Gender and Development

Andrew Byrnes is a Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales. Previously, he was Professor of Law at the Australian National University and before that a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong, where he taught for over 10 years and served as Director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law. Mr. Byrnes also served as special advisor on human rights to the Attorney General's Chambers in Hong Kong, and has worked for the Australian Human Rights Commission and Attorney-General's Department. He has consulted with the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the UN Division for the Advancement of Women, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He is a member of the advisory board of the International Women's Rights Action Watch - Asia-Pacific, and the Committee on Human Rights Law and Practice of the International Law Association. Mr. Byrnes has participated in many international conferences as a rapporteur, observer or NGO representative, and served as technical advisor to the Australian delegation to the Commission on the Status of Women during the drafting of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). He has been closely involved in the development of a new UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, and has published extensively on human rights topics, especially CEDAW and the human rights of women, the Convention against Torture, and the Hong Kong Bill of Rights.

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Savitri Goonesekere is a Senior Professor of Law Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and was previously Vice Chancellor of the University. She was a member of the UN Expert Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and a member of the working group on the Optional Protocol to CEDAW, until December 2002. She is a consultant and resource person for the Sri Lankan government, several national and international NGOs, the ILO, UNICEF, UNDP, UN-DAW and UN-ESCAP, working in the areas of law reform, human rights and development including women's and children's rights. Professor Goonesekere was a member of the Sri Lankan national delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She has also been a guest lecturer and fellow at universities in Africa, the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and at the United Nations University. She has published several books and monographs, and numerous book chapters, journal articles, reports and conference papers on issues related to law and development, governance and human rights, including women's and children's rights, violence against women, trafficking, child abuse and child labour. Professor Goonesekere has served as a member of Sri Lanka's National Commission on Education, National Science Foundation, and National Committee on Women. She is also a member of several international and regional boards and expert panels.

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Ms. Griffen is the Chief of the Gender and Development Section of the Emerging Social Issues Division of UN-ESCAP. She is a recognized expert on gender issues and gender mainstreaming strategies in the Pacific, as well as a leading international and regional advocate for gender equality and women's empowerment, and has consulted for organizations such as UNIFEM, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and NZAID. She has also advised national bodies including the Fiji Ministry of Women, Social Welfare and Poverty Reduction and the AIDS Task Force of Fiji, and NGOs such as Save the Children Fiji and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement. From 1995 to 2002, Ms. Griffen was Programme Coordinator for the Gender and Development Programme at the Asian and Pacific Development Centre in Malaysia. She served previously as Senior Lecturer in History and Politics at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. Ms. Griffen has organized and facilitated numerous regional conferences and workshops on gender-related topics, and has participated in many other international and regional conferences as a speaker or panelist. She has written extensively on gender mainstreaming and gender training, and gender issues related to globalization, women and armed conflict, natural resources management and rural livelihoods. Ms. Griffen currently serves on the Board of the Association for Women's Rights in Development, and has held similar positions in the Sisterhood is Global Institute, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and the Asia Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW). She has also served on the International Editorial Advisory Committee of UNIFEM.

Beginning in August 2007, Caren Grown is an Economist-in-Residence in the Department of Economics at American University in Washington, DC, where she teaches graduate courses in development economics and gender analysis of economics and conducts research on assets and women’s well-being, gender equality and public finance, and international trade and gender. From 2005 to 2007, she was a Senior Scholar and Co-Director (with Diane Elson) of the Gender Equality and Economy Program at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Previously, Ms. Grown directed the Poverty Reduction and Economic Governance team at the International Center for Research on Women in Washington, D.C. From 1992 to 2001, she was a Senior Program Officer with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she managed research competitions related to globalization, a five-year economics initiative, and the Fund for Leadership Development in Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, and India. In the 1980s, she conducted research on small minority and women-owned businesses in the United States for the U.S. Bureau of Census, and provided technical assistance and training to grassroots women's economic development organizations as a consultant for the Ms. Foundation for Women. Ms. Grown has written and edited several influential books and special journal issues, including The Feminist Economics of Trade , co-edited with Diane Elson, Irene Van Staveren, and Nilufer Cagatay (Routledge 2007) and Trading Women's Health and Rights: The Role of Trade Liberalization and Development , co-edited with Elissa Braunstein and Anju Malhotra (Zed Books 2006). Her other publications include Taking Action: Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering Women (with Geeta Rao Gupta and Aslihan Kes, Earthscan Press), published in 2005 for the UN Millennium Project; the Fall 2000 Special Issue of Feminist Economics on Gender and Globalization (co-edited with Lourdes Beneria, Maria Floro, and Martha MacDonald); the July 2000 Special Issue of World Development on Growth, Trade, Finance and Gender Inequality, and the November 1995 Special Issue of World Development on Gender, Adjustment and Macroeconomics (both co-edited with Nilufer Cagatay and Diane Elson); and the 1987 Development, Crisis and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives (co-authored with Gita Sen). She is an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics and a founding member of the International Working Group on Gender and Macroeconomics.

