Getting to Know You

Getting to Know You Dear Participants As we did the previous time we are attempting to introduce all of you virtually… till we meet again in magical Casablanca “Here’s looking at you…” Devaki Jain and Shubha Chacko

Fatema Mernissi(Morocco) Research scholar University Institute for Scientific Research & Mohammed V University of Rabat Research interest include culture, religion, politics, feminism and IT and digital media Books published in twenty-six countries, Won the Erasmus Prize 2004 “The Clash is not between civilizations but between‘ Ulfa' and Consumerism 'Ulfa' is about altruistic love and community-building while consumerist ads brainwash us to vanish into individualist egoistic self-love. Shouldn’t we start a campaign for a U.N.U.F ("United Nations Ulfa Fund) to insure altruistic love production”

Patricia McFadden (Swaziland) Chair Social Sciences Women’s Research and Resource Center, Spelman College, Atlanta. Was editor of the Southern African Feminist Review Headed Southern African Regional Institute for Policy Studies ( SARIPS) Harare, Zimbabwe Latest Publication Reflecting on Gender Issues in Africa “Women's politics has challenged the bifurcated nature of notions of justice and equality at every level of their societies, rupturing the public/private divide which still keeps millions of women the world over outside those civic resources and spaces where rights are embedded and secured”

Nomboniso Gasa (South Africa). Chair Gender Commission, South Africa Board Member Development Bank of Southern Africa formerly Member of the ANC Commission on the Emancipation of Women, Commission on Gender. Expertise: gender policy, development processes & political transition Ed ‘Women in South African History’ “We come because we share a particular vision, a changed society that is grounded on the experience of the lives of the people. We are saying that the way in which we measure growth and development has got to be linked directly to the ways in which our lives are changed.”

Yassine Fall (Senegal) UNIFEM Senior Economic Advisor to the UN Millennium Project. President African Women’s Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI) Was Executive Director of the Association of African Women for Research and Development Publications Include Gender, Globalisation and Resistance “Poverty reduction strategies are bound to fail if they do not adopt a women’s economic rights and empowerment approach because poverty perpetuates unequal gender and power relations, and unequal gender and power relations aggravate poverty.”

Hope Chigudu(Zimbabwe) Social scientist Consultant range of international NGOs. Member, former chair of the Global Fund for Women and board member and Chair of Urgent Action Fund, Her skills and experience include evaluations, reviews, assessments, training, policy development. Publication includes Composing a new song : stories of empowerment from Africa To build a movement of those who want another kind of leadership, one that breaks the limits and starts to bring people who want to see possibilities together? People who want to be more adventurous, audacious, etc. People who are not afraid to talk about love, energy, connectedness… what are seen as soft issues.

Host Winnie ByanyimaUganda Director UNDP Gender Team, Bureau for Development Policy, Elected three times to the Uganda legislature Founder of the Assembly’s women’s caucus. Was Director, Women, Gender and Development Directorate of the African Union Commission. First chair of the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), I work to undermine patriarchy and to introduce an alternative concept of power. As a politician, I gave and showed respect to my constituents. From a feminist standpoint, I valued the work and contribution of poor women.

Special Guest Zanele MbekiSouth Africa Deeply involved in the struggle against Apartheid Initiated the SA Women in Dialogue, which promotes dialogue for peace, equality and development . First Director and Chair of the Women's Development Bank Trust, and Trust Fund for the SA Women's Economic Empowerment Has worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and with refugees in Africa and Asia. There is poverty, disease, war and all the rest but all of this needs to be underpinned by a new women’s movement . One that is sending new messages now not merely about getting into these male spaces and just including women to be instrumental to development; but to seek transformation

Lourdes Arizpe(Mexico) Anthropology Professor at the National University of Mexico Was Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO Member World Commission on Culture and Development Chair Scientific Committee of the World Culture Report. Received National Order of Academic Palms Award 2008. Given the problems of globalization, the main challenge for this new century, is to prevent and remedy the deepening of inequality, especially along fault lines, new and old, that coincide with cultural diversity

Marta Nuñez (Cuba) Prof Dept. Sociology Researcher at the Center for Studies of International Migrations University of Havana. Has been adviser for the Embassy of Cuba in Russia Visiting professor at various universities Served as a consultant for several agencies of the UN and the Association of Caribbean States and for several NGOs. The "sociological imagination" must apprehend and understand the forgotten things. That is, we must sociologically understand the small, the intimate, the affective, the personal, the banished.

