Dr. Amer Bani Amer is the Founder and General Director of Al-Hayat Center for Civil Society Development-RASED, which since 2006 has been an active and influential CSO based in Jordan. Under his leadership, Hayat Center implements a variety of programs focusing on legislative reform, enhancing governmental transparency and accountability, equal distribution of wealth, and good governance and the rule of law.

Dr. Bani Amer successfully leads Hayat’s well-known Program “Monitoring Elections and the Performance of the Elected Councils “RASED”. A key achievement of this program was the implementation of processes unique to the MENA region with regards to voter list verification and parallel vote tabulation (PVT). In the “RASED for Monitoring the Performance of the Parliament” program, Dr. Bani Amer was spearheading the development of a scorecard evaluation methodology using qualitative and quantitative indicators.
Profound legislative expertise was applied by Dr. Bani Amer in the continuous analysis of the Local Council and Municipal draft laws produced by the Jordanian government and lobbying for amendments thereto, contributing to the reformulation of the Local Councils bylaw to Law mid-2014.
As member of civil society and stakeholder, Al Hayat Center was approached by the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in 2012 to research and publish the biannual Independent Reporting Mechanism report on the government of Jordan’s adherence to and compliance with the First Action Plan it published in accordance with the stipulations of the OGP in the same year. Dr. Bani Amer completed the first IRM report in 2013 as a result of intensive desk and field research efforts.
His expertise is called upon frequently in the giving of trainings on election monitoring, parliament monitoring, and local governance, but also on broader topics such as combating poverty through local development work. Under his leadership, Dr. Bani Amer ensures rural areas of the Kingdom are focused on in all its projects including working towards enhancing women rights and participation, and addressing the issue if poverty pockets.
As Subject Matter Expert, Dr. Bani Amer regionally and internationally provides consulting services and works with a variety of actors such as the National Democratic Institute, Henrich Boll Stiftung, GIZ Brussels, Global Partners Associates Ltd., the Carter Center, Chemonics International, and OECD to name but a few. He also contributed to building the capacity of different CSOs and domestic observers groups and Parliament Monitoring Organizations (PMOs) in many countries including Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Sudan and Morocco within his field of expertise. Moreover, He also participated in monitoring missions to South Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
Dr. Bani Amer obtained his PhD in Participation in the Sustainable Development Process in Jordan – from the Institute for Environment and Development, from UKM, Malaysia, and holds a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning and Chemical Engineering from Jordan University for Science and Technology.