Tuesday 4 June
The Power of Now: Taking stock of where we stand and what opportunities and challenges lie ahead
We first need to map where the world stands on gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women before we can chart a path forward. With evidence and data, optimism and realism, The Power of Now will apply a gender lens and explore progress…
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau is Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister. He also serves as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of Youth. Trudeau’s vision of Canada is a country where everyone has a real and fair chance to succeed. His experiences as a teacher, father, leader, and advocate for youth have shaped his dedication to Canadians – and his commitment to make Canada a place where everyone has the opportunities they need to thrive.
Before entering politics, Trudeau spent several years teaching French, math, and other subjects in Vancouver. Teaching allowed him to make a positive impact in the lives of young people. He remains committed to hearing the voices of young Canadians, from the classroom to Parliament Hill.
Trudeau entered politics to make change that would better serve all Canadians. In 2007, he built a community-based, grassroots campaign to win the Liberal Party nomination in the Montréal riding of Papineau. He was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2011 and 2015. Justin was elected Leader of the Liberal Party in April 2013. His leadership campaign focused on building a new, truly national movement of progressive Canadians, bringing hundreds of thousands of Canadians into politics, most for the first time. He worked closely with his team to build a plan to create jobs, grow the economy, and strengthen the middle class. With Trudeau’s leadership, the Liberal plan emphasized fair economic opportunity for everyone, respect for and promotion of freedom and diversity, and a more democratic government that truly represents Canadians.
As Prime Minister, Trudeau leads a government that works hard every day to build an economy that works for the middle class and people working hard to join it. His team is focused on creating new jobs, fostering strength out of Canada’s rich diversity, fighting climate change, and achieving reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. A strong feminist, Trudeau appointed Canada’s first gender balanced Cabinet.
Trudeau is husband to Sophie Grégoire, a former Quebec TV and radio host. They married in 2005 and are the proud parents of Xavier, Ella-Grace, and Hadrien.
Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Together with Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund founded Gapminder in 2005. Gapminder’s mission statement is to fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based world view everyone can understand.
She designed the user-interface of the famous animating bubble-chart tool called Trendalyzer, used by millions of students across the world, to understand global development trends. The tool was acquired by Google, and Anna worked at Google in Mountain View, CA as a Senior Usability Designer 2007 to 2010. At Google Anna improved search results for public data, developed data exploration tools for Public Data and made a bubble tool gadget (Motion chart) in Google Spreadsheets. In 2010 Anna came back to Gapminder to develop new free teaching material. Anna is now Vice President and Head of Design & User Experience at Gapminder. She also sits in the Gapminder Board. Anna holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology and a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography.
Anna founded Dollar Street, the biggest systematic image bank with representative home documentations based on data. At the moment we have almost 30 000 photos and 10 000 video clips, which are free to use under Creative Common license.
Together with Ola and Hans, Anna wrote the Factfulness book, launched in April 2018.
Isha Sesay
Isha Sesay is a multiaward-winning CNN journalist, who has covered every major story of the past 10 years – with a particular focus on stories of social injustice and their impact on women and girls, as well as other marginalized communities. She is also the Founder and President of W.E. (Women Everywhere) Can Lead, a non-profit organization working in her native country of Sierra Leone, to nurture and empower teenage girls to become Africa’s next generation of dynamic female leaders. Sesay is currently putting the finishing touches on her first book, which details the mass abduction of the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by the Boko Haram terror group in 2014. Their plight generated countless headlines around the world and the hashtag, #BringBackOurgirls. Harper Collins will publish the as-yet unnamed title, next year.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is a South African politician and United Nations official, and is currently serving as the Executive Director of UN Women with the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka has devoted her career to issues of human rights, equality and social justice. She has worked in government and civil society, with the private sector, and was actively involved in the struggle to end apartheid in her home country of South Africa. Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka began her career as a teacher and gained international experience as a coordinator at the World YWCA in Geneva, where she established a global programme for young women. She is the founder of the Umlambo Foundation, which supports leadership and education. A longtime champion of women’s rights, she is affiliated with several organizations devoted to education, women’s empowerment and gender equality.
The Honourable Maryam Monsef
The Honourable Maryam Monsef is the Member of Parliament for Peterborough—Kawartha, and Canada’s Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality.
After running for Mayor of Peterborough in 2014, she became the first woman to be elected in the federal riding of Peterborough—Kawartha, the first Afghan-Canadian Member of Parliament in Canada’s history, and the first Muslim to serve as a federal Cabinet Minister.
Drawing on her years of experience in community organizing, Minister Monsef has worked with local organizations, including the YWCA of Peterborough and Haliburton Board of Directors, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group, and the New Canadians Centre. She has served as the Vice-President of the YWCA in her riding, and sat on a number of councils and committees dedicated to promoting social and economic justice. She also founded the Red Pashmina Campaign, which raised money to support education for women and girls in Afghanistan.
