan hospitals, where she ran training sessions in primary care for midwives and doctors, most of them women.

After the U.S. helped oust the Taliban from power in 2002, Dalil returned to Kabul, where she and her husband rebuilt the nearly destroyed apartment she had grown up in. In the role of Safe Motherhood project officer for UNICEF, she co-authored (2002-2003) a maternal mortality study sponsored by the new Afghan government's Ministry of Health, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2003, she left Afghanistan for a year to attend the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States. She has master’s degree in public health from Harvard University, and thereafter returned to Afghanistan 20050627, when she continued with UNICEF/Afghanistan’s health program as head of Policy and Training.

In July 2007, she left Afghanistan for UNICEF/Somalia where she served as Chief of the Health and Nutrition Program until Dec. 2009. She was the Acting and later nominated Minister of Public Health.(20111227). The Afghan parliament approved nominated minister in the 20120305 session. Dr. Suraya Dalil winning 196 votes got the post of Public Health Minister.

Suraya Dalil is the new Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations Office at Geneva. She presented her credentials on 20151102 to Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and to Johann Schneider-Ammann, President of the Swiss Confederation.(20160115)

Mrs. Dalil has been nominated for UNHCR secretary general’s deputy position.(20190612)

She is mother of three.

Dalil speaks Uzbek, Dari and English..

Last Modified 2019-08-22
Established 2010-01-09