Aleksandra (Sasha) Pajevic directs NDI’s office and programs in Albania. Sasha joined the Tirana-based team in 2006 from the Institute’s Yemen office where she worked for 18 months as an expert on women's political leadership and political party development programs. While working out of NDI’s Sana’a office, Sasha designed and implemented program activities that built on the Institute’s work with political party leaders and furthered women’s political participation. In addition, she helped lead a small team of talented and experienced national and expatriate staff; oversaw fiscally responsible program spending; and served as a liaison with the donor community, political parties, the Yemen government, local non-governmental organizations, the U.S. embassy and USAID.
Previous to Yemen, Ms. Pajevic directed NDI’s youth leadership program in her native Montenegro and focused on programs to develop accountable, broadly based and well-organized political parties. Upon joining the Institute’s Podgorica office in 2000, Ms. Pajevic worked with the non-governmental organization Center for Democratic Transition on domestic election monitoring and also contributed to NDI’s political research projects.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Pajevic served, first, as interpreter and later as senior administrative officer at the Harley Street Clinic in London. From 1992 to 1994, she was a commercial manager at the KKM Ltd., an export-import company in London. For six years before that post, Ms. Pajevic worked as an Arab language interpreter in Tripoli, Ljubljana, Cairo and Podgorica for a number of state-owned companies and Yugoslav state institutions.
Ms. Pajevic earned a BA in Arabic Language and Literature from the University in Belgrade in 1986 and an MA in Near and Middle East Studies (History, Politics and Economy) at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London in 1998.
