Cathy Allen

Cathy Allen has spent the past 20 years specializing on recruiting and running women for office. She has directed more than 500 successful campaigns for women in the United State and around the world. In her own State of Washington, she is credited for helping elect almost 40% women in the legislature, a woman Governor and both women U.S. Senators. A former New York Times journalist, Ms. Allen is also an NBC-TV political commentator analyzing campaigns and political trends. Among the places she has presented are Jordan, Morocco, Canada, Mexico, Croatia, Hungary, Spain, Algeria, France, Netherlands, Angola and Cuba. In 2000, Ms. Allen co-founded the Center for Women and Democracy at the University of Washington. Ms. Allen is also the former vice president of the National Women's Political Caucus. She holds an M.A. in public administration from Harvard University and has an undergraduate degree in journalism.

Roula Attar

Roula Attar is the Resident Country Director of NDI's office in Jordan. Based in Amman since 2004, Ms. Attar manages Institute programs there with parliament, political parties, civil society organizations and women's groups. In addition, Ms. Attar plays an advisory role within the region—often assisting with the design and implementation of NDI programs in other MENA countries, mainly Egypt and Lebanon. Before assuming her current field position, Ms. Attar served for three years as Washington-based NDI staff for various MENA programs, during which time she co-managed the Congress of Democrats from the Islamic World. Her primary area of expertise is women's political participation, having served as the executive producer of two NDI documentaries on this subject. Prior to NDI, Ms. Attar was the special projects coordinator at the Arab American Institute, a non-profit organization working to empower Arab Americans in the U.S. A Lebanese-American, Ms. Attar earned a Bachelor's of Arts degree in Political Science from Wichita State University in Kansas. She is fluent in Arabic and French, with aworking knowledge of Spanish.

Diana Ávila

Diana Avila is a sociologist and journalist trained at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Ms. Avila carried out graduate studies in sociology concentrating on the Latin American region at the University of Essex, England. She has more than 20 years of experience in Human Rights. Executive Director of Project Counselling Service (PCS) since 1992, Ms. Avila has worked for many years with local organizations in Latin America, supporting and protecting displaced populations, refugees and others affected by political violence, with a special focus on women. Ms. Avila specialises in the empowerment of women victims of domestic armed conflicts in Latin America. She has worked extensively in Central America, Colombia and its borders, and Peru.

Winnie Byanyima

Winnie Byanyima, Director of the UNDP Gender Team, Bureau for Development Policy, was elected three times to the Uganda legislature and was a founder of the Assembly’s women’s caucus. Before joining UNDP, Ms. Byanyima served as Director, Women, Gender and Development Directorate of the African Union Commission. She was also a founding member and first chair of the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), a national NGO. Ms. Byanyima has served on many expert and advisory panels and as a consultant of the UNDP, UNIFEM and other UN agencies. She is a member of the Executive Board of the African Capacity Building Foundation and the International Centre for Research on Women. Recently, she was a member of the UN Millennium Development Goals Task Force on Education and Gender Equality. Ms Byanyima has several publications on issues of gender and governance, including a handbook she co-authored for the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) entitled “Parliaments, the Budget Process and Gender,” and “A Rising Tide,” a biography of prominent Ugandan women politicians and activists. Ms. Byanyima holds an M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from Manchester University (UK).

Gretchen Bauer

Gretchen Bauer is a university professor with a specialization in African Politics and Women in Politics, and has traveled, studied and worked extensively in East and Southern Africa. During the early years of her career her research and scholarship focused on democratization and civil society organizations in southern Africa. During a 2002 sabbatical leave she was a visiting researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research in Windhoek, Namibia and conducted extensive interviews with and research on women Members of Parliament in Namibia’s lower and upper houses. That research resulted in a 2004 Journal of Modern African Studies article on women in parliament in Namibia and a 2006 book, co-edited with Hannah Britton, Women in African Parliaments. She presented this work at the Women’s Worlds conferences in Uganda and South Korea. More recently She has examined the impact of choice of electoral system on women’s descriptive representation and the implications of different types of electoral gender quotas on women’s substantive representation in several east and southern African countries. This work is currently under review. Professor Bauer is currently Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware, in Newark, DE, USA.

Lilian Celiberti

Lilian Celiberti has been a feminist activist for more than 20 years. She coordinates the feminist collective Cotidiano Mujer in Uruguay and Marcosur, a group of feminist organizations and networks in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Peru. In 2006 and 2007, she headed the technical secretariat of the MERCOSUR Expert Meeting on Women, promoting a gender approach to regional integration. As Uruguay’s national coordinator for the Youth and South American Integration Project, she is part of a research team made up of organizations and researchers from six countries seeking to promote participation by young people. Ms. Celiberti is a professor in the “Leading in a Gender Key” course sponsored by Urbal Network 12: Women and the City. As a human rights activist, she coordinates MERCOSUR’s participation in the Inter-American Platform of Human Rights, Democracy and Development.

