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Board members
SMWF/USA Board Members
President |
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Thelma Awori Former Assistant Secretary General, UNDP Thelma Awori, a Liberian/Ugandan, was Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa at UNDP, New York between 1997 and 1999. Prior to that, she was Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP, New York and UN Resident Coordinator & Resident Representative, UNDP in Zimbabwe. Ms Awori was Deputy Director, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and prior to that, Chief of its Africa Section. She was initially an adult educator at African universities for many years. Her BA (Hons. cum laude) is in Social Relations and Cultural Anthropology from Harvard University and MA Adult Education and Humanistic Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She recently received her PhD from Columbia University. |
Vice Presidents |
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Peg Snyder Founding Director, UNIFEM Margaret (Peg) Snyder is the founding director of UNIFEM, and was regional advisor for the UN's Economic Commission for Africa, co-founder of its African Centre for Women and head of its Voluntary Agencies Bureau. She was an international election observer in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania and a Fulbright scholar at Makerere University, Uganda, and currently sits on two international NGO boards. Born in the United States, Dr Snyder received her PhD from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her most recent books are Transforming Development: Women, Poverty and Politics (a history of UNIFEM), African Women and Development: A History (co-authored with Mary Tadesse) and Women in African Economies: from Burning Sun to Boardroom. |
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Hilda Tadria Chair, Executive Board, AWDF Hilda Tadria is Ugandan, and co-founder of the African Women's Development Fund. She recently served as regional advisor on economic empowerment of women at the UN Economic Commission for Africa. In addition, she has been a consultant on gender and development, institutional management development and social development research for the World Bank, UNDP, UNIFEM, the Ugandan government and other international agencies such as Canadian CIDA and NOVIB. Dr Tadria has extensive field research experience in participatory and qualitative research methodologies both at rural community level and corporate organisational level, and has published a number of papers on Gender and Development. She has a degree from Makerere University, an MA from Newham College, Cambridge, UK and a Doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Minnesota, USA. |
Treasurer |
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Florence Chenoweth Executive Director, Human Rights Initiative, Division of International Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison Florence Chenoweth, Liberian, became Liberia's (and Africa's) first female minister of agriculture at the age of 32, serving from 1977 to 1979. She and her family narrowly escaped Liberia after a violent coup, walking across the country to safety in Sierra Leone. She returned to UW-Madison to complete her doctorate while Liberia spiraled into civil war. From 1983 to 1986, she served as technical adviser to the World Bank in Lusaka, Zambia and as a consultant to the Bank in Washington, D.C. From 1987 to 1993, she was Chief of Party for a UW-Madison project in Zambia that helped improve agricultural policy formation and management. She joined the FAO in 1995 as its representative in Banjul, the Gambia, serving until January 1998 when she was appointed FAO representative in Pretoria, South Africa, following the end of apartheid. In June 2001, she was named FAO liaison with the UN in New York, where she served as the main link between the FAO and the UN's General Assembly and community. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Human Rights Initiative in the Division of International Studies at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned both her master's degree in agricultural economics (1970) and her doctorate in land resources (1986) at UW-Madison. |
Secretary |
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Nancee Oku Bright Principal Officer, UN DPKO Nancee Oku Bright, Liberian, is Principal Officer in the Africa Division of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). She was previously Chief of Staff for the UN Mission in Chad, and Chief of Advocacy and PI for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). She served in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Chief of the Humanitarian Affairs Section of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission. Prior to MONUC, she headed OCHA's Africa Section in New York. Dr. Bright is also a journalist and has written for the BBC and major UK papers, as well as New York Newsday and the Miami Herald. She directed and produced the PBS Documentary, "Liberia: America's Stepchild," which examined the root causes of the Liberian civil war. Dr. Bright holds a BA from Wesleyan University, MA from Georgetown, MA and PhD from Oxford University. |
Members |
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Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi (Ex Officio) Executive Director, African Women's Development Fund Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is Nigerian/British and is Executive Director and a co-founder of the African Women's Development Fund. She was previously the Director of Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), an international development organisation for African women based in the UK, with an Africa regional office in Kampala, Uganda. She has experience as a journalist, writer, lecturer, trainer, fund raiser and as an organisational development specialist. She has written and published several articles on feminist leadership, popular culture and women's human rights and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Synergos Institute, New York. She has a BA and MA in History from the University of Ife, Ile-Ife Nigeria, and an MA in Gender Studies from Middlesex University, UK. |
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Diane Bell-McKoy Associated Black Charities As head of Associated Black Charities, Maryland's foremost African-American philanthropic organization, Diane Bell-McKoy leads an ongoing effort to close the state's health and wealth gaps. Before her appointment to Associated Black Charities, she was a Senior Fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and previously served the District of Columbia government as Deputy, Child Welfare Division, in the DC Mayor's Office for a joint anti-poverty initiative with the Rockefeller Foundation and was deputy chief of staff for the Baltimore Mayor's chief of staff. She serves on several boards in Maryland and lectures nationwide on strategies to engage communities as partners in development. |
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Susan Davis President & CEO, BRAC USA Susan Davis is a founder and current President & CEO of BRAC USA, which supports the Bangladesh organization's global expansion to Africa and other countries in Asia. She is former Chairperson of The Grameen Foundation. She leads Ashoka's Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and is a founding and current board member of the Grameen Foundation. She has served as a Senior Advisor to the Director General of the International Labor Organization, led the Women's Environment & Development Organization, and worked with Women's World Banking and the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh. She was educated at Georgetown, Harvard and Oxford universities. |
