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Upcoming | 25 July 2024 | People First Talk with Dr. Norah Obudho

In this People First Talk, we’ll hear from Dr. Norah Obudho, East Africa Director of WomenLift Health about her organization’s work to expand the power and influence of talented women in global health and catalyze systemic change to achieve gender equality in leadership. We’ll speak with Norah about what’s possible when women’s leadership is fully activated, the specific leadership skills & mindsets that she’s seeing are most unlocking progress for mid-career female leaders, and lessons learned on driving change not just at the individual level, but also at the institutional level. Kindly register here. French and Spanish translation will be available.

25 June 2024 | People First Talk with  Nedgine Paul Deroly

In the next People First Talk, we heard from Nedgine Paul Deroly, CEO and Co-Founder of Anseye Pou Ayiti about their work in growing a collective movement of local leaders in Ayiti (Haiti) who are working for educational justice. We’ll have a raw and honest conversation with Nedgine about the power structures and practices we must disrupt in pursuit of justice, what it really takes to drive collective action, how to move from allyship to “informed” allyship, what’s possible when we embrace the wisdom and power that already exists within communities in Haiti, and much more!

Spanish and French interpretations provided.

22 MAY 2024 | People First Talk with  Dr. Jackie Chimhanzi

In this People First Talk, we heard from Dr. Jackie Chimhanzi, CEO of the African Leadership Institute, about her organization’s work to cultivate Africa’s next generation of leaders. We’ll learn from Jackie about AFLI’s flagship Archbishop Tutu Fellowship, developed in partnership with Oxford University. We’ll speak with Jackie about some of the leadership traits that are being cultivated, from moral courage to servant leadership. We’ll also learn from Jackie about unique elements of their program design such as pairing leaders with psychologists to facilitate deep introspection, as well as creative experiential learning methods, from cookery schools to power games, that teach valuable lessons on navigating power and understanding one’s own leadership.

Spanish interpretation will be available

Investing in people to achieve the health-related Sustainable Development Goals

As heads of state, ministers, and many thousands of other stakeholders gather in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, it seems a good time to reflect on the state of progress in reaching the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While there has been progress in some areas and some geographies, the most recent Sustainable Development Report released in June of this year found that all of the SDGs are seriously off-track, including those focused on health.

30 October 2023 | People First Talk with Cheryl L. Dorsey

In this People First Talk, we heard from Cheryl L. Dorsey, President of Echoing Green, a global organization seeding and unleashing next-generation talent to solve the world’s biggest problems. We heard from Cheryl about what kind of leadership development work she’s seen have the greatest impact, and about her efforts to center diversity and equity to tackle injustices that persist in the system.

11 October 2023 | People First Talk with Safeena Husain

In this People First Talk, we heard from Safeena Husain, Founder of Educate Girls, about her work to educate millions of girls in the most remote parts of India and enable the leadership of thousands of community-based volunteers across more than 21,000 villages in pursuit of this. Safeena will share how her organization combined a results-driven approach with a focus on mindset shifts to break patriarchal structures, in order to achieve both deep transformation at the community level, as well as system-level impact at scale.

4 organizations taking a fresh approach to localization

The global development sector is grappling with how to walk the talk on localization.
USAID has grabbed the headlines, after Administrator Samantha Power pledged in 2021 that
25% of all funding would go to locally led organizations by 2025 — a goal she recently admitted
could be difficult to meet.