Itza Castaneda(Mexico) UNDP Mexico Country Office Expert on gender & environment, specifically gender & climate change Was Director of Gender Equity Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources Mexico Latest Publication In Search of the Lost Gender: Equity in Protected Areas . Frequently, the formal structures of ownership, men’s access to and control of the natural resources, determine that these actions are based on preestablished models for the assignment of “feminine” and “masculine” tasks, supporting—thus—the traditional roles that promote and strengthen gender inequality and inequity.

Elizabeth Jelin (Argentina) Sociologist and researcher at CONICET (National Council for Science and Technology) University of Buenos Aires Academic director "Collective Memory and Repression” Program Author of "State Repression and the Labors of Memory" (2003) and editor of "Memories of Repression." There will always be other stories, other memories, and alterative interpretations. These endure in spaces of resistance, in the private sphere, in the "catacombs" of history. There is an active political struggle not only over the meaning of what took place in the past but over the meaning of memory itself.

Shahra Razavi(Iran) Research Co-ordinator at UNRISD. Has led UNRISD’s research projects on gender and work on Gender Justice, Development and Rights Coordinated UNRISD report Gender Equality: Striving for Justice in an Unequal World. On the editorial boards of Development in Practice and Global Social Policy. Neoliberal appropriations of rights discourses as the guarantors of free enterprise stand in opposition to the idea of social rights contained in the .second generation. of human rights and affirmed in the support accorded to the principle of the indivisibility of human rights.

Solita Monsod (Philippines) Prof. School of Economics University of the Philippines. Minister (later Secretary) of Socio-Economic Planning, Govt. of the Philippines Was member of UNCDP & South Commission, Advisory Board of the South Centre and UNDP. Board of Trustees of IFPRI. It is undisputed that the contribution of women to the economy, mostly in the form of unpaid labour, is well nigh invisible today, despite four World Conferences of Women starting in 1975, when the need to measure and value unpaid work was recognized

Hiroko Hara(Japan) Prof. Josai International University & Prof. Emeritus, Ochanomizu University Convener, Japan Women’s Watch (JAWW) Steeromg Committee Member, Asia Pacific Women’s Watch (APWW) . Received the Jane C. Goodale Award for anthropology. Women’s/gender studies is absolutely necessary for understanding human beings as biological, social, and cultural entities, and they will contribute to the sustainability of humankind.

Naoko Otobe (Japan) • Over 23 years of professional analytical and operational experience in the UN system, • Focus areas of development and poverty. Currently Senior Gender and Employment Specialist ILO Despite substantive progress made in promoting gender equality in the world of work during the last 50 years, proportionately, women are more affected by decent work deficits than men, and a large majority of the world’s poor are women. Decent work can only be fully achieved when there is no longer gender-based discrimination and inequalities

Renana Jhabvala(India) Coordinator & Member, Executive Committee: Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) Chairperson SEWA Bharati Academy & SEWA Bank Chairperson and founder member, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing) Publications "Informal Economy Centre Stage. New Structures of Employment It is she, the poor woman worker whose labour and enterprise which creates the wealth of the nation, and whose hard work leads to national growth.- we have to place her at the centre of our analysis

Sakiko Fukuda Parr (Japan/USA) Currently Visiting Prof. at the New School's Graduate Program in International Affairs Director Annual Human Development Reports Commissioned by UNDP 1995 – 2004 Latest Publication The Gene Revolution: GM Crops and Unequal Development. Earthscan, London 2006 The aim of multicultural policies is not to conserve tradition, but to protect cultural liberty and expand people’s choices—in the ways they live and identify themselves—and not to penalize them for these choices.

