AYESHA IMAM
Board Chair
Ayesha Imam is a rights and sustainable development consultant. She has worked with and for a range of organizations including women's rights, official aid and UN agencies on women’s rights, gender-sensitive research and programming, democracy, sustainable development and organizational support and training.
Ayesha was the chief executive of BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights in Nigeria (which won the John Humphrey Human Rights Award for defence of women’s rights under the Sharia Penal Codes and helped secure acquittals for women and men sentenced to stoning to death); Head of the Culture, Gender and Human Rights Department of UNFPA; and coordinated several global research or capacity-building programmes. She has lectured and carried out research at universities and research institutes in Nigeria, the U.K., Canada and Senegal. Her work is published widely for activist, policy, and academic uses, and includes books, journal articles, policy briefs and activist manuals.
Ayesha has also served on the boards of: the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRDIC); the Women’s Environmental Development Organization (WEDO); the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA); the international solidarity network Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML); the International Council for Human Rights Policy (ICHRP); Africa Action; and the African Centre for Democratic Governance. Ayesha was a member of the GPI Board for seven years (2006-2013).
Ayesha has also been active on environmental issues through: the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (which won a UNEP award during the time she was on the Board), and the Gender CC (women for climate justice - a global network of organizations, experts and activists working for gender equality, women's rights and climate justice). In addition, Ayesha has ensured that principles of environmental sustainability are brought to other platforms she is engaged with, like the Africa Democracy Forum and the African Feminist Forum.
Ayesha has a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Sussex (UK) and a Master’s degree in sociology from Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria). She currently lives in Dakar and is married, with three sons and three grandchildren.
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ED HARRINGTON
Treasurer
(American)
Ed Harrington is currently an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, is a consultant on government finance issues and serves on various non-profit boards. He was General Manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) until his retirement in September 2012. The SFPUC provides water to 2.5 million customers in the San Francisco Bay Area along with sewer and stormwater services in San Francisco and hydroelectric and solar power generation for municipal purposes in the City. The SFPUC has 2,300 employees, an operating budget of $800 million and is in the middle of a $4.6 billion rebuild of the water system.
During