Fiona Mavhinga serves as the Executive Advisor for CAMFED Association and was one of the first young women to complete her education with support from CAMFED, an organization that is supporting girls to learn, thrive and lead change. Fiona is a lawyer and leads on the strategic development of the CAMFED Association, the Association founded by former CAMFED clients who organize and act on behalf of girls and young women and contribute to their communities. Growing up in Zimbabwe, Fiona experienced first-hand the vulnerability of young women who manage to complete secondary school–with no resources and no employment opportunities available in rural areas–which she overcame to become a key founder of the CAMFED Association. Organized into elected committees from district to national level, the Association provides a robust mechanism for cascading knowledge and offering training and leadership opportunities to young school leaders. Connected through mobile technology, young women overcome rural isolation, help build each other’s lives, and use their experience and expertise to support many more vulnerable children to stay in school, thrive and lead change. The CAMFED Association now provides the backbone of the programs through which CAMFED is bringing about systemic change. As Executive Advisor, CAMFED Association, Fiona is leading on ways to grow and replicate this powerful model. Fiona has a MA in International Law and Legal Studies and a Bachelor Degree in Law.

Debbie Aung Din is Co-founder of Proximity Designs, a non-profit social business operating in Myanmar since 2004 that delivers affordable and innovative products and services for farm families living in poverty. Debbie has been engaged in design and economic research in Myanmar since 1995. She has also lived and worked in the United States, Cambodia, and Indonesia. She has worked for NGOs, USAID, the UN, and the World Bank. She has received social entrepreneurship awards from the Schwab Foundation (World Economic Forum) and the Skoll Foundation. Proximity, which is focused on the agriculture sector, has developed a unique platform of financing, farm technologies, and agronomy advice, which delivers affordable and innovative products and services to small farmers in their journey out of poverty. Products and services are designed to boost farm productivity and increase household incomes by an average of US $250 per year. Proximity small-farm services have served over 10,000 villages and enabled 3.5 million people in rural Myanmar to grow their farm enterprises and afford basic food, health care, and education for their families. Debbie holds a MA from Harvard University in Public Policy and Development Economics and a BA in Geography. 

Dr. Christina Kwauk is a social scientist with a current interdisciplinary focus on education for climate action. She is an expert on girls’ education in developing countries, 21st century skills and youth empowerment, sport for development, and the intersections of gender, education, and climate change. Christina is a co-editor (with Radhika Iyengar) of Curriculum and Learning for Climate Action: Toward an SDG 4.7 Roadmap for Systems Change (forthcoming 2021) and co-author (with Gene Sperling and Rebecca Winthrop) of What Works in Girls’ Education: Evidence for the World’s Best Investment. She has published numerous policy papers, including “The new green learning agenda: Approaches to quality education for climate empowerment,” as well as academic articles on topics in climate change education, gender, health, and international development and education. Christina is an education consultant and Research Director at Unbounded Associates, a Future Rising Visiting Scholar at Girl Rising, and a non-resident fellow in the Center for Universal Education at Brookings. She holds a PhD in Comparative and International Development Education, MA in Social Sciences, and BA in Psychology. 

Assalama Sidi is a human and women rights activist who has worked tirelessly to promote equality and social justice for the past two decades across West Africa and beyond. She has worked in development areas that include promoting gender and development, lifting up the voices of women and girls in remote areas, girls’ education and protection, youth entrepreneurship, and local civil society organization strengthening. She is also an experienced humanitarian worker who has led various initiatives that focus on food assistance, water access, and protection against gender-based violence in refugee and internally displaced camps in Niger. She has held various leadership positions with the United States Peace Corps and Plan International in different countries. Assalama is currently the Regional Director for Oxfam in West and Central Africa where she provides vision, strategic guidance and support to Oxfam programs in the 12 countries where Oxfam operates in West and Central Africa. Assalama graduated from the University of Niamey with a degree in Sociology and has earned many certificates in leadership, including a certificate in Management from Harvard Business School. She is fluent in six languages.

Alice Macharia channels her insights and passion with a purpose of improving people’s lives and protecting the planet we call home. In her role as the Vice-President of Africa Programs with the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), Alice leads the implementation of the Africa Programs Strategy, which seeks to conserve chimpanzees across their range while living in peaceful coexistence with their neighboring human communities. Alice has over 15 years of progressive experience in project design and implementation, grant administration, and program management of integrated conservation and development programming in Africa. During her career, Alice has championed integration of population, health, and environment and served as an evaluator of the Elinor Ostrom Award on Collective Governance of the Commons. Alice has an MA in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University, an MA in Geography from Miami University, and a BS in Geography from the University of Nairobi.

Dr. Abiba Longwe-Ngwira is a social scientist with vast multidisciplinary experience in policy-oriented research, evaluation, knowledge translation, capacity building, and monitoring and evaluation. She serves as the Director of Monitoring, Evaluation and Research for the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH). Abiba has more than 10 years of experience in policy-oriented research focusing on the linkages between reproductive health investments, poverty alleviation, and socio-economic development in Africa. Abiba has worked on public health evaluation projects on HIV/AIDS, TB, and TB/HIV co-infection. She has also worked in the agricultural sector on donor-funded projects aimed at alleviating poverty, mitigating climate change, and improving the livelihoods of the rural population in Malawi. Abiba is an alum of Population Reference Bureau’s Policy Communication Fellows Program. She holds a PhD in Management Sciences (Development Economics), a MS in Rural Development, and a MS and BS in Agricultural Economics.