What is the change around us?

The Forum is now over, but we encourage you to check the "Latest News" section of this site for selected session writeups, transcripts, and other post-forum information. Updates will be posted throughout December and January.

Forum Programme

Plenary Session: Friday, October 28, 8:30 - 10:30

This plenary, set in a talk show format, will commence with a 25 minute video produced by AWID entitled Three Moves Deep: Planning for the Future of Women's Human Rights. Based on perspectives of researchers and activists from around the world, the video scans issues from climate change to geo-political shifts, from fundamentalisms to disease as the key issues that will affect our futures. The video will set the stage for a lively discussion among our knowledgeable "panelists" on the changing and complex context in which we are seeking human rights and social justice, the new issues emerging in the coming decades and what we all must consider in order to address them.

Anita Nayar (moderator) is pursuing doctoral research in anthropology on the impact of the commercialisation of indigenous medicine in India on the social structure and political economy of herb gathering communities. In 1998 she co-founded Strategic Analysis for Gender Equity (SAGE), a consulting company engaged in providing gender analysis to examine structural and systemic inequalities from the global to household levels for NGOs, governments and UN agencies. Prior to this, Anita was the Associate Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) where she spearheaded the Women's Caucus initiative, advocating a gender perspective at five major UN development conferences in the 1990s.

Dr Marsha T Darling is Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies, and Director of the African American & Ethnic Studies Program at Adelphi University. At Adelphi, Dr Darling teaches about African American history and culture, the history of conscience and social justice movements, women and international development, and significant issues in globalisation. She also does research and has published widely on the impact of globaliation on distributive justice issues, including the emergence of biomedical technologies and their impact on privacy and human rights. Dr Darling is a member of the Committee on Women, Population and the Environment, and a former board member of the Association for Women's Rights in International Development, and the National Black Women's Health Project. She is the president of the Nassau/Suffolk Chapter of the Association of Black Women in Higher Education, and is a Council Member on Long Island Women's Agenda.

Yassine Fall is an economist from Senegal, a social justice activist and one of the leading figures of the women's movement in Africa. She has some twenty years experience in combined field research, policy analysis, and management. She recently led the launching of the African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI) which brought together African women leaders from parliament, government, The African Union, rural areas, professional organisations, informal urban settlements and youth organisations to put their voices together to demand the end of poverty and gender inequality in Africa. She presently manages AWOMI as President and Senior Executive Officer while assisting the UN Millennium Project as Senior Policy Advisor on Gender Equality. She came to the Project from the UN Development Fund for Women where she held the positions of Regional Director covering Francophone and Lusophone countries in West and Central Africa and Senior Economic Advisor based in New York.

Nursyahbani Katjasungkana is a human rights lawyer in Indonesia. For almost thirty years she has been working with several NGO's working on human and women's rights and environmental issues. She was a Commissioner of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (1998-2003). She is the founder of APIK, Asosiasi Perempuan Indonesia untuk Keadilan (Indonesian Women Association for Justice), an organisation that gives direct legal aid to women who are victims of violence and discrimination. She is active in the field of legal advocacy, training and research. She was the first Secretary General of the KPI, Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia untuk Keadilan dan Demokrasi (Indonesia Women's Coalition for Justice and Democracy), the first mass women's organisation, after the Soeharto regime banned the Communist oriented women's organisation Gerwani. She is a member of the People's Consultative Assembly and last year she was elected as a Member of Parliament. She is also a board member of Women, Law and Development International, based in Washington, the Advisory Board of the Encyclopedia of Women in Islamic Culture (Netherlands) and co-Founder of Kartini, Gender and Women's Studies network in Asia. She has been involved in several fact-finding teams on human rights' violations during the Soeharto era.

Yanar Mohammed is the founder of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), an organisation fighting to stop atrocities against women and advocate for women's social, political and economic rights. One of their main projects is the development of a battered women's shelter in Baghdad to protect women who are fleeing from violence and "honour killings." She is editor of the newspaper "Al Mousawat" (Equality) which circulates throughout Baghdad and beyond. She has also participated as one of the lead negotiators in the sit-in protests by the Union of Unemployed in Iraq at the beginning of war on Iraq. OWFI is the only Iraqi women's organisation that has spoken out openly against both the US occupation and the forces of Islamic reaction that it has unleashed. After two years of work, Yanar is a leading figure of Feminism and Secularism inside Iraq.

Ramesh Singh is the Chief Executive of ActionAid International. His work for ActionAid began in 1984, when he joined the agency as head of its agriculture and water programmes in The Gambia. In 1989, he was named Country Director within Ethiopia, where he remained for four years. Ramesh then moved to Nepal in 1993, and on to Vietnam in 1997, as Country Director in each location. During his time in Vietnam, Ramesh led the comprehensive and successful process of consultation, design and drafting of the current ActionAid international strategy, Fighting Poverty Together. In 2000, he took up the post of Asia Regional Director, based in Bangkok, where he stayed for three years before his appointment as ActionAid International's Operations Director, and later, as its Chief Executive. As Chief Executive, Ramesh is leading the process of internationalisation as ActionAid International moves towards the next exciting stage of its development.

Virginia Vargas is a feminist activist from Peru who for over 20 years has been an organizer in Latin America and at the global level. She founded the Center for the Peruvian Women "Flora Tristán" in 1978. A sociologist, she was also a professor for the Women and Development Program at the Social Studies Institute in The Hague, Netherlands. She was also visiting professor in several gender studies programmes in Peru and Latin America. She was the Latin American and Caribbean NGOs' Coordinator to the NGO Forum held in September, 1995. On occasion of the Fourth World UN Conference on Women in Beijing, China Vargas received a UNIFEM Award. In recent years she has worked with the UNIFEM Programme of Economic and Social Rights for Women in the Andean Region. Since 2001 Vargas she is actively involved in the processes of the World Social Forum, as part of its International Comittee, on behalf of the Articulacion Feminista Marcosur. At present, she works in the Center "Flora Tristan" in Lima, in the Programme "Studies and Feminist Debates" (Estudios y Debate Feminista).