Nestorine Compaore

Ms Compaore is a lecturer and consultant in social development at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Ms. Nestorine Compaore has worked with a range of international donors and national institutions. She is specialized in the fields of gender and participation and involvement development. Her experience includes Gender Expert, consultant and researcher. She has also acted as a Gender Advisor and consultant to donors, ministries and civil society organization. She is currently Executive Director of the Centre for research and Intervention on Gender and Development, an NGO based in Burkina with local representation in Ouganda and Ethiopia. Ms Compaore has a PhD from Development Sociology, Department of Sociology, Arts and Sciences Faculty, University of Montreal, Canada (2000), and Master in rural geography.

Kate Coyne-McCoy

Kate Coyne-McCoy serves as a regional director for EMILY’s List, the largest political action network in the United States. Ms. Coyne-McCoy has trained over 2500 women in 32 states, and directly assisted with the campaigns and successful elections of more than 100 women. In 2000, Ms. Coyne-McCoy sought the Democratic nomination for Congress in Rhode Island’s second congressional district. Her campaign raised $750,000 and was endorsed by more than 30 national groups, including EMILY’s List, NARAL and the National Women’s Political Caucus. Ms. Coyne-McCoy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Providence College and a Masters in Social Work from Rhode Island College. In addition to her work for EMILY’s List, Ms. Coyne-McCoy recently accepted a Fellowship at Harvard University.

Diane Cromer

Diane Cromer is founding partner of Keefer/Cromer Communications, a full-service advertising, public relations, and political consulting firm with offices in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. Their non-political clients are diverse and include commercial banks, high-tech wireless communications firms, and non-profit agencies of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Ms. Cromer has over twenty years’ experience in government, politics, marketing and the media. She has served on the executive leadership staffs of both the legislative and administrative branches of Pennsylvania government. She has worked in 13 states and nearly 125 political campaigns, including campaigns for Governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, state legislature and county commissioner. Diane Cromer was recognized in 1990 among Who’s Who of Women Executives, in 1996 she was named a “Rising Star” by Campaigns and Elections Magazine.” Most recently, Ms. Cromer received the Athena Award from the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce for her contributions to women in business.

Drude Dahlerup

Drude Dahlerup is a Political Science Professor at Stockholm University and has written extensively on Women's Political Representation, Gender quotas and balance, Women in political parties and women as voters. Professor Dahlerup was the Vice-Chair of the Danish Government's Council for European Politics 1993-2000, a Member of the board of KVINFO, The Danish Center for Information on Women and Gender, Copenhagen, 1998-2003, a Member of the Norwegian State Research Council, section for political science 1991-1994, the Head of Cekvina, Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Aarhus, 1991-92 and 1997 and the Chair of the International Political Science Association's Research Committee on Sex Roles and Politics, 1982-85 (together with Professor Fanny Tabak, Brazil). Her research interests include gender and political representation, and equality policies.

Moha Ennaji

Dr. Moha Ennaji is one of Morocco’s leading scholars with research interests in cultural and gender issues, migration, and civil society. With a PhD in Arabic language and linguistics from Essex University (Great Britain) in 1982, Dr. Ennaji is a tenured Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Fès. He is also a visiting professor at Rutgers University, USA. Dr. Moha Ennaji is the author and/or editor of numerous books and articles on language, culture, education, migration, civil society and gender. He has also published over 60 articles on language and cultural issues in the Arab world. Some of his most recent articles are: “The Feminization of Public Space: Women’s Activism, the Family Law, and Social Change in Morocco” (inco-authorship with F. Sadiqi, in Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (JMEWS); “Women and Development in Morocco”, “Les Femmes Musulmanes en Europe” (Brussels), “The Effects of Migration on Moroccan Women Left Behind” (Lisbon). Moha Ennaji is a director and founder of the first graduate program on “Linguistics and Gender Studies”, and Vice-President of the Foundation Fès-Saiss. He has co-initiated three graduate international projects on cultural and gender studies: the German-Arab Dialogue Project (University of Oldenbourg), and the Gender Studies in North Africa Project.

Karen Gainer

Karen Gainer is a criminal trial lawyer by profession who has developed an expertise in democratic development and election processes. Most recently she was Legal Advisor to the OSCE ODIHR election observation mission to the Italian Parliamentary Elections in April 2006. Prior to that mission, she worked for the United Nations as the Senior Legal Advisor to the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission. From 1996-2004 she was the Senior Country Director for NDI in Croatia, NDI's resident senior country director for Croatia, a post she held since 1996. In that position, Karen designed, implemented and administered programs related to political parties, parliament and civic participation. Among other activities, she has conducted consultations with Croatian political party leaders on strengthening their internal organization. Before joining NDI, Karen practiced law as a criminal defense attorney in Canada for fifteen years, which included extensive trial litigation. Her work with indigenous people from the First Nations of Canada, which comprised most of her clientele, led to an interest in human rights issues. She also actively participated in various public policy debates in Canada, including reform of the criminal justice and health care systems. Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien subsequently appointed Karen to the National Forum on Health, which conducted a comprehensive review of Canada's health system.