As Minister for Women and Gender Equality, she has led Status of Women Canada’s transition from agency to the new Department for Women and Gender Equality, and has secured major investments in Canada’s equality-seeking movement, including over $200 million to help prevent and address gender-based violence, and $100 million to build the capacity of women’s organizations from coast to coast to coast. She launched the first-ever federal gender-based violence strategy, has worked with the Minister of Finance to ensure that all federal budgets have to undergo a gender budgeting process; and partnered with the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour and the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government to create and pass historic proactive pay equity legislation to ensure equal pay for work of equal value in the federally regulated sector.
Minister Monsef has lived in Peterborough since 1996, and has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Trent University. She speaks English, Farsi and Dari, and continues to work on her French.
Joannie Marlene Bewa
Joannie Marlene Bewa is a physician, researcher, and sexual and reproductive health advocate. She was recently named a United Nations Young Leader for the SDGs by the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. She founded in Benin Republic, the Young Beninese Leaders Association (YBLA), a youth and women-led organization, which among other achievements empowered and trained more than 10,000 youth, girls, and women through capacity-building, mentoring on sexuality education, reproductive health, leadership, and entrepreneurship and was awarded the First Lady Michelle Obama Young African Women Leaders Grant. Joannie is also a public health researcher at the College of Public Health, University of South Florida and is advancing scientific research for women’s health.
Joannie works to advance women’s rights and health through her many roles and affiliations: board member for Merck for Mothers, Women Deliver Young Leader (Class of 2016), founding member of the UNFPA Youth Panel Benin, and member of the Adolescent and Youth Constituency of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, Children’s Health (PMNCH) hosted by the World Health Organization.
Joannie was featured by Melinda Gates’ on her list of six influential women on the topic of global access to contraception in 2016, recently recognized as a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeeper and a ONE Campaign Woman of the Year. She supported global advocacy alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on International Women’s Day for a commitment of 650 million dollars for women’s health globally and is one the spokesperson of the ONE Campaign Open Letter for women’s right which reached over 150,000 signatures in few days.
Winnie Byanyima
Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director at Oxfam International, is a global authority on economic inequality and women’s rights. Born in Mbarara, Uganda, her activism was inspired by the brave women in her village. She continues to support women’s rights struggles worldwide. Winnie formerly led the directorates of gender and development at the UN Development Programme and the African Union Commission, and served in the Ugandan Parliament for 11 years.
Ms. Byanyima is a signatory to her country’s 1985 peace agreement and has helped to broker and support women’s participation in peace processes in several African countries. As part of her drive to bring women’s perspectives into core development issues, she co-founded the Global Gender and Climate Alliance and chaired UN-wide task forces on gender aspects of the Millennium Development Goals and climate change.
Ms. Byanyima has served on numerous global boards and commissions and is currently a member of the Executive Board of the International Centre for Research on Women. She holds a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in Energy Conservation and the Environment (University of Cranfield, UK), and a B.Sc. in Aeronautical Engineering (University of Manchester, UK).
- Date
- Tuesday 4 June
- Location
- Plenary Hall, Vancouver Convention Center
- Hours
- 8:30 am - 10:00 am PST
- Speakers
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
- Anna Rosling Rönnlund
- Isha Sesay
- Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
- The Honourable Maryam Monsef
- Joannie Marlene Bewa
- Winnie Byanyima
- Ken Frazier
- Peter Sands
- Tags
- Plenary
The Power of Now: Taking stock of where we stand and what opportunities and challenges lie ahead
We first need to map where the world stands on gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women before we can chart a path forward. With evidence and data, optimism and realism, The Power of Now will apply a gender lens and explore progress made and setbacks faced in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We will open with a grounding presentation, then have a dynamic discussion between leaders from civil society, the UN, government, and private sector, on opportunities and challenges ahead.
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Opening: The Right Honourable Justin P.J. Trudeau, Prime Minister, Government of Canada
- Introduced by Maryam Monsef, Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Government of Canada
Presentation: Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Founder, Dollarstreet, Co-Founder, Gapminder
Moderator: Isha Sesay, Founder, W.E. Can Lead Foundation, former journalist, CNN
Panel:
- Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Executive Director, UN Women
- Maryam Monsef, Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Government of Canada
- Joannie Marlene Bewa, Young Beninese Leaders Association
- Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International
- Ken Frazier, Chairman of the Board & CEO, Merck + Co., Inc.
- Peter Sands, Executive Director, The Global Fund to Fights AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
Delivering for Girls and Women Award
The Power of Data and Accountability: Girls and women count, must be counted, and counted in
Reliable, timely, and gender disaggregated data collection and management are critical tools to help citizens and advocates hold governments accountable. Achieving progress for girls and women – and thereby all – is dependent upon accurate, gender…
- Organization
- Deliver for Good Influencer
Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary
The Crown Princess is a passionate advocate for health, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. She is committed to creating awareness, respect and ensuring compliance of women and girls´ sexual and reproductive health and rights, including access to family planning and the reduction of maternal and child mortality.