Ms. Javate-de Dios is the Executive Director of the Women and Gender Institute and an Associate Professor of International Studies at Miriam College in the Philippines. She served previously as International Studies Department Chairperson and Dean of the College. Ms. Javate-de Dios is also Gender Adviser to the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), having served previously as a member and Chairperson of the Board of Commissioners of the NCRFW. During her tenure as Chairperson, the NCRFW provided technical support to the Philippine legislature, leading to the passage of the Anti-Trafficking Act and the Violence against Women and their Children Act in 2003-04. Ms. Javate-de Dios also served on the UN Expert Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and has been a member of the Philippine delegation to numerous international conferences and meetings, including the Fourth World Conference on Women, the World Conference on Human Rights, and negotiating sessions on the Convention on Transnational Organized Crime. She is a member of the Philippine Interagency Committee against Trafficking of Persons and serves on the boards of numerous organizations, including the International Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (President of the Board), the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific (Chairperson), Isis International-Manila, and Human Rights Documentation System, International (HURIDOCS). Ms. Javate-de Dios has participated in numerous international, regional and national conferences as a speaker or panelist, and has written extensively on women migrants, trafficking in women and girls, violence against women, and engendering the judiciary. She has also received several national awards for her public service and commitment to women's rights.

Khunying Supatra has been elected 7 times to Thailand's Parliament between 1979 and 2000, and was the first Thai woman parliamentarian appointed to a cabinet position. While serving as Minister to the Prime Minister's Office twice from 1998 to 1990, and 1997 to February 2001, she spearheaded the formation of a permanent National Commission on Women's Affairs as well as the Public Information Office. She was also a member of the National Social Policy Committee where she focused on community empowerment for sustainable development. As a social advocate, Khunying Supatra co-founded the Creative Media Foundation in 1991, and served as its president until 2002. This foundation champions press freedoms and other public interest causes. Since 1991, she has also served as president of the Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics, a regional NGO that promotes women's participation in politics. For the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Khunying Supatra also served as convenor of the NGO Forum. In 1989, in recognition of her public and social service, His Majesty the King of Thailand bestowed on her the title, "Khunying".

Yasuko Muramatsu, an economist, is Chair of the Japan Research Center for Gender and Development and Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Woman's Christian University where she has been a faculty member for over 40 years. She has also been a visiting professor and scholar at several universities in Asia and the United States. Her teaching and research areas include international and development economics, the economics of female labor, and gender and development. She has conducted field research in Cambodia, People's Republic of China. Indonesia, Lao PDR, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. Ms. Muramatsu has served as an outside expert to the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs on overseas development assistance, and as an advisor and outside expert to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on gender and development issues and NGO project selection. She lectures regularly in JICA training courses on gender and development, and has published extensively on gender budget analysis and the gender implications of macroeconomic policy. She is on the editorial boards of several academic journals, and is a member of numerous professional associations.

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Smita Notosusanto, a political scientist, is the Executive Director of the Centre for Electoral Reform (CETRO) in Jakarta and a lecturer and researcher in the Department of International Relations at the University of Indonesia. In the past, she has served as the Executive Director of the University Network for Free and Fair Elections (UNFREL), the coordinator of the Convention Watch Project, monitoring Indonesia's implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a senior researcher for the information center of the Indonesian parliament, and a foreign news correspondent. She has also participated in numerous conferences and seminars dealing with the reform of Indonesia's election laws and political system, and strategies to increase women's political representation.

Mr. Rahman is the Additional Chief Engineer in the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) of Bangladesh. In this position, he is responsible for monitoring and evaluating all of LGED's project activities. Mr. Rahman was previously the Project Director for several ADB-financed projects including the Third Rural Infrastructure Development Project, for which he received awards for three consecutive years in recognition of the significant positive impact of the project on institutional development, poverty reduction and social development, including attention to gender concerns. He was previously an Executive Engineer at LGED. Mr. Rahman has participated as a resource person in several ADB regional workshops where he has presented the positive results of gender mainstreaming strategies in LGED projects to government officials from other ADB member countries. He has also participated in numerous workshops hosted by ADB, DANIDA, ILO, JBIC, JICA, SDC, UNDP, UNESCAP and World Bank, including workshops on participatory planning and poverty reduction in infrastructure development.

Mr. Ryazanov is a civil engineer and business development specialist, with particular expertise in incorporating gender-sensitive and participatory approaches in small enterprise development and in financial services for micro and small businesses. He is currently the Manager of the Local Market Development Project in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan supported by Helvetas (the Swiss Association for International Cooperation) and ICCO (the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation). He previously managed projects to promote business development in the agroprocessing and tourism sectors and to establish development funds and credit unions to serve these sectors. He has also consulted for numerous development organizations including ADB, FAO, IFAD, ILO, ITC, UNICEF, UNESCO, GTZ and SDC, and international NGOs such as the Aga Khan Development Network. His consulting assignments have included working as a gender specialist in rural development and microfinance projects. Mr. Ryazanov has also moderated many conferences and workshops involving a variety of stakeholders, and has written on business development services and support for small and medium enterprises.

Wu Qing is a gender specialist for CIDA and leader in a number of national and international women's organizations and networks. She is also an academic and lecturer, having recently retired as professor of American Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University after 40 years of service. She is currently Chair of the Chinese Women's Health Network, Chair of the Board of Rural Women Knowing All Practical Skills Training Center, board member of the Cultural Development Center for Rural Women, as well as board member of Gender Action in Washington, DC, President of the Women's World Summit Foundation in Geneva, and Honorary Chair of the Women's Intercultural Network based in San Francisco. In the past, she served on the board of the Global Fund for Women based in San Francisco from 1996 to 2002. She is also currently serving her fourth term as People's Deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress and seventh term in the Haidian District People's Congress. Ms. Wu is the recipient of numerous awards and acknowledgments, including selection by the Reform Magazine, Rural Version in 2003 as 1 of the 20 people in China who care about the rights of the peasants, a Schwab Foundation award as a World Outstanding Social Entrepreneur of 2003, induction as a Fellow in the World Academy of Art and Science in 2002, the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 2001, and several teaching awards in China.