Members of the Civil Society Advisory Group to the UN on Women, Peace and Security

Mary Robinson, Co-chair (Ireland) Mary Robinson is the President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. She served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002 and as President of Ireland from 1990-1997. She is a member of the Elders. She serves as Honorary President of Oxfam International, chair of the GAVI Alliance Board and President of the International Commission of Jurists.  She is a former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders and a member of the Club of Madrid.  The recipient of numerous honours and awards throughout the world including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, she serves on several boards including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Global Compact. 

Bineta Diop, Co-chair (Senegal) Bineta Diop is the Executive Director and founder of Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), pan-African civil society organization working on issues of women, peace and security. Ms. Diop has led Femmes Africa Solidarité in numerous peace-building programmes, including the creation of a strong West African women’s movement, the Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET).  She serves as Vice-President of the African Union Women’s Committee, and chairs the United Nations Working Group on Peace in Geneva, which is part of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women monitoring the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

Salim Ahmed Salim (Tanzania) Salim Ahmed Salim served three terms as Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity. Dr. Salim served as Prime Minister of Tanzania from 1984 to 1985 and then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and National Service. At the United Nations, Dr. Salim was elected President of the UN Security Council in January 1976 and went on to serve as President of the Thirty-Fourth Session of the UN General Assembly in September 1979. Dr. Salim was Chairman of the UN Security Council Committee on Sanctions Against Rhodesia; President of the International Conference on Sanctions against South Africa, as well as the Paris International Conference Against Apartheid. Dr. Salim has also served as the African Union Special Envoy for Darfur.

Hina Jilani (Pakistan) Hina Jilani is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, an activist for peace, human rights and women's rights in Pakistan for the last three decades, and co-founder, with her sister Asma Jahanghir, of Pakistan's first all-female legal practice in 1980. She is also one of the founders of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Women's Action Forum, as well as having founded Pakistan's first legal aid center in 1986.   She served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and on the UN International Fact-Finding Commission on Darfur. 
Elisabeth Rehn (Finland) Elisabeth Rehn is a human rights expert who has previously served as a Member of the Finnish Parliament, Minister of Defence, Minister of Equality Affairs, a Member of the European Parliament, as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, and as Under Secretary-General and Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in the former Yugoslavia. In recent years, she has dedicated herself to the impact of war on women and their role in peace-building.  She co-authored with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf a landmark study entitled, Women War Peace.   She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Trust Fund for Victims within the International Criminal Court.
 
Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria) Lakdhar Brahimi served as Foreign Minister for Algeria until 1993, and has led numerous UN missions, including the United Nations Observer Mission that preceded the 1994 democratic elections in South Africa. As Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, he was entrusted with overall authority for the political, human rights, relief, recovery and reconstruction activities. Mr. Brahimi also served as the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Afghanistan from July 1997 until October 1999. In between his Afghanistan assignments, Brahimi chaired an independent panel established by Secretary-General Annan to review United Nations peace operations. The report, released by the panel in 2000 and known as the Brahimi Report, assessed the shortcomings of the existing system of peacekeeping and made specific recommendations for change, focusing on politics, strategy and operational and organizational areas of need. Since 2001, Mr. Brahimi has also served as UN special envoy in Iraq.

Swanee Hunt (United States) Ambassador Swanee Hunt founded the Women and Public Policy Program, a research center concerned with domestic and foreign policy, at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. As President of Hunt Alternatives Fund, she also chairs The Institute for Inclusive Security, which advocated for the full participation of all stakeholders, particularly women, in conflict prevention and resolution.

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda (Zimbabwe) Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda serves as General Secretary of the World YWCA, a civil society organization representing over 2.5 million women and girl members worldwide. She served as Regional Director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Eastern and Horn of Africa covering 13 countries. She had previously worked as a human rights officer with UNICEF in Liberia and Zimbabwe.

Donald Steinberg (United States) Donald Steinberg is deputy president for policy at International Crisis Group, and is responsible for advocacy, policy formulation and reporting for this non-governmental organization charged with preventing and ending armed conflict.  During three decades with the U.S. diplomatic service, he served as Ambassador to Angola, Director of the State Department’s Joint Policy Council, Special Representative of the President for Humanitarian Demining, Special Haiti Coordinator, Deputy White House Press Secretary, and Special Assistant for African Affairs to President Bill Clinton. He is a member of the board of the Women’s Refugee Commission and previously served on the advisory panel to the executive director of UNIFEM. 
  
Zainab Salbi (Iraq/United States) Zainab Salbi is co-founder and CEO of Women for Women International, a grassroots international humanitarian and development organization helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives, families and communities. Ms. Salbi grew up in Iraq and is a survivor of war herself. Women for Women International has spurred a global movement to help women survivors of war and civil strife to rebuild their lives and has distributed more than $79 million in direct aid, micro credit loans, and other program services.

Thelma Awori (Liberia/Uganda) Thelma Awori is a consultant on gender and development and a board member of a number of prominent African civil society organizations such as the Sirleaf Market Women’s Fund and Isis-WICCE. She served as Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa at UNDP, New York between 1997 and 1999. Prior to that, she was Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP, New York and UN Resident Coordinator & Resident Representative, UNDP in Zimbabwe. Ms Awori was Deputy Director, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and prior to that, Chief of its Africa Section.

Sanam Anderlini (Iran/UK) Sanam Anderlini served as senior policy advisor to International Alert, where she advocated for and drafted United Nations Security Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. As director of the Women Waging Peace Policy Commission, Ms. Anderlini led groundbreaking field research on women’s contributions to conflict prevention, peace processes, governance, transitional justice, and post-conflict disarmament and reintegration issues in twelve countries. She served as lead consultant for the UN Development Programme’s global initiative on “Gendered Dimensions of Violence in Crisis Contexts.” She has taught at Georgetown University and is a research affiliate at the MIT Center for International Studies. Her latest book is Women Building Peace: What They Do, Why It Matters.  

Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls (Fiji) Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls gained national prominence in Fiji by organizing, through the National Council of Women, a daily prayer vigil when government leaders were held hostage for 56 days during the 2000 coup. She now produces the monthly e-news bulletin “FemLINKpacific,” originally to give voice to women affected by the coup and a quarterly magazine “femTALK 1325″ covering women’s peace initiatives and post-conflict needs in the region and advocating for UN Security Council Resolution 1325 implementation.

Susana Villarán de la Puente (Peru) Susana Villarán de la Puente is an educator, journalist and politician. She was Concertación Descentralista's presidential candidate for the 2006 national election. She has served as a member of the OAS's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  She was a member of Lima's Metropolitan Municipality from 1983 to 1985. She became Minister of Women's Promotion and Social Development during Valentín Paniagua's transitory government. In 2002 she assumed the role of Ombudsperson for the Police.