Crown Princess Mary was a member of the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development and serves as patron of several international organizations and agencies, including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe, but also a number of Danish NGOs: Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and Maternity Worldwide.
The Crown Princess is also an Influencer of Women Deliver’s ‘Deliver for Good Campaign’ and is a member of the ICRW Leadership Council. The Crown Princess was patron of the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen in 2016.
In 2007 the Crown Princess founded The Mary Foundation with the mission of fighting social isolation. Under her leadership the foundation brings together untraditional partners to develop and manage projects and programs that focus on prevention, the creation of opportunities and empowering vulnerable individuals and groups who find themselves socially isolated. The foundation’s focus areas are: domestic violence, bullying and wellbeing and loneliness.
Crown Princess Mary is also patron of the Global Fashion Agenda and an advocate for sustainability in fashion. She is a frequent speaker at international conferences and an honorary member of various associations and societies.
Julie Gichuru
Julie Gathoni Sumira Gichuru is a Kenyan entrepreneur and media personality with investments in media, fashion retail and entertainment sectors. She is an Independent Director at Acumen Communication Limited and is a Fellow and trustee of the Africa Leadership Initiative EA. Julie’s career in the media spans over the past 19 years and has seen her work across the fields of broadcast, print and digital media. Julie has also pioneered an impressive number of television shows, from the first Kenyan investigative TV series, The Inside Story on Kenya Television Network to various current affairs shows at NTV (Kenya) including political and current affairs programs Showdown, On the Spot, You The Jury and The People’s Voice, the celebrated news program Sunday Live, peace and reconciliation program Fist to Five at Citizen TV and the celebrated post-election peace special Voices of Reason.
Through Arimus Media Limited Julie now oversees the production of quality African content such as Africa Leadership Dialogues, the Great Debaters Contest and entertainment series such as Maisha, Glam Show, Trading Bell, The Code and Shinda Washinde.
Alison Holder
Alison Holder is Director of Equal Measures 2030, an independent civil society and private sector-led partnership that connects data and evidence with advocacy and action, helping to fuel progress towards gender equality. The partnership is a joint effort of leading regional and global organizations from civil society and the development and private sectors, including: the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Data2X, the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), KPMG International, ONE Campaign, Plan International and Women Deliver.
Alison has nearly 20 years’ experience working in international development and the private sector, including leading policy, advocacy and campaigning work on issues ranging from inequality, tax justice, accountability, and corporate responsibility at Action Aid, Oxfam, and Save the Children. She has also worked on livelihoods projects with women’s groups in India and small business development in South Africa. Prior to working in the development sector, Alison worked in corporate social responsibility and business strategy consulting at Accenture.
Alison has an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and an undergraduate degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business in Canada.
Hon Julia Gillard
Julia Gillard served as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia from 2010-13. As Prime Minister and in her previous role as Deputy Prime Minister, Ms. Gillard was central to the successful management of Australia’s economy, the 12th biggest in the world, during the Global Financial Crisis. Ms. Gillard delivered nation-changing policies including reforming Australian education at every level, from early childhood to university education, and commenced the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities.
Ms. Gillard is the first woman to ever serve as Australia’s Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. In October 2012, Ms. Gillard received worldwide attention for her speech in Parliament on the treatment of women in professional and public life.
In April 2018, Ms. Gillard was appointed Inaugural Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at Kings College, London. In 2014, Ms Gillard was appointed chair of the Global Partnership for Education, a leading organization dedicated to expanding access and quality education worldwide. Ms. Gillard is a non-resident Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Dr. Ephraim Kisangala
Ephraim is a young Ugandan medical doctor with demonstrated experience providing healthcare in rural and urban parts of Africa. Through a local organization, he initiated mobile medical outreach programs in rural Uganda while mentoring future professionals to embrace community healthcare.
He is a Women Deliver Young Leader (Class of 2016) who has contributed to several policy documents and programs on reproductive health, menstrual health, and public health in general. He was recently credited for his work on menstrual health by The Duchess of Sussex, HRH Meghan Markle. He has also been a recipient of several awards such as the Windle Trust International Scholarship Award and Global Voices Award.
Ephraim has held several leadership positions, including chairing Africa's medical students umbrella body (FAMSA) when he was a medical student. He is currently completing a master’s degree in Public Health from Bangor University, UK under the Commonwealth Scholarship.
Gabriela Ramos
As Chief of Staff and OECD Sherpa to the G7 /G20, Gabriela Ramos supports the Secretary-General’s Strategic Agenda, and is responsible for the Organisation’s contributions to the global agenda, including G20, G7, APEC. She leads the Inclusive Growth and the New Approaches to Economic Challenges initiatives and oversees the OECD’s work on Employment and Social Affairs (including gender).