Hege Herø

Hege Herø has been working with gender equality issues in Norway for the past 20 years; as Secretary General in The Conservative Party’s Women’s Association, as Deputy Chair of Norway’s Equal Status Council, and as Equal Opportunities Officer in the National Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). She is now a Senior Adviser in the Confederation of Vocational Unions (YS), and through this position a member of the Women’s Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation. Her political background also includes local government work, as Chair of a City District Council and as a Deputy Member of the City Council of Oslo. She has participated as a trainer in a number of NDI ventures in Eastern and Central Europe since 1990 in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania, Estonia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Several of these were programs for women in politics. Hege’s education consists of business studies at The Norwegian School of Management and ”Gender and Policy” at the Lillehammer College. She is presently combining her trade union work with studying for a Master’s degree in Public Administration.

Sylvia Hordosch

Ms. Hordosch is a Social Affairs Officer, Division for the Advancement of Women, United Nations Secretariat, New York. Previously she also worked for the Officer of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues. In her work at the United Nations, she has focused on issues related to women, peace and security, women's human rights, women and decision-making, the status of women within the UN system. As senior democratization officer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she supported elections-related activities and worked with political parties and civil society organizations. She also worked for the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights in Austria. M.S., management of international public service organizations, New York University, New York. M.Phil, English and French language/literature, Karl-Franzens University, Austria. M.A., women's studies, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA.

Niki Johnson

Niki Johnson has a doctorate in political science (2000) and a Master’s degree in Latin American studies (1993), both from the University of London in the United Kingdom. She is currently professor, researcher and coordinator of the Politics and Gender Area of the Political Science Department in the School of Social Sciences at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay. Ms. Johnson also works as co-coordinator of Friends of the Earth International’s gender programme and has been hired as an independent researcher on gender issues by national and international NGOs. She has extensive experience as a consultant on training in political participation and citizenship and the development of public policies for women politicians, officials and members of women’s organizations engaging in political advocacy. Since 1995, she has worked on issues related to gender, citizenship, representation, democracy and development in the sphere of institutional policy and the feminist/women’s movement. Her research and publications include analysis of the situation in Uruguay and comparative studies involving other countries in the region (particularly Argentina and Chile).

Babette Kabak

Babette Kabak was born New York, NY and has a BA from the University of Pittsburgh, PA. Ms. Kabak who is married and has two children lived in South Africa for most of her life. While living in South Africa, she worked as a freelance copywriter and journalist for a few years, but spent most of her time as a volunteer lobbyist for women's legal rights. In 1976, she co-convened the Women's Legal Status Committee and monitored all legislation affecting South African women of all ethnic groups. She made numerous submissions to the South African Law Commission and the Wiehahn Commission (labor) to amend laws & introduce legislation on marriage, divorce, employment, health & abortion. In 1991co-founded The Women's Lobby to lobby for women's inclusion in negotiations between the South African Government and African National Congress and to promote women in politics. In 2003, Ms. Kabak sponsored a Conference on International Conflict Resolution at the University of Pittsburgh with an emphasis on the inclusion of women as negotiators. She returned to South Africa in 2004 returned to assist in the writing and editing of "Ahead of Their Time" - History of the Women's Legal Status Committee and The Women's Lobby. She also sponsored distribution to approximately 300 universities libraries in the US, South Africa, and Europe. In 2005-06, Ms. Kabak sponsored the Kabak Fellowship in Conflict Resolution for MA students at University of Pittsburgh.

Patricia Keefer

Patricia Keefer has been involved in important political reform initiatives in the United States and democratic development in countries in every region of the world all of her professional life. She began her political career as a national leader of the U.S. Young Democrats and as a member of the Democratic Party’s Commission on Youth Participation. She was the organizer of the successful effort to amend the U.S. Constitution lowering the voting age to 18. She has organized voter education and registration initiatives not only in the U.S. but also in places as diverse as Chile, the Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, Mozambique and Taiwan. As a member of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Campaign Fund, she chaired the Task Force on Women in Politics at Harvard University and lectured at the Kennedy School of Government on the role of money and special interest groups in American politics. She spent 17 years as a Senior Associate for Political Parties and Southern Africa Regional Director at the National Democratic Institute and ten years at Common Cause where she was Vice President for Organization. She currently is on contract with the American Federation of Teachers in South Africa where she working with teachers unions on a program to prevent the spread of AIDS among classroom teachers.

