Sayara International (also known as Sayara Media and Communication and Sayara Strategies) is an international research and public relations firm based in Vienna, Virginia that works with governments, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations.

Background

Sayara International (also known as Sayara Media and Communication and Sayara Strategies) was founded on December 1, 2003 as a for-profit limited liability partnership and is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia with field offices in Khartoum, Kyiv, and Nairobi, and with additional support offices in Dubai, Istanbul, London, and Marseille. ^{1 2}

Services

Evaluation

Sayara International offers clients monitoring, evaluation, and research services oriented around allowing organizations to better understand and demonstrate the effectiveness of their activity to their donors and ostensibly served populations. According to Sayara’s website, these services can allow their clients to understand and demonstrate the effectiveness of their activities in environments including refugee camps, war zones, rural communities, and developing-country capital cities. Projects that the organization has worked on include measuring the effectiveness of humanitarian organizations in settlements in Lebanon, the migrant crisis in Eastern Africa, and Afghanistan. ³

Public Relations

Sayara International offers its government and institutional clients media relations services wherein the organization works with national broadcasters, social media influencers, radio programs, television dramas, and mobile theater groups to promote given pieces of information and issue-campaigns. On its website, the organization particularly cites its ability to help clients “address social issues,” such as migration, public health, and elections. ⁴

Afghanistan Flights

Though Sayara International is a for-profit firm, in August 2021, the Rockefeller Foundation made a grant to the organization of $485,000 to cover costs associated with flights to evacuate vulnerable civilians from Afghanistan in the wake of the United States’s withdrawal of troops from the country. According to a report from Newsweek, though the firm did indeed arrange planes to fly out 1,000 such Afghans, U.S. Marines guarding the airport refused to let some of the passengers slotted for given flights into the gate area due to security concerns. For instance, though one chartered plane had 345 seats, only 50 passengers were able to board. ^{5 6}

Clients and Partners

Clients and partners of Sayara International include the United States Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of State, World Bank, Asia Foundation, UK Aid, Yale University, Gallup, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, Blumont, Expertise France, Tetra Tech, and MercyCorps. ⁷

Leadership

Scott Shadian is the chief executive officer of Sayara International. Previously, he was a White House aide, senior communications advisor to two United States ambassadors in Afghanistan, an employee of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Transitional Initiatives in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Pakistan, and a communications advisor to Zain Telecommunications in Iraq. ⁸

Fareed Payaam is the president of Sayara International. Previously, he served as a senior program manager at USAID, political advisor with the Disarmament and Reintegration Commission of Afghanistan, and public information officer with the International Organization for Migration in Afghanistan. ⁹

George Abi-Habib is the corporate affairs officer of Sayara International. Previously, he worked with Viacom’s broadcasting arm, OSN Network (originally Showtime Networks); taught marketing and entrepreneurship at EMDI in Dubai; and lectured at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. ¹⁰

1. “Who We Are.” Sayara International. Accessed November 13, 2023.  https://sayarainternational.com/who-we-are/
2. “Sayara Strategies · Sayara Media & Communication.” OpenGovUS. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://opengovus.com/sam-entity/HL3QMLQTQ7V6
3. “What We Do.” Sayara International. Accessed November 13, 2023.

   https://sayarainternational.com/what-we-do/

4.  “What We Do.” Sayara International. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://sayarainternational.com/what-we-do/
5. Villarreal, Daniel. “Private Company Charging $6k for Flights Out of Afghanistan as Other Planes Leave Empty.” Newsweek. August 25, 2021. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://www.newsweek.com/private-company-charging-6k-flights-out-afghanistan-other-planes-leave-empty-1623144
6. “Sayara International.” Rockefeller Foundation. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/grant/sayara-international-2021-5/
7. “Who We Are.” Sayara International. Accessed November 13, 2023.

   https://sayarainternational.com/who-we-are/

8. ^[1] Archived: “Our Team: Scott Shadian.” Sayara International. March 10, 2021. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20210310110224/https://sayarainternational.com/our-team/
9. Archived: “Our Team: Fareed Payaam.” Sayara International. March 10, 2021. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20210310110224/https://sayarainternational.com/our-team/
10. Archived: “Our Team: George Abi-Habib.” Sayara International. March 10, 2021. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20210310110224/https://sayarainternational.com/our-team/