NDI's resident director in Afghanistan, Ans Zwerver joined the Institute as resident senior country director in Sudan-Khartoum in January 2010. Before joining NDI she spent three years as the OSCE mission director of policy and planning in Bosnia Herzegovina.

Ms. Zwerver has extensive experience in the international arena and has been involved in politics in her home country of the Netherlands as an active member of the Green Left Party. She served as a senator in the Dutch Parliament (Eerste Kamer der Staten Generaal) from 1995-2003. From 1999-2003 she was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and in that role contributed to a number of reports and motions within the Council of Europe.

Ms. Zwerver has considerable experience in international peace building efforts, and in particular with the organization and observation of elections in a post-conflict environment. She worked as an election expert for the European Union Observation Mission in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2009. In 2005 she was head of the field effice in Qom, Iran, for the out-of-country program for the Iraqi elections and returned to Afghanistan with the U.N. Office for Project Services to organize the parliamentary and provincial elections in Badghis, Afghanistan. She has observed elections in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Guatemala, Kosovo, Liberia, Moldova, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

In all her political functions and professional capacities, Ms. Zwerver has been dedicated to questions of gender equality, human rights, democracy, good governance and promotion of tolerance.

Ms. Zwerver holds a master's degree of development studies from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and is fluent in English, French and German.