In recognition of her efforts on gender equality, Ms. Ramos was awarded the Forbes prize for Entrepreneurial Excellence in June 2017. She was decorated with the Ordre du Merit by the President of France in 2013. In May 2018, she was included in Apolitical’s Gender Equality Top 100: The Most Influential People In Global Policy.
Previously, Ms. Ramos was Head of the OECD Office in Mexico and Latin America, prior to which she held positions in the Mexican Government, including Director of Economic Affairs (and OECD issues) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Technical Secretary at the Office of the Minister for the Budget. She held positions as Professor of International Economy at the Universidad Iberoamericana and at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Ms. Ramos holds an MA in Public Policy from Harvard University, and was a Fulbright and Ford MacArthur fellow.
Jayathma Wickramanayake
Ms. Jayathma Wickramanayake was appointed as the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth in June 2017 at the age of 26. In this role, Jayathma works to expand the UN’s youth engagement and advocacy efforts across all four pillars of work – sustainable development, human rights, peace and security and humanitarian action – and serves as a representative of and advisor to the Secretary-General.
Originally from Sri Lanka, Ms. Wickramanayake has worked extensively on youth development and participation, and has played a key role in transforming the youth development sector in her home country.
Prior to taking up her post, Ms. Wickramanayake was instrumental in creating the movement for civic and political engagement of young people, especially young women in Sri Lanka named “Hashtag Generation”. Previously, she advocated for global youth development on an international level including as the first ever Sri Lankan Youth Delegate to the United Nations and as the youth lead negotiator and member of the International Youth Task Force of the World Conference on Youth 2014 where she played a critical role in mainstreaming youth in the Post-2015 Process and in the establishment of World Youth Skills Day.
- Date
- Tuesday 4 June
- Location
- Plenary Hall, Vancouver Convention Center
- Hours
- 10:30 am - 12:00 pm PST
- Speakers
- Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary
- Julie Gichuru
- Alison Holder
- Hon Julia Gillard
- Dr. Ephraim Kisangala
- Gabriela Ramos
- Jayathma Wickramanayake
- Joy Phumaphi
- Osvaldo Cristian Rudloff Pulgar
- Dr. Aparajita Gogoi
- Her Excellency President Sahle-Work Zewde
- Tags
- Plenary
The Power of Data and Accountability: Girls and women count, must be counted, and counted in
Reliable, timely, and gender disaggregated data collection and management are critical tools to help citizens and advocates hold governments accountable. Achieving progress for girls and women – and thereby all – is dependent upon accurate, gender disaggregated data to fuel advocacy and guide interventions. During this plenary, we will discuss and demonstrate the power of data, data disaggregation, and evidence, just as we will explore how to measure commitments and hold governments accountable to their promises.
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Opening: HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Deliver for Good Influencer, Women Deliver
Moderator: Julie Gichuru, Independent Director, Acumen Communications
Panel 1: Data
- Alison Holder, Director, Equal Measures 2030
- Gabriela Ramos, Chief of Staff and Sherpa to G7/G20, OECD
- Julia Gillard, Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and Chair of the Global Partnerships for Education, and Former Prime Minister of Australia
- Ephraim Kisangala, Medical Doctor
Panel 2: Accountability
- Jayathma Wickramanayake, UN Envoy on Youth
- Aparajita Gogoi, Co-Chair, Global What Women Want, Executive Director, Centre for Catalyzing Change
- Osvaldo Rudloff Pulgar, Executive Director, OLACEFS
- Joy Phumaphi, Co-Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Accountability Panel for Every Woman, Every Child, Every Adolescent
Fire Talk: Her Excellency President Sahle Work-Zewde, Government of Ethiopia
The Power of Agency: Changemakers on surviving and preventing gender-based violence
Girls and women are too often portrayed as victims, when they are in fact powerful agents of change. In this session, we will hear from survivors of gender-based violence and advocates working to create change in their communities and around the globe.…
Nice Nailantei Leng’ete
A Maasai woman from Kenya, Nice Nailantei Leng’ete challenged social norms in her community to end the harmful practices of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM, also known as Female Genital Cutting or FGC) and child marriage. Through her own efforts, and with the support of Amref Health Africa, Ms. Leng’ete educated elders, boys and the young men (known as Morans) with new messages about sexual and reproductive health and rights. She worked with the whole community to eliminate the practice of FGM/C and replace it with alternative rites of passage for girls that maintain the cultural celebration of the transition to womanhood without FGM/C.
Ms. Leng’ete is a respected community advocate and a recognized global youth leader. In April 2018, she was named to the TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In February 2018 she was chosen as a Women Deliver Young Leader and in March 2018 she received the Annemarie Madison Prize. A recipient of the 2016 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, as well as the 2015 Inspirational Woman of the Year Award from the Kenyan Ministry of Devolution, Ms. Leng’ete has been singled out as an innovative change maker dedicated to advancing gender equality.
