Over the years, as part of working at WORLD, the leadership team of Equal Futures has had the privilege of bringing together leaders and experts from civil society, academia, the philanthropic sector, intergovernmental organizations, government, the judiciary, and others from across an array of domains as collaborators and advisors.
When we are developing new data areas, we often build advisory groups or steering committees comprised of these global leaders to help advise the design of our projects. Their guidance helps to make our projects better, our dissemination wider, and our impact stronger. We are immensely grateful for their dedication and contributions.
Similarly, as part of working at WORLD, the leadership team of Equal Futures has formed and hosted networks of global leaders. These networks seek to complement existing regional or global efforts, and they are built on the notion that collective action from across areas can have an outsized impact in accelerating change.
This section highlights a few examples of advisory groups, steering committees and networks that we have been a part of. They are at the heart of our philosophy, and we are immensely appreciative of each member’s passion, expertise, dedication, and unique contribution.
The Partnership to Advance Constitutional Equal Rights (PACER)
PACER is a global network of members of civil society, academics, jurists, lawyers, activists, policymakers and others from over 30 organizations in close to 20 countries and 5 continents coming together to advance the realization of equal rights in all the world’s constitutions. Multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary, and impact-oriented, PACER aims to complement the efforts of existing networks.
PACER, hosted at WORLD, has held a series of in-person and virtual gatherings since its inception in 2019. The group enjoys rich bilateral and multilateral collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and partnership in the pursuit of advancing equality for all around the world. The network collaborates on a wide range of issues central to equality and equal rights.
For more details on PACER members, please visit WORLD's site.
Advisory Group on Building the Investment Case for Early Childhood in Low-and Middle-Income Countries
In 2021, WORLD formed an advisory group of leaders from civil society, intergovernmental organizations, and research-based institutions to help guide a global initiative on measuring returns to investments in early childhood in lower- and middle-income countries. The group, supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, provides input on best practices for developing and using rigorous causal evidence of what feasible, actionable change at scale could do to transform individual lives and national economies today and into the future.
We are immeasurably grateful to the advisory group for its contributions: Gary Barker, CEO and Founder, Promundo; Aluisio J.D. Barros, Associate Professor, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil; Jere Behrman, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Economics, University of Pennsylvania; Yehualashet Mekonen, Director, African Child Observatory Programme, African Child Policy Forum; Verónica Montúfar, Equalities Officer, Public Services International; Rajakumari Michaelsamy, Program Manager, Early Childhood Care and Education, Right to Education Initiative; Faiza Mohamed, Africa Regional Director, Equality Now; Deprose Muchena, Regional Director, East and Southern Africa, Amnesty International; Arijit Nandi, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Institute for Health and Social Policy, and Interim Director, Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University; Dominic Richardson, Chief, Social and Economic Policy, Office of Research - Innocenti, UNICEF; Wessel Van Den Berg, Research, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager, Sonke Gender Justice; and Shekufeh Zonji, Global Technical Lead, ECDAN (Early Childhood Development Action Network).
Steering Committee for Advancing the Realization of the Right to Education and Work for Youth with Disabilities
For this project, WORLD convened an international advisory group of leaders and experts from CSOs, DPOs, academia, the philanthropic sector, and UN agencies to deeply inform the development of law and policy indicators and their translation to diverse, global audiences. Central to this work was a deep commitment to working in partnership with persons with disabilities (PWD) and allies who can use these findings to accelerate change.
We are immensely grateful to the following members of the Steering Committee for their input and collaboration: Abia Akram, CEO of the National Forum of Women with Disabilities (Pakistan), former Chair of the Youth Council of the Global Partnership on Children with Disabilities; Anna Lawson, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds, Coordinator of the Disability Law Hub; Betsy Beaumon, President, Benetech; Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, Global Disability Advisor, World Bank; Diana Samarasan, Executive Director, Disability Rights Fund; Fabrizio Fea, Chair, GLADNET; Gopal Mitra, Program Specialist, Children with Disabilities, UNICEF; Guilherme Braga, CEO and Founder, Egalitê; Guozhong (Eric) Zhang, Secretariat for the CRPD, Social Affairs at UNDESA; Maria Martinho, Secretariat for the CRPD, Social Affairs at UNDESA; Maria Soledad Cisternas Reyes, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility; Mark Priestley, Professor of Disability Policy, University of Leeds, Academic Network of European Disability experts; Michael Ashley Stein, Executive Director, Harvard Law Project on Disability; Nora Groce, Chair of Disability and Inclusive Development, Leonard Cheshire Disability; Sophie Mitra, Associate Professor of Economics, Fordham University; Stefan Trömel, Senior Disability Specialist, International Labor Organization; Sue Swenson, President, Inclusion International; and Susie Talbot, Legal Director, ESCR-Net.