Mirjana Kovacevic

Mirjana Kovacevic is a student of sociology at the faculty of philosophy, University of Belgrade. In 1996 she was a founder of the Social Democratic Union, then in 1999 a founder of Social Democratic Youth and chair of their political council. In 1997 founded the Student Union of Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. In 1998 was an activist in anti-war campaign against escalating violence in Kosovo (800,000 leaflets and 30,000 posters distributed). In 2000 she was a representative in Women's Political Network, and during electoral campaign member of Central Electoral HQ of Social Democratic Union, becoming an elected member of Municipal Council of Zvezdara.

Liliam Landeo

Liliam Landeo is an anthropologist with wide experience working with indigenous peoples, especially indigenous women, in the Andean and Amazon Region of Latin America. She heads the Indigenous Peoples Program at Oxfam America ,supervising its projects in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Ms. Landeo holds a Masters in Social Sciences from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), and a post-graduate degree in Development and Human Ecology from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She has also undertaken post-graduate studies in Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples.

Inete Ielite

Inete Ielite has been working for human rights for more than 12 years, promoting development of civil society in Latvia and participation of most disadvantaged groups of society. She has been involved in creating new legislation, policies and services for children, young people and families both through professional and voluntary work. Since 2000 Children’s Forum of Latvia, Ms. Ielite has encouraged participation of all groups of children in creating child – friendly environment in local communities as well to take active part in evaluating and shaping policies. Ms. Inete Ielite was Personal Representative of Prime Minister of Latvia to the Preparatory Committee for the UN GA Special Session for Children. She is co-founder of Coalition for Gender Equality of Latvia - the largest umbrella organization in Latvia. From 2006, she is Board Member of KARAT Coalition. Ms. Ielite is a well-known trainer and consultant in the region.

Beatriz Llanos

Beatriz Llanos, a lawyer and journalist, has served as International IDEA’s coordinator of training and dialogue and coordinator of gender and politics projects in Peru. Dr. Llanos is currently a consultant on political communication and women’s participation in politics. She has written numerous newspaper and magazine articles and is co-author of Del dicho al hecho: Manual de buenas prácticas para la participación de mujeres en los partidos políticos latinoamericanos (in press), International IDEA, 2008; 30 Years of Democracy: Riding the Wave? Women’s Political Participation in Latin America, International IDEA, 2008; and Cuota, sistema electoral y prácticas partidarias: Claves de los avances y barreras a la participación política de la mujer en la región andina (unpublished), 2007.

Patricia de Lille

Patricia de Lille is a founder and president of the Independent Democrats (ID) party. Ms. De Lille has been involved in politics for the last quarter of a century. Her employment as a laboratory technician in the paint industry in Cape Town got her involved in the South African Chemical Workers Union, where she was elected as a National Executive Member in 1983. Her election as a National Vice-President of the National Council of Trade Unions in 1988 saw her occupy the highest position for a woman in the trade union movement. In 1994, Ms. De Lille became a Member of Parliament in South Africa’s first democratically-elected parliament. In 2003, she became the first woman in South Africa to lead a political party making headlines when her party contested in the 2004 national and provincial elections. Being the only public representative of her party, she managed to promote 14 public representatives from her party in a period 12 months and increased it to 169 representatives in 3 years. In 2004, Ms. De Lille was awarded the honor of being one of the Top 5 Women in Government and Government Agencies.

Ximena Machicao Barbery

Ximena Machicao is a Bolivian feminist sociologist with 25 years of experience and active involvement in the feminist and women’s movement at the national, regional and international levels. She has served as director of the Women’s Development and Information Center (Centro de Información y Desarrollo de la Mujer, CIDEM) in Bolivia (1994-2004) and representative of women’s NGOs in official Bolivian delegations to world summits and conferences and subsequent follow-up activities. Ms. Machicao is former general coordinator of the September 28 Regional Campaign for Decriminalization of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean (1996-1998). She was a member of various leadership committees and councils for regional networks and campaigns (1999-2004), and has worked as an expert consultant on gender and development for national and international agencies (1995-2004). Ms. Machicao is author or co-author of various books and articles on equality and equity for women. She currently serves as general coordinator for the Network for Grassroots Education among Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Coordinadora General de la Red de Educación Popular Entre Mujeres de América Latina y el Caribe, REPEM).

Linda Maguire

Ms. Maguire is the Electoral Advisor in UNDP’s Democratic Governance Group. She joined UNDP in 1998 and has worked on legislatures, elections and post-conflict democracy building. She has also worked in UNDP’s Evaluation Office on results-based performance assessment. In her current position, she provides policy and project advice on elections to UNDP country offices and their national partners, undertakes a research agenda, and maintains partnerships between UNDP and organizations within and beyond the UN. Ms. Maguire is the current project coordinator for the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network—a joint venture on the cost and administration of elections between UNDP, International IDEA, IFES: Democracy at Large, Elections Canada, the Federal Electoral Institute (Mexico), EISA (Southern Africa), the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs and the UN Department of Political Affairs’ Electoral Assistance Division. Before joining UNDP, she was a Senior Program Officer for West Africa with the National Democratic Institute, where she managed the electoral assistance programs in Côte d'Ivoire and Mali, as well as provided support to legislatures, political parties and civil-society initiatives in the region. Ms. Maguire holds a Master of Arts from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. She is the author of “Power Ethnicized: The Pursuit of Protection and Participation in Rwanda and Burundi”, Vol. 2 Buffalo Journal of International Law, and author of/contributor to a number of UNDP publications on democratic governance, including the recent UNDP’s Handbook on Working with Political Parties.

