About the Speakers

Ms. Azita Berar-Awad is Director, National Policy Group and Coordinator, PRSP Activities, International Labour Organization

Mr. Koppula Raju is a civil servant from Andhra Pradesh, India. Since 1981 he has worked in the field and on policy related to poverty reduction, empowerment of poor and marginalized populations, rural de-velopment, grassroots institutions, microfinancial services, and development of indigenous communities. He has a long association with the poor women's self-help movement in Andhra Pradesh. As head of ad-ministration for one of the state's districts, he nurtured women's empowerment initiatives that evolved into a statewide movement. During four years as national project coordinator for the South Asia Poverty Alle-viation Program of the United Nations Development Programme Raju demonstrated in 700 villages in Andha Pradesh a sustainable model for poverty reduction based on social mobilization of the poor. The program's success inspired the state government to replicate the model across the state. Raju founded and heads the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, an independent and autonomous institution in Andhra Pradesh that designed and administers, with assistance from the World Bank, one of the largest poverty reduction programs in India.

Ms. Reema Nanavaty is General Secretary of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA). On leave from the Indian Administrative Services, Ms. Nanavaty developed the regional rural water supply scheme of the Government of Gujarat and Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) into an integrated water project and made women central to water decisions. She then expanded the project into an ongoing Women, Water, and Work campaign. Elected General Secretary of SEWA in 1999, Ms. Nanavaty expanded membership to 530,000 making SEWA the country's single largest union of informal sector workers. She now manages US$6 million of SEWA activities through a federation of 100 cooperatives; nine district as-sociations; and direct outlet of 12,000 artisans. She initiated and negotiated the first NGO-Government of India-IFAD loan to rebuild lives of 60,000 earthquake-affected SEWA members and is designing a post-conflict reconstruction package for 40,000 SEWA members affected by recent riots. She is also expanding SEWA's Trade Facilitation Centre into a global network of initiatives and individuals to make women's voices and contributions central to world trade decisions.

Mr. Richard Ssewakiryanga currently works as a Government Consultant with the Government of Uganda. He is a social scientist with postgraduate training in gender studies and social anthropology from Makerere University in Uganda. He has also pursued a number of research fellowships at Northwestern University (USA), University of Sussex (UK), and Legon University (Ghana). Before joining government, he worked as a Technical Officer for OXFAM Great Britain in Uganda and a Research Fellow at the Center for Basic Research in Kampala, Uganda. His research work has focused mainly on gender and development issues, poverty and policy processes and cultural studies.