Edna Adan

Edna Adan Ismail (Somali: Edna Aadan Ismaaciil or Adna Aadan Ismaaciil) (born September 8, 1937) is the former Foreign Minister of Somaliland Republic She held this office from 2003 until 2006, and had previously served as Somaliland's Minister of Family Welfare and Social Development. She is the director and founder of the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Hargeisa and an activist and pioneer in the struggle for the abolition of female genital mutilation. She is also President of the Organization for Victims of Torture.

She was married to Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal who was Head of Government in British Somaliland five days prior to Somalia's independence and later the Prime Minister of Somalia (1967–1969) and President of Somaliland (1993–2002).

Edna Adan was born in Hargeisa on September 8, 1937, the daughter of a prominent Somalilander medical doctor and was trained as a nurse in the United Kingdom at the Borough Polytechnic, now London South Bank University where she is said to be 'the first Somali girl' to study in Britain. Other claims by Ismail also include that she is Somalia's first qualified nurse-midwife and the first Somali woman to drive. She later married Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, a Somali politician who was elected Prime Minister of Somalia in 1967. Edna Adan started building a hospital in Mogadishu in the mid-1980s. However, before it was completed, the Somali Civil War began, and she was forced to leave the country. She was the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Nursing Adviser during 1986. From 1987 to 1991, she was Regional Technical Officer for Mother and Child Health, with responsibility for issues relating to harmful traditional practices which affect the health of women and children (such as female genital mutilation), and for training of midwives and Traditional Birth Attendants in the 22 countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region of WHO. Afterwards, she was the representative of WHO in Djibouti between 1991 and 1997.

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