Jutta Marx

Jutta Marx holds a Master’s degree in Social Sciences with a focus in Political Sciences from FLACSO Argentina (1991). She was the director of Women and Politics section of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Buenos Aires. Ms. Marx was the co-founder of the Magazine “Feminaria” and a member of its Board of Directors. She has published several articles in national and international magazines about women’s political participation. Ms. Marx is the author of a number of articles and books, including Mujeres y Partidos Políticos (Women and Political Parties) (Buenos Aires, Legasa, 1992), Las Legisladoras (Female Legislators), and Cupos de género y política en Argentina y Brasil (Gender quotas and politics in Argentina and Brazil) (Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI, 2007), which was co-authored with Jutta Borner and Mariana Caminotti. Between 2004 and 2006, she worked as head researcher in the project “Gender and Politics in MERCOSUR” headquartered in the Torcuato Di Tella Institute. Between 2006 and 2007, she coordinated the UNDP’s project “The impact of quotas on political and institutional culture and the legislative framework: Contributions to the discussion about gender equality in the politics of Argentina.”

Alejandra Massolo

Alejandra Massolo is a consultant on gender equality and local governance issues. Ms. Massolo is an associate researcher at the Interdisciplinary Group on Women, Work, and Poverty (GIMTRAP) in Mexico and a member of the Women’s Network and Habitat of Latin America. She holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She has been a tenured professor in the Department of Sociology and a visiting professor for the graduate studies in Planning and Urban Politics Political at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de Mexico (UAM). Ms. Massolo has also been a supervisor and an advisor on the projects of the Program for Financing Research and Scholarships, which is a part of the Interdisciplinary Program for Women’s Studies (PIEM) of Mexico’s El Colegio. She is an external supervisor for the Program “Political Participation and Decentralization” at the Peruvian Women’s Center Flora Tristán. Additionally, she has directed the workshops on Local Governance and Municipal Management, and Gender’s Perspective in Municipal Public Policies held by the National Association of local authorities (Regidoras, Síndicas) and Mayors of El Salvador (ANDRYSAS) and presented on the Latin America’s Panorama for Women’s Participation in Elected Municipal Positions and Positive Actions in Municipal Management at the ANDRYSAS’s Third Congress in El Salvador. She is the author of numerous publications.

Dr. Richard Matland

Dr. Matland is the Helen Houlahan Rigali Chair of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. He has also held positions at the University of Bergen and the University of Trondheim in Norway and the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1991. Dr. Matland's work crosses several fields including public policy, comparative politics, and American politics. His work emphasizes a comparative institutions approach, looking at how different institutions for aggregating preferences can lead to different policy outcomes. His work includes a number of articles looking at the effect of electoral systems on women's representation in legislatures. He has also done work on policy implementation, on school choice programs in the United States and theories of distributive justice. His work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Social Science Quarterly, and Canadian Journal of Political Science, as well as many other journals and books. He is co-editor of the Oxford University Press book, Women’s Access to Political Power in Post-Communist Europe.

Audrey McLaughlin

Audrey McLaughlin was the Federal Member of Parliament for the Yukon from 1987-1997, she served as Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada from 1989-1995, the first woman elected to lead a federal party in Canada. She retired from politics in 1997. Before entering politics, Audrey had a number of careers as a farmer, social worker, teacher, small business operator, and community worker. She has a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Toronto and an honorary doctorate from the same university, awarded in 1995. In 1999, she was awarded an Honorary Senior Fellowship from Renison College, University of Waterloo. In 2003, Ms. McLaughlin was awarded an honorary degree from the University of British Columbia. In 2004, she received the Order of Canada. In addition to the publication of a number of articles, her book “A Woman’s Place, My Life and Politics” was published in 1992. In 2005, she was appointed, by the Prime Minister, to the National Roundtable on the Economy and Environment (Canada). Audrey was born in Ontario, Canada and moved to the Yukon, Canada in 1979 where she currently resides. She has two children and two grandchildren.

Anne McLellan

The Honorable A. Anne McLellan served as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and as the first Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in the government of the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin from 2003-2006. Ms. McLellan also held numerous ministerial positions in Canada such as Minister of Health (January 2002 – December 2003), Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (June 1997 – January 2002) and Minister of Natural Resources and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians (November 1993 – June 1997). She also served four terms as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre from October 25, 1993 – January 23, 2006. On May 12, 2006 Ms. McLellan was appointed Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Alberta in the newly established Institute for United States Policy Studies.