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Dorothy Davis President, The Diasporan Touch Dorothy Davis is founder and president of The Diasporan Touch, an international consulting company specializing in development communications and celebrity advocacy in support of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. She is also founder and President of Photos by Griff Davis, a collection of over 55,000 historical photographs of the Independence Movement in Africa and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement taken by her late father. Born in Liberia of U.S. Foreign Service parents and raised in Nigeria, Tunisia, Switzerland and the United States, her previous positions include Special Events Officer and Manager of the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador Programme; Director of Public Affairs at the African American Institute; and the first African American Advertising Sales Representative for Fortune magazine. |
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Vivian Lowery Derryck Senior Vice President and Director of Public-Private Partnerships, The Academy for Educational Development Vivian Lowery Derryck is Senior Vice President and Director of Public-Private Partnerships at the Academy for Educational Development, a 45-year-old U.S.-based non-profit which concentrates on education, health, and economic development in more than 80 countries abroad and the U.S. A veteran foreign affairs specialist, Ms. Derryck has served the Assistant Administrator for Africa of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of State, Executive Vice President of the National Council of Negro Women, Vice President of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, President of the African-American Institute and Senior Advisor of the Africa Leadership Forum. She taught at the University of Liberia from 1973 to 1977. Since returning from Liberia, she has continued to follow events, serving as an election observer in 1997 and 2005, and working with the Sirleaf administration to secure support for girls' education and maternal and child health. She was educated at Chatham College (BA) and Columbia University (MIA). |
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Pamela Frederick International Banker Pamela Frederick is an international banker with the Citigroup Private Bank Capital Markets Group. Previously she was with GE Capital in their Structured Finance Energy Group, was a Principal at Fieldstone Private Capital Group, and an Investment Officer with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation financing emerging market energy infrastructure investments in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. She also worked for (JP Morgan) Chase Manhattan Bank. She has served on the boards of the Financial Women's Association of New York and the Women's Venture Fund. |
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Susie Johnson Women's Division, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries Susie Johnson manages the Public Policy program for the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church. Previously she was Director of State and Local Government Affairs for the Africa Fund and Senior Program Officer at the Ms. Foundation for Women. She has served on the boards of Women Thrive Worldwide, the African Women's Development Fund, the National Black Caucus of States' Institute, and as a member of the CEDPA Global Funders' Circle. |
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Elizabeth Lwanga Resident Representative for Kenya, UNDP Elizabeth Lwanga, Ugandan national, is currently UNDP Resident Representative for Kenya. In the past, she has served as Deputy Director of the UNDP Africa Bureau, UNDP Resident Representative and Coordinator of the United Nations System in Swaziland and Sierra Leone, and Deputy Representative in the Gambia, as well as manager of the UNDP Gender in Development Programme in New York. Prior to joining UNDP she was Africa Director for OXFAM America and a consultant to UNIFEM, UNESCO, ILO, and OAU. Previous positions include Director for Communications for the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) and Director of its Training Centre, television producer/director and script writer. She was a founder member of women in Development Consultancy Services (WDCS) and Africa Development Assistance. She has a BA in Linguistics and a Diploma in Broadcasting. |
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Dr. Jane Martin Former Executive Director, US Educational and Cultural Foundation Liberia Jane Martin has spent much of her life working with Africans and Americans for African advancement. She worked with Liberian teachers as a member of Operation Crossroads Africa and has returned to Liberia ever since in various positions. As a member of the African Women and Peace Support Group, she was one of the authors of Liberian Women Peacemakers: Fighting for the Right to Be Seen, Heard and Counted and is Secretary and member of the Board of Trustees of Friends of Liberia (FOL). Currently she is the volunteer curator of African Art at the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the present African Art exhibit was developed under her direction in 2001-2. Dr. Martin received her BA and Master's degrees from Bryn Mawr College and her PhD in African History from Boston University. |
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Mina Mauerstein-Bail Mina Mauerstein-Bail is a social scientist with considerable experience in international development cooperation in the areas of HIV/AIDS, health and development, reproductive health, water and sanitation, education, urban development and decentralization. Ms. Mauerstein-Bail has worked at global, regional and country levels. She has spearheaded the development of numerous partnerships between governments and civil society, UN and other international organizations, the private sector and foundations that have benefited people around the world. |
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Micheline Ravololonarisoa Chief, Africa Section, UNIFEM Micheline Ravololonarisoa is a sociologist, feminist, and activist from Madagascar, her native country where she obtained her Masters degree in Sociology. She holds a post graduate degree in Women Studies from the University of Waterloo (Canada). With more than twenty years of experience in development, she is presently Chief of the Africa section of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and was previously Regional Director of the Sub Regional office in Dakar. Prior to joining the United Nations, she was the Programme Director of the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD), an international consortium of NGOs based in the United Kingdom. She is also a member of a number of several African women's networks such as Akina Mama Wa Afrika and Abantu for Development . |
Member (posthumously) |
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Angela King Angela King (1938-2007), Jamaican, was the first Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, where she chaired the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality and oversaw the direction and management of the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Prior to that appointment she was Director of DAW. She brought to those positions a wide experience in the economic, social and political work of the United Nations, as well as in administration and in advancement of women. She also served in the Office of Human Resources Management as Director of Recruitment and Placement and Director of Staff Administration and Training. Her work for gender equality crowned an almost 40-year career with the United Nations, during which she also served as Chief of the UN Observer Mission in South Africa at the time of the country's first democratic, non-racial elections. She will be mourned with profound affection and respect by many friends and allies around the world. |
SMWF/Liberia Board MembersChairperson Prof. Euphemia Abdullai, University of Liberia | |
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