Executive Director to participate in AWID, will lead dialogue on feminist futures
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UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will participate in the 13th International Forum of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) in Costa do Sauípe, Brazil. The Forum is expected to convene more than 2,000 women's rights and development practitioners, grassroots leaders, donor agencies and activists from 120 countries to collectively strategize on women’s rights and feminist movements’ contributions to build sustainable, equitable and peaceful societies.
On 9 September, in a plenary session titled “Reclaiming Democratic Spaces”, which will be audio live webcasted, the UN Women Executive Director, along with Jessica Carvalho Morris from the organization Conectas Human Rights and Aya Chebbi, Tunisian youth activist and blogger, will discuss ways in which civil society and social movement actors can reclaim, defend and expand democratic spaces for organizing and solidarity building, at a national and international level.
Also at the AWID Forum, and coinciding with the third straw poll called by the UN Security Council in New York towards the process to select the next UN Secretary-General, UN Women will convene a Caucus session on formulating an agenda for a feminist woman UN Secretary-General. Joined by UN Women’s Director of Policy, Purna Sen; Chief of the Civil Society Section, Lopa Banerjee; and UN Women Representative in Brazil, Nadine Gasman, the Executive Director will lead a dialogue, which will facilitate diverse participants’ views about the feminist agenda that international women’s groups and activists would like to see the new Secretary-General adopt in the first 100 days.