Casa Asia Award 2021, Fawzia Koofi, was born in Badakhshan, Afghanistan in 1975. She has a degree in Political Science and Law by Kabul University, and a master's degree in International Relations by the Diplomatic University of Geneva. She is a parliamentarian and activist for women's rights and girls' education.

She began her political career in 2001 after the defeat of the Taliban regime in power in Afghanistan, from 1996 until its fall, caused by the military invasion of NATO in October 2001. In 2005 she obtained the deputy act in the first legislative elections that were organised in Afghanistan by Badakhshan, their native province. She obtained her seat, becoming the first Afghan elected vice president of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the National Assembly, and also chaired the Parliament's Committee on Women's Affairs, Civil Society and Human Rights, playing an active role in enactment of protection laws for women and children, in particular the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women and the Law on the Protection of Children in Afghanistan. In 2019, she founded the Movement for Change party since they did not let her run for reelection.

Starting in 2001, Koofi helped women make progress in their country since the Taliban government's ban on being able to go to school, work, engage in politics or go out without a male relative.

Due to her political trajectory in defense of women's rights and her commitment to the education of girls, she has received numerous death threats and has survived two assassination attempts, the first in 2010, claimed by the Taliban, and the second in August 2020. Despite this, this defender of peace and human rights has sat down to negotiate with the Taliban: she was the first Afghan person to participate in the dialogue table between the Taliban and the United States in Moscow in 2019, and one of the four women who participated in the Doha peace negotiations in 2020, wearing her right arm in a cast, due to a gunshot wound sustained during the assassination attempt that took place just weeks earlier.

Widow and mother of two teenagers, her work earned her a Young Global Leader designation by the World Economic Forum and one of the candidates for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

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