International Advisory Committee (IAC)

Claudia Gimena Roa

Claudia is currently the director of Fundaexpresion, a cultural and environmentalist NGO that works together with rural and urban communities, women's groups and youth on issues of food sovereignty, community forest reserves, agroecology, local markets and climate change. She has also been involved with inter-cultural dialogue and campaigns on seeds, women and climate justice and the defense of water, and is also a gender expert in different international scenarios. Video-clips on community work: http://www.youtube.com/user/FUNDAEXPRESION

Emily Esplen

Emily has just joined the OECD DAC GenderNet as Policy Analyst on gender equality and women’s rights. Previously she was Policy and Advocacy Manager at Womankind Worldwide, the UK’s leading international women’s rights organisation working in partnership with women’s rights organisations around the world. She is on the advisory board of the UK Gender and Development Network and co-chairs its violence against women working group. She was formerly with One World Action, a feminist NGO working with women facing multiple forms of discrimination. Before this she spent four happy years working at IDS in the BRIDGE team, where she led the work on gender and care and set up the gender and social movements programme, as well as collaborating with other IDS fellows on debates around ‘politicising masculinities’ and gender and sexuality. She holds degrees in social anthropology from the universities of Cambridge and London.

Françoise Mukuku

Françoise is an independent consultant evolving at the Amazon Consultancy office based in Kinshasa, in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and works mainly in the Great Lakes Region and Central Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon and Republic of Congo). She is specialized in Research, Communication, Organizational Management, Leadership, Advocacy and Events Management. She holds 10 years’ experience as a journalist and leader of communication for several international humanitarian organizations. Engaged activist of the rights of the women, she uniformly animates formations in the domain of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Agency and Voice, Communications and is passionate particularly on the intersections that exist between development, human rights and social justice. Key recent work has involved: Program to support networks of women of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC WNSP) with the feminist exchanges of technology, organized to Cape Town (South Africa in October 2010); FAHAMU Network for Social Justice Movement Building Boot Camp (MBBC) for Francophone East Africa held in Bujumbura, Burundi in June 2011 to January 2012. Françoise has also supported a DRC Country Campaign "Ending Violence against Women in DRC" launched in Kinshasa in November 2010. In 2008-2011; she was also the Central Africa Focal Point for Akina Mama wa Afrika that supported the rolling out of an AMwA// Dutch MDG3 Fund Continental Programme and Campaign on Sexual and Gender Based Violence . She is coaching 9 organisation based in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi in organisational development with UHAI-EASHRI.

Hazel Reeves

Islah Jad

Islah, a feminist, a researcher in the field of gender and distinguished academician, has played a significant and distinguished role in the Palestinian women's movement through the research conducted in her doctorate thesis on the evolution of the women's movement. She worked to strengthen the capacities of women, academics and students regarding research methods in women's issues, and taught at the Department of Cultural Studies. She also participated in campaigns and community committees, such as the National Palestinian Academic Boycott and in numerous workshops on specialized national issues that concern the Palestinian community. She is currently the Director of the Institute of Women's Studies, which she founded and chaired during 95-96.

Lenka Simerska

Patrick Welsh,

Patrick has been involved in social change and community development in Nicaragua since the mid-1980s, first working in popular education in rural areas affected by the Contra War. He then worked with Nicaraguan NGOs, the Centre for Popular Communications and Education (CANTERA) and the Association of Men Against Violence, which he is a founder member, in the development of participatory methodologies for gender training and awareness raising with men. He has worked as a freelance consultant since 2003 supporting the initiatives of other organizations interested in ‘the masculinity issue’ and in working directly with men in several other countries in Central and South America, Africa, and Europe.

Reetu Sogani

Reetu has been working in the remote areas of Middle Himalayan ranges, in India, with the gender, participatory and the rights based approach for the last 15 years on the issue of People’s rights over their Resources and Knowledge system and protection of Cultural and Biological diversity. This work is being done very closely with the Women, Indigenous communities and the marginalized, at the grassroots level an also with various small local rural based organisations. In addition, Reetu has been working at the Policy Advocacy level to mainstream the issue of People’s Knowledge and their rights in the policies and programs of governance particularly related to Community Food and Nutrition security and Climate Change. .

Besides this, Reetu works to mainstream, sensitize and build up the capacity of the organizations on the issue of Gender, Food Security, Climate Change and Sustainable Livelihoods. She has written several articles which have been published in books and journals. She has presented papers on various aspects of Traditional Knowledge including Food Security/ Sovereignty, Climate Change in various National and International conferences.

Ruth Mumbi

Ruth is a passionate community organizer and a human / women rights defender. She is the founder and current national coordinator of Bunge La Wamama Mashinani (Grass-root Women Parliament in English), a social movement enabling grass-root women in informal settlements to engage with each other, have access to education, information and training opportunities. Bunge La Wamama is also a platform that advocates for social justice, gives voice to the voiceless and amplifies the struggle of marginalized communities. In 2013, she was nominated for the Front Line international Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, which recognizes outstanding contributions made by human rights activists. She was one of six nominees selected from a total of 100 nominations across the world. She is also the alumni member of FLAMBI 2010 (Feminist Leadership and Movement Building Institute 2010) that was held in Kampala Uganda jointly organized by AMWA (Akina Mama wa Afrika) and CREA. Ruth was born and brought up in Kenya’s second largest informal settlement Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi where most people not only survive on less than a dollar a day but face human rights concerns like spousal violence and child abuse, inadequate housing and sanitation, and poor access to social security, education, and health services including reproductive health care.