Special Guest Nafis SadikPakistan The Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General & also as Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia, Was the head of the UNFPA First woman to head one of the UN’s major voluntarily-funded programmes. Secretary-General of the ICPD -Cairo 1994 This use of tradition, culture and values has dominated and denied groups of people, especially girls and women, their basic rights. All cultures change, all traditions, evolve, and all values also change. Any value or tradition or culture worth its name cannot be against a group of people. If it is, it has been manufactured in order to subjugate and we then have to eliminate that.’

Devaki Jain(India) Founder Director of Institute of Social Studies Trust. Founder of DAWN, Lecturer, later senior fellow Delhi School of Economics Awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award from Government of India . Poverty eradication is a dynamic and purposeful engine of growth. The oiling of this engine will fire the economy, in a much more broad based manner. The review of the past seems to suggest some dramatic reversal of the current theories of where the engines of growth if the interest is in poverty eradication

Jael Silliman(India) Program Officer Women’s Rights & Gender Equity in the Human Rights Unit, Ford Foundation. Was Associate Prof. Women’s Studies Dept. University of Iowa. Recent Publication Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice We need a feminist transformatory politics allying with these forces for change so that a new world view can be born, with a unity in a quest for a world of gender equality, of human dignity, environmental stewardship, inclusive and non-violent politics , a new way of living and being in this world – for men, women and all others with whom we share this planet with

Kavita Ramdas(India/USA) President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, which seeks to advance feminist philanthropy . Has won numerous awards Advisory Panel to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Princeton University Board of Trustees The fundamental quest for equality, dignity and justice are shared by movements of women in many different parts of the world; goes beyond merely seeking to make women equal with men. It dares to ask the fundamental question: equal to what?

Shubha ChackoIndia RA to Devaki Jain Masters in Social Work awarded a national merit scholarship Social activist working on issues of development, gender and sexuality committed peace worker. Trained documentationist We seek to counter oppressive transnational movements, both from the "West" as well as the "Non-West," with alternative movements that counter war and the continued production of global inequalities

Nilufer Cagatay Turkey/USA Ass. Prof. Economics University of Utah. Researcher Levy Economics Institute Bard College. Cofounded International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics & International Economics GEMIWG Economic Advisor at UNDP's Social Development and Poverty Elimination Division The “global justice” movement, which advocates economic policies for poverty reduction, human development, environmental sustainability and democratization, along with gender justice, is more visible than ever before

Diane Elson (United Kingdom) Prof. Dept. of Sociology at Essex Codirector Levy Institute’s Program Gender Equality & Economics Was Chair Development Studies at Manchester University, Has been with UNIFEM, New York. UNIFEM Report on Progress of the World's Women May be women can create an alternative vision of modernity which avoids false polarities between local and global, paid and unpaid, market and non-market, sustainability and growth; individual and collective; and between the moral and the economic; and instead rests on innovative syntheses

Lourdes BeneriaSpain/USA Prof. Gender and Economic Development Cornell University Associate Faculty member at the IIEDG (Inter-University Institute for the Study of Women and Gender), Barcelona, Spain Editor of Global Tensions; Challenges and Opportunities in the Global Economy (2005), with Savitri Bisnath. Member many International Advisory Committees UNIFEM report on World's Women's Progress/2000, ILO Global Programme on Socioeconomic Security UNDP's Directory of Appointed Experts on Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean. Pub: Gender, Development and Globalization, Economics as if all People Mattered, Routledge 2003 “The environmental movement has succeeded in point at the responsibility of private firms for environmental degradation, a similar effort is now needed to address precarious employment and distributive mechanisms

Sylvia Borren(Netherlands) Former Executive Director of the Netherlands Organization for International Development Co-operation, NOVIB . Co-Chair of Global Call to Action Against Poverty Involved in education and health care services at the local level, with the lesbian and women’s movement More and more women having the courage to take on more power and responsibility, and to work from the premise that we can indeed successfully change the world, not only for women but also for everyone.

Getting to Know You