Ms. Anne McLellan holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Law degree from Dalhousie University and a Master of Laws degree from King's College, University of London. Ms McLellan was admitted to the Bar of Nova Scotia in 1976.

Edith Miguda

Edith Miguda holds a Ph.D. in gender studies and history from Adelaide University, South Australia. She is currently a postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Women’s Intercultural Leadership at Saint Mary’s College, Indiana. Her current research and teaching focuses on Women in politics and international women’s movements with a special attention to the interplay between national and international forces in enhancing women’s parliamentary recruitment. This was the subject of Edith’s PhD thesis, which compared the case of Kenya and Australia. Dr. Edith Miguda has served as a senior consultant on gender and development for various international and inter-governmental agencies in Kenya, Australia and Indonesia. She has done extensive research on women and party politics; women, democratization and political empowerment; and has conducted interviews with women parliamentarians both in Kenya and Australia to determine comparative factors that enhance or obstruct women’s recruitment to national parliaments. Edith has been involved in campaigns for women’s political empowerment including gender focused civic education and advocacy work. Edith studied for her Masters degree in History and Bachelor of Education at The University of Nairobi, Kenya. She taught African history in the department of History and Government at The University of Nairobi in Kenya up to 1999.

Amy Mazur

Amy Mazur is Associate Professor of Political Science and Criminal Justice at Washington State University and co-convener of the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State. Professor Mazur is the author or editor of four books, including Gender Bias and the State and most recently, Theorizing Feminist Policy. She has published articles in Political Research Quarterly, French Politics and Society, Policy Studies Journal, West European Politics, European Journal of Political Research, and Contemporary French Civilization.

Pippa Norris

Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard University and she has served as Director of the Democratic Governance Group at United Nations Development Programme. A political scientist, Ms. Norris’ work compares democratic institutions, elections and public opinion, political communications and gender politics in many countries worldwide. A well-known public speaker and prolific author, she has published more than three-dozen books. Her work has been published in more than a dozen languages. Her latest book, with Cambridge University Press (2008), is Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work? She has served as an expert consultant for many international bodies including the UN, UNESCO, NDI, the Council of Europe, International IDEA, the National Endowment for Democracy and the UK Electoral Commission.

Barbara Norrander

Barbara Norrander is Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona. She studies gender differences in public opinion and voting behavior. In particular, she has investigated the gender gap in partisanship and issue positions. Professor Norrander also investigates factors influencing the election of women to public office, with special emphasis on explaining the election of women to the 50 U.S. state legislatures. Beyond her work on gender and politics, Professor Norrander also conducts research on public attitudes on a variety of social issues, the link between public opinion and policies in the U.S. states, and the nomination of candidates for the U.S. presidency.

Doris Ravenhill

As a human rights activist, Doris Ravenhill has been involved in the development of a women's movement in South Africa for the past three decades. She has served as an executive of the South African Association of Women Graduates (SAAWG) and on the Women's Legal Status Committee (WLSC) consecutively since 1978. She is known for her capacity to think on her feet, quick analysis, ability to reach the core of issues, for planning initiatives and seeing them through effectively. When the women's movement began to emerge in South Africa in the form of the Women' National Coalition (WNC) she represented these groups on its steering committee. She helped to edit their Charter for the Effective Equality of Women, used as a reference on gender rights in forming the new SA Constitution. In 1991, along with another WLSC and SAAWG member she initiated The Women's Lobby (TWL), the only organization to campaign specifically for women in politics at all levels.

Socorro L. Reyes

Dr. Socorro L. Reyes the founding President of The Center for Legislative Development (CLD), a Philippine-based non-government organization that assists in the capability building of national and local legislatures and broadening civic participation in the legislative process. Her legislative development work focuses on providing members of Parliaments in the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippine Congress and the local legislatures, their staff and the Secretariat with skills building seminars on legislative research, bill drafting, legislative report writing and information orientation seminars on the committee system, floor deliberations, budget preparations and constituency servicing. A major interest of Dr. Reyes is Women in Politics about which she has written and published articles such as "Framework for Women's Participation in the Policy Process;" "Legislative Agenda for Women in the Ninth Congress-" Strengthening the Linkage Between Women's Organizations and Women in Government;" and "Transformational Politics and Women in the Ninth Congress." Her involvement with women's organizations include the following: founder member of SIBOL, a feminist advocacy formation in the Philippines; founder member of the Executive Board of the Asia-Pacific Women in Politics Network (APWIP); and Chair of the Research Committee on Sex Roles and Politics of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).

Charmaine Rodrigues

Charmaine Rodrigues is the Pacific Regional Legislative Strengthening Expert at the UNDP Pacific Center based in Suva. The Center services 3 Pacific country offices and covers a parish of 15 Pacific Island countries. Ms. Rodrigues' work focuses on providing regional and national technical support to Pacific parliaments and parliamentary support projects. Recognizing that the Pacific has the lowest numbers of women parliamentarians in the world, her program also includes support to increase women's representation.

Prior to joining UNDP, Ms. Rodrigues worked as a policy advocate at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in New Delhi. She focused on promoting the right to information in the 53 countries of the Commonwealth. Ms. Rodrigues has also worked with the Australian Agency for International Development and is a qualified lawyer.

Kira Sanbonmatsu

Kira Sanbonmatsu is Associate Professor of Political Science and Senior Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Her research on women and U.S. politics focuses on political parties, candidate recruitment, gender stereotypes, and state politics. She is the author of Where Women Run: Gender and Party in the American States (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and Democrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women’s Place (University of Michigan Press, 2002). Her articles have appeared in such journals as American Journal of Political Science, Politics & Gender, and Party Politics.

Amal Sabbagh

Dr. Amal Sabbagh is currently an independent consultant on gender issues in the Arab region with a focus on women in politics and gender mainstreaming. Dr. Sabbagh was the Secretary General of the Jordanian National Commission for Women. She has held positions within the Ministry of Social Development in Jordan and was Director of the Regional Centre for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in the Near East (CARDNE). Her government agency was responsible for recommending legislative and policy initiatives that empower women.

Fatima Sadiqi

Fatima Sadiqi is a Professor of Linguistics and Gender Studies. She has written extensively on Moroccan languages and Moroccan women’s issues. She is the author of Women, Gender, and Language in Morocco(Brill, 2003), acclaimed by many critics as the first book on feminist linguistics in the Arab-Islamic world. Her Harvard Fellowship allowed Ms. Sadiqi to start her new book Berber Women’s Religious Expressions in which she adopts a bigger than the harem framework for Moroccan women’s feminisms. Fatima Sadiqi has also co-authored, co-edited, and co-translated a number of books and articles. She is an Editor-in-Chief of Languages and Linguistics, an international journal, and serves on the editorial board.

Gabriela Serrano

Gabriela Serrano joined the International Republican Institute (IRI) in January 2004, as the Bolivia Resident Country Director (RCD), to launch a civic education initiative to build popular support for Democracy. In September 2004, she moved to Peru where she leaded a communication program with the Presidency. Additional programs in Peru include training candidates for Congress and municipal governments –special emphasis made on women-; working with political parties to adequate to the new Party Law; work with elected authorities promoting good governance practices. Additionally, Gabriela has been involved in party strengthening programs in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina. Prior to IRI, she served as Program Officer at the Democratic Governance Unit of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Nicaragua, handling a diverse portfolio of projects dealing with the strengthening, modernization and reform of institutions such as the National Assembly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidency. She was previously the Executive Director of Hagamos Democracia (HD), a leading Nicaraguan national NGO specialized in the promotion of citizen participation, transparency and accountability values in the public sector. Gabriela obtained a B.A. in Business administration from the Central American University in Nicaragua and a Masters degree in Development Administration from the University of Birmingham, UK.

Gulnara Shahinian

An expert in trafficking for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and consultant to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime for the counter-trafficking project in the Black Sea region, Gulnara Shahinian is the elected chair of the UN expert group on trafficking and the elected vice chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings for the Council of Europe. She is vice chair of the State Commission on the Status of Women and a member of the Armenian Anti-Trafficking Commission. Ms. Shahinian has been Chair of the All-Armenian Union of Women, heading "Armenian Women at the Doorstep of the Twenty-First Century," the first international women's issues conference in that country. Former national program officer for the Armenian division of the International Organization for Migration, she also worked in that organization as research coordinator. Ms. Shahinian's work focuses on the trafficking of women and children from Armenia and she has organized and participated in a number of programs on regional stability and peaceful coexistence. Involved in local government for the past 16 years, she has served both as a member of the Executive Committee and head of the Department of Foreign Affairs for the Yerevan City Council.

Amanda Sloat

Amanda Sloat is a senior program officer with the National Democratic Institute, managing governance programs in Iraq that seek to build the capacity of its parliament and political system. For three years before joining NDI in 2005, Amanda worked as a research fellow with the Institute of Governance at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Following the successful preparation of a 1.2 million euro grant application from the European Union, she served as academic coordinator of a 12-country research project on Enlargement, Gender and Governance: The Civic and Political Participation and Representation of Women in Central and Eastern Europe. During this period, she traveled extensively in Central and Eastern Europe and held visiting fellowships at the Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and New York University Law School. Before her work at Queen’s University, she served as a specialist advisor to the Scottish Parliament's European Committee, the Northern Ireland Assembly's Committee for Finance and Personnel, and the European Commission team preparing the White Paper on European Governance. Amanda completed her PhD in Politics at the University of Edinburgh and her BA in Political Theory from James Madison College at Michigan State University. She has published a book (Scotland in Europe: A Study of Multi-Level Governance) and several journal articles on women’s political participation.

Nkoyo Toyo

Nkoyo Toyo is a lawyer, governance expert and active feminist, who founded the Gender and Development Action (GADA) in 1994. GADA is a national NGO committed to the pursuit of social justice from a gender perspective. She works as an independent consultant on gender and governance issues primarily in Nigeria, but with some working experiences elsewhere in Africa. Ms. Toyo was the Chair of the 2003 Commonwealth People’s Forum in Abuja, Nigeria and served on the Board of the Commonwealth Foundation. She sits on a number of international boards including the Participation and Development Relations Advisory Group of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK and the Forum International de Montreal (FIM) in Canada. She has been involved in a number of international and country level researches and has published and co-authored articles on gender and governance issues. She has a keen interest in politics with future aspiration to become a parliamentarian.

Aili Mari Tripp

Aili Mari Tripp is a Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her teaching and research interests are in African politics, comparative politics, and gender and politics in an international context. She is the author of Women and Politics in Uganda and Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania. She also has a forthcoming book co-authored with Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga and Alice Mungwa entitled Women in Movement: Transformations in African Political Landscapes. Aili Tripp co-edits the journal Politics & Gender of the Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association. She also co-edits a book series with Stanlie James on Women in Africa and the Diaspora for the University of Wisconsin Press. Born in the UK to American and Finnish parents, she grew up in Tanzania between 1960 and 1974. Since 1987 she has carried out extensive field research in Tanzania, Uganda and Liberia.

Jorge Valladares

Jorge Valladares earned a Master’s degree in development, government and democracy from the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands. He is currently a researcher for International IDEA and a student in the doctoral program at the University of Essex (UK). His research areas include comparative politics, with special emphasis on political parties, elections, democratization and marketing.

Virginia Vargas

Virginia Vargas, a sociologist and active feminist, founded the Center for the Peruvian Women "Flora Tristán" in 1978. She has published four books of her own (and co-edited four others), as well as many articles on feminism, democracy, politics, citizenship, and globalization from a feminist perspective. Ms. Vargas lectures in different universities in Latin America and Europe. She was the Latin American and Caribbean NGOs' Coordinator to the NGO Forum held in September, 1995, on the occasion of the Fourth World United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, China, where she received a UNIFEM Award recognizing her work . She currently works in the Center “Flora Tristán”’s Women’s Studies Programme. At the regional and global level she is actively involved in the Marcosur Women’s Coalition (FAM), and since 2001 she is actively involved in the processes of the World Social Forum, as member of its International Council on behalf of the Coalition.

Lena Wängnerud

Lena Wängnerud is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science at Göteborg University Sweden. Her field of expertise is women’s representation in political arenas. She has selected publications in English:” Representing Women” (2000) in Heidar, Knut & Esaiasson, Peter Beyond Westminster and Congress; Ohio State University Press,” Testing the Politics of Presence; Women’s Representation in the Swedish Riksdag” (2000) in Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol 23. No. 1, 6791; “Sweden: A Step-wise Development” (2005), Ballington, Julie and Karam, Azza, Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers, Stockholm: International IDEA Handbook Series.

Linda Tarr-Whelan

Linda Tarr-Whelan is currently writing a book on women’s leadership as a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, a New York City-based think tank (www.demos.org). She has had a varied career as an activist, nurse, management consultant, policy maker, organizer and government official. Linda was appointed Ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women by President Clinton, confirmed by the Senate, and served as Deputy Assistant for Women’s Concerns to President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Ladies Home Journal named her ""One of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Washington."" In partnership with her husband, she ran Tarr-Whelan & Associates, Inc., an international management consultancy. As CEO and President, she built the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA) into the leading state progressive policy and leadership center, directed government relations and was chief lobbyist for the National Education Association, the Administrative Director of the New York State Department of Labor, co-director of AFSCME/NY and AFSCME’s national public policy department. Linda began who began her career as a nurse, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and holds a BSN from Johns Hopkins, an MS from the University of Maryland, and an honorary PhD from Chatham College.

Clyde Wilcox

Clyde Wilcox is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. Professor Wilcox writes on public opinion and electoral behavior, religion and politics, gender politics, the politics of social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and gun control, interest group politics, campaign finance, and science fiction and politics. He has authored, coauthored, edited, or co-edited more than 20 books. His most recent include The Politics of Gay Rights, Prayers in the Precincts: The Christian Right in the 1998 Elections, The Clinton Scandal and the Future of American Government, Political Science Fiction, and Women in Elected Office, Past, Present, and Future. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, Professor Wilcox worked at the Federal Election Commission and taught at Union College.