Redi Tlhabi
Redi Tlhabi is an award winning author and journalist. She is the host of Africa’s premier current affairs television programme, The Big Debate and is a household name in South African broadcasting. She has 20 years’ experience, presenting prime time programs on radio and television. Her weekly column is read by millions of people, who want to understand the complexities of South African society. She has also contributed to the Washington Post, CNN and the BBC. She is a former host of popular international television program, South To North on Al Jazeera, whose aim was to deepen conversations between the Global South and audiences from other parts of the world. Redi identifies as a fearless feminist writer and her award winning books, tell stories of strong women who have survived sexual violence and are often failed by society and the law. She is a sought after speaker and moderator, particularly on matters affecting women. Redi recently moderated the Discovery Leadership Summit, where she was in conversation with Olympic gold medalist, Caster Semenya, who is currently in a grueling fight for her identity and right to compete. Amongst others, she has moderated a discussion with former British Prime Minister David Cameron and Oprah Winfrey. Redi is passionate about matters of social justice and economic empowerment of women. When she is not writing or working, she enjoys punishing her body by running ultra-marathons.
- Organization
- Girls United for Human Rights
Hadiqa Bashir
Hadiqa is a 17 year old young activist from Pakistan. She is a bold, confident, impulsive, optimistic, visionary feminist who is challenging the patriarchy and has taken up the issues of child marriage and violence against women and girls in the tribal areas of Pakistan. She promotes the principles of feminism and gender equality, to build the capacity of the adolescent girls in her community. Her work advocates to ensure equal status, rights and opportunities for all women and girls of Khyber PakhtunKhwa, Pakistan. The young women and girls cannot be silenced any more and the momentum is stirring within our bright eyed and hopeful youth.
Mohamed Sidibay
Mohamed’s story is one of resilience. He has been orphaned, uneducated, homeless, and raped. He was born in Sierra Leone, and at age 5, he witnessed his entire family being murdered and was forced to become a child soldier. At the age of 10, he became homeless; he could neither read nor write.
In 2007, at the age of 14, he settled in the suburbs of New Jersey. At 25 years old, Mohamed has emerged as a leader in the human rights field. He now dedicates his life to ensuring educational access to all children regardless of where they were born. He currently helps run a program in his home country of Sierra Leone that is sending over 100 students to school. In his capacity as a Global Youth Ambassador, he helped propel the effort to secure 10 million signatures as part of the Up for School Campaign, calling on world leaders during the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly to deliver on their promises of quality inclusive education for all. A 2015 graduate of The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, Mohamed speaks four languages and spends most of his time traveling and speaking on the importance of education and the danger of a mind kept in captivity. Most recently, he joined the Global Partnership for Education Youth Advocates Group to lend his voice and create awareness around GPE’s focus areas. In the fall of 2018, Mohamed will begin his first year of Law School at Fordham University School of Law in New York.
Michael Kaufman
Michael Kaufman’s latest book, The Time Has Come: Why Men Must Join the Gender Equality Revolution, draws on his work as an activist, advisor, researcher and educator focused on engaging men to promote the rights of women and girls, end men’s violence against women, and transform fatherhood. Over the past four decades, he has worked in fifty countries with the United Nations, governments, NGOs and women’s organizations, businesses, unions, and universities.
Dr. Kaufman is one of two Canadian members of France’s G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council. In 2017 he was awarded Canada’s Meritorious Service cross.
He is the co-founder of the White Ribbon Campaign, the largest effort in the world of men working to end violence against women. He is a Senior Fellow with the research institute Promundo based in Washington D.C. He was the co-author of the first State of the World’s Fathers report.
Michael is the author or editor of nine books, including two novels. He has two grown children and lives in Toronto, Canada.
- Organization
- Together for Girls
Dr. Daniela Ligiero
Dr. Daniela Ligiero is Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Together for Girls and serves as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children. She served as VP of Girls and Women’s Strategy at the UN Foundation and led the U.S. Department of State’s integration of gender into PEPFAR strategy and programming and helped develop the first U.S. Strategy to End Gender-Based Violence Globally. She earned her doctoral degree in counselling psychology from the University of Maryland. Dr. Ligiero is fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French.
- Organization
- Winner, 2018 Too Young to Wed: Girls’ Champion Award
Hauwa
Hauwa, 18, is a Boko Haram survivor and winner of the 2018 Too Young to Wed: Girls’ Champion Award.
At 14, Hauwa had only recently begun secondary school in Bama, Nigeria when a small group of fighters from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram burst into her family’s thatched-roof home and demanded her as a bride. Her parents refused and were murdered. After destroying her school, the insurgents took Hauwa with some 150 other girls, many of them friends and classmates, to their camps deep within the 200-square-mile Sambisa Forest.
After two years in captivity – and at nine-months pregnant – Hauwa finally escaped her captors and fled through the forest and a series of indifferent villages before arriving to the relative safety of Maiduguri. Only months later, she courageously shared her story with Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair and the nonprofit Too Young to Wed (TYTW) for a transmedia project published The New York Times Sunday Review. At her request, TYTW re-enrolled Hauwa in school and provided her with emergency assistance in the form of food and clothing.
In March 2018, Hauwa boarded her first airplane and came to the United States to once again bravely share her story, this time before 32 members of Congress and at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. Her advocacy mission to Washington and New York was widely captured by the media, bringing much-needed attention to the plight of Boko Haram “brides” and the thousands of other young women and girls who remain in captivity today.
- Date
- Tuesday 4 June
- Location
- Plenary Hall, Vancouver Convention Center
- Hours
- 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm PST
- Speakers
- Nice Nailantei Leng’ete
- Redi Tlhabi
- Hadiqa Bashir
- Mohamed Sidibay
- Michael Kaufman
- Dr. Daniela Ligiero
- Hauwa
- Tags
- Plenary
The Power of Agency: Changemakers on surviving and preventing gender-based violence
Girls and women are too often portrayed as victims, when they are in fact powerful agents of change. In this session, we will hear from survivors of gender-based violence and advocates working to create change in their communities and around the globe. Through the stories of people who’ve escaped child marriage, mobilized against female genital cutting, lived on the run as migrants, survived Boko Haram, and endured life as a child soldier, The Power of Agency will explore the connection between gender-based violence and gender inequality. And we will be reminded of the power that comes with bodily autonomy and agency.
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Video: Prime Minister of New Zealand the Right Honourable Jacinda Ardern
Opening: Nice Nailantei Leng-ete, Project Officer and Anti-FGM/C Global Ambassador, Amref Health Africa
Moderator: Redi Tihabi, Award-Winning Author and Journalist
Power Talks:
- Hadiqa Bashir, Founder, Girls United for Human Rights, Member, Girls Not Brides
- Mohamed Sidibay, Global Youth Advocate, Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
- Michael Kaufman, Co-Founder, White Ribbon Campaign
- Daniela Ligiero, CEO, Together for Girls
- Hauwa, Winner, 2018 Too Young to Wed: Girls’ Champion Award
The Power of Money: Driving equitable economic growth by investing in women
The World Bank estimates that nations leave $160 trillion on the table when women don’t fully participate in national economies. The Power of Money will examine examples of investments in women’s financial inclusion, seed funding, patient capital,…
Dr. Precious Moloi-Motsepe
Dr. Moloi-Motsepe is a businesswoman and philanthropist who started her career in medicine, specialising in women’s health. After establishing the Motsepe Foundation with her husband Patrice Motsepe in 1999, they became the first couple in Africa to join the Giving Pledge in 2013.
Dr. Moloi-Motsepe’s philanthropic vision is guided by the Global Goals, and her initiatives focus on community and societal development. Through the Foundation she grants access to education, resources and skills to empower the youth; launched a Girls In STEM programme to create a pipeline of women within these industries; hosts frequent dialogues for building awareness and challenging patriarchy to empower women and men; and supports social entrepreneurs through partnerships with the Schwab Foundation and Harvard Kennedy School.
She is also founder of a fashion company, which promotes African fashion and textiles by creating Fashion Week platforms and identifying commercial opportunities for African designers.
Dr. Moloi-Motsepe is also a member of:
- The Harvard Kennedy Women’s Leadership Board;
- The International Women Forum of South Africa;
- The Cancer Association of South Africa;
- The Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum; and
- Co-chair of Maverick Collective.
Raj Kumar
Raj Kumar is the founding President & Editor-in-Chief of Devex, the media platform for the global development community. A social enterprise dedicated to ensuring global development efforts do more good for more people, Devex was born in 2000 when Raj was a graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School. Today, there are 100+ Devexers around the world serving a global audience of more than one million aid workers and development professionals. Beginning as a kid in Kerala, India, Raj has witnessed firsthand determined and courageous development work in over 50 countries – it’s what drives the Devex mission to “Do Good. Do It Well.” He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a media leader and former humanitarian council chair for the World Economic Forum, and has interviewed on-camera and on-stage hundreds of global luminaries on the most important challenges of our time. Raj is the author of the book "The Business of Changing the World," a go-to primer on the ideas, people, and technology disrupting the aid industry.
Maria Cavalcanti
Maria Cavalcanti is President and CEO of Pro Mujer. She holds over 25 years of professional experience advancing women and working with a wide range of business and non-profit organizations across Latin America, the United States, Western Europe, and India.
Maria leads Pro Mujer in sustainable growth, developing an extended, large-scale service and products platform to empower women in Latin America.
Before joining Pro Mujer, Maria co-founded and became managing partner of FIRST Impact Investing, a private equity fund in Brazil. Prior to FIRST, she served as Chief Strategy Officer for Fundación Avina, where she spearheaded strategy and operational initiatives across the organization, spanning 15 countries. Earlier in her career, Maria worked at Dell Inc. and as a management consultant with A. T. Kearney and TPI.
Maria is recognized as a leading speaker on impact investing and financial inclusion in Latin America. She has authored multiple trade and academic articles and has served on international boards, including the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, PYME Capital Fund, and FUNDES. In 2017, she was appointed Co-chair of Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion (formerly MCWG).
Maria holds an MBA from the University of Texas in Austin and an MS in Information Science from Columbia University in New York.
Humphrey Nabimanya
Humphrey Nabimanya is the founder and Team Leader of Reach A Hand Uganda (RAHU) and a Women Deliver Young Leader (Class of 2013). He is a youth sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocate, leader, and change agent.
His youth-led organization RAHU empowers young people through livelihood and skills development, Behavior Change Communication (BCC), SRHR, and HIV/AIDS awareness. RAHU has created campaigns, projects, and programs that appeal to young people while focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including health and wellbeing (SDG 3), quality education (SDG 4), and gender inequality (SDG 5). Humphrey’s leadership at RAHU has generated a movement of young advocates with over 27 core team members and 500 volunteers through a Peer Educators Academy, which expanded to almost all regions in Uganda.
Humphrey’s mission is to support his peers to take control of their lives and present themselves in ways that inspire, impress, and spur confidence in themselves, and provide them a platform to make informed choices regarding their SRHR. His efforts have earned him speaking engagements at global events such the 2018 Aspen Ideas Festival as well as recognition as one of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans by the Africa Youth Awards in 2018.
Theo Sowa
Theo Sowa is an independent advisor and consultant, specialising in international social development with a particular emphasis on children’s rights and protection issues. She is currently the CEO of the African Women’s Development Fund.
Born in Ghana, she has lived and worked in many countries in Africa, as well as the UK, Europe, and the USA. Her work includes advisory roles to African and other international women and children’s rights activists and leaders, plus policy development and advocacy with a variety of international agencies and organisations. She was Senior Programme Advisor on the UN Study on Children and Armed Conflict (the Machel Report) and led the five year review of the report.
Theo is a board member of various national and international civil society organisations and grant making foundations, including being a trustee of Comic Relief (a multimillion grant making foundation) and Chair of Comic Relief’s International Grants Committee; a member of the African Advisory Board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation; a Patron of Evidence for Development; a member of the UBS Optimus Foundation and a board member of the Graça Machel Trust.
She has authored many publications, including being a contributing editor to ‘The Impact of War on Children’; a contributing author and co editor of a Harvard Law School/UNICEF Innocenti publication on ‘Children and Transitional Justice’; and co author of ‘Groupwork and Intermediate Treatment’.
Theo was awarded a CBE in June 2010.
Suzanne Biegel
Suzanne is a globally recognised expert, field builder, and speaker on gender-smart investing. She is the Co-Producer of the Gender-Smart Investing Summit. She is Investment Director for SPRING Accelerator, focused on enterprises in emerging markets that positively effect adolescent girls. She is Senior Gender Lens Investing Adviser to Wharton Social Impact Initiative at Wharton Business School, to CDC Group, to Tara Health Foundation, for DFAT’s Investing in Women Initiative, and others. She is a Fellow at the Aspen Institute. She serves on numerous boards and advisory boards including Cornerstone Capital, SheEO, The Boardroom Africa, and WorldPulse. She received the Beacon Award for Philanthropy in the UK in 2015, amongst numerous other accolades in the UK and the US over the past 25 years. She began her career in the corporate world at IBM, and grew and ultimately sold a successful educational technology business through the 1990’s. Her personal portfolio is invested across all asset classes with an impact and gender lens and she is an active angel and venture investor. She is an alumna of The Wharton School and the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and has been based in London for nine years.
Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan
Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan was cited as one of the top 50 women in business by Business Today, a leading magazine in India in the year 2017 and “Entrepreneur of the Year in Social Business Category” by Forbes India in 2018.
She has a doctorate in Development Studies with 30 publications in the areas of labour and employment and gender issues to her credit. Gayathri was also a speaker at the EY World Entrepreneur Forum 2017 at Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Between 1999 and 2007, Gayathri worked for the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency. She co-founded LabourNet in 2006 with a vision to enable livelihoods and enhance quality of life through Education, Employability and Entrepreneurship. LabourNet’s model has been widely acclaimed as one of the few companies in this space which is run profitably and having far reaching impact. LabourNet has impacted about a million lives, empowering youth, men and women to earn a decent living or become profitable micro entrepreneurs.
- Date
- Tuesday 4 June
- Location
- Plenary Hall, Vancouver Convention Center
- Hours
- 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm PST
- Speakers
- Dr. Precious Moloi-Motsepe
- Raj Kumar
- Maria Cavalcanti
- Humphrey Nabimanya
- Theo Sowa
- Suzanne Biegel
- Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan
- Lareina Yee
- Vivian Hunt
- Tags
- Plenary
The Power of Money: Driving equitable economic growth by investing in women
The World Bank estimates that nations leave $160 trillion on the table when women don’t fully participate in national economies. The Power of Money will examine examples of investments in women’s financial inclusion, seed funding, patient capital, gender smart investing, and women-led and owned businesses. Through partnerships and mechanisms, and by creating an enabling environment, we can drive inclusive and equitable economic growth that benefits everyone. We will also explore ways to increase funding and other resources for women-focused organizations. Investing in girls and women is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.
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Opening: Dr. Precious Moloi Motsepe, Co-Founder and CEO, Motsepe Foundation and Co-Chair, Maverick Collective, an initiative of PSI
Moderator: Raj Kumar, President & Editor-in-Chief, Devex
Panel:
- Maria Cavalcanti, President & CEO, Pro Mujer
- Humphrey Nabimanya, Founder and Team Leader, Reach A Hand Uganda
- Theo Sowa, CEO, African Women’s Development Fund
- Suzanne Biegel, Founder, Catalyst at Large
- Gayathri Vasudevan, Co-Founder and CEO, LabourNet
Presentation: The Power of Parity - New Evidence on the Benefit of Investing in Gender Equality
- Lareina Yee, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, McKinsey & Co
- Vivian Hunt, Managing Partner, UK and Ireland, McKinsey & Co.
The Power of Tech: How do we best harness technology for gender equality?
A growing body of evidence shows that technology has the potential to help close the global gender gap faster – but only if it is designed by and for women, and gets in the hands of women. Whether or not tech lives up to its promise to be a driver…
Nick Oketch
Nick Oketch’s main inspiration is to fight for and advance gender equality, youth development, and sexual health and rights. His work focuses on youth rights advocacy and capacity building for young women and adolescents in his community in Kenya. Nick is currently the director and founder of Paradigm Youth Network Organization, which aims to break the culture of silence around sex and sexuality among young people and adolescents. Nick is a Women Deliver Young Leader from the Class of 2016 and a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow, a flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) that empowers young people through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking in the U.S.
Melinda Gates
Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls.
As the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda sets the direction and priorities of the world’s largest philanthropy. She is also the founder of Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company working to drive social progress for women and families in the United States.
Melinda grew up in Dallas, Texas. She received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Duke University and an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School. Melinda spent the first decade of her career developing multimedia products at Microsoft before leaving the company to focus on her family and philanthropic work. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband, Bill. They have three children, Jenn, Rory, and Phoebe.
Shivani Siroya
Shivani Siroya is the founder and CEO of Tala, the leading mobile technology and data science company committed to expanding access to financial services for the emerging middle class globally. Over 3M of people have borrowed through Tala’s smartphone app, which provides instant credit to underserved customers in East Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
Prior to founding Tala, Shivani held a variety of positions in global health, microfinance, and investment banking including with the United Nations Population Fund where she worked across West Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa and researched the issues of financial systems that Tala is trying to solve.
Judith Spitz, Ph.D.
Judith Spitz, Ph.D.is the Founding Program Director of the Initiative for Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship in New York (WiTNY)at Cornell Tech; a partnership between Cornell Tech, the City University of New York and a growing list of corporate partners with a mission to significantly increase the participation of women in higher education in fields related to technology. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of ASAPP, an Artificial Intelligence company that drives digital transformation in customer care. Prior to this, she was a senior vice president and CIO at Verizon. The New York Business Journal listed her as one of its 2018 Women of Influence. In 2017, she received the Above & Beyond Award for Outstanding Women in Business from City & State New York. InfoWorld named her as a 2009 CTO 25 award winner and Computerworld magazine put her on its CIO 100 Honoree list in 2007. Her current passion is driving programs that will address the urgent need for more women in technology and topics related to gender-based algorithmic bias, the future of work, and the leadership skills needed in an AI-driven economy.
- Date
- Tuesday 4 June
- Location
- Plenary Hall, Vancouver Convention Center
- Hours
- 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm PST
- Speakers
- Nick Oketch
- Melinda Gates
- Shivani Siroya
- Judith Spitz, Ph.D.
- Tags
- Plenary
The Power of Tech: How do we best harness technology for gender equality?
A growing body of evidence shows that technology has the potential to help close the global gender gap faster – but only if it is designed by and for women, and gets in the hands of women. Whether or not tech lives up to its promise to be a driver of equality tomorrow will depend on the actions we take today. The Power of Tech will highlight leaders in different industries who have harnessed technology to reduce the gender gap, and propose policy changes that could scale impact.
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Opening: Nick Oketch, Founder, LucyBot, Director and Founder, Paradigm Youth Network Organization
Moderator: Melinda Gates, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Panel:
- Shivani Soroya, CEO and Founder, Tala
- Judith Spitz, Founder, Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship in New York (WiTNY)
- Nick Oketch, Founder, LucyBot, Director and Founder, Paradigm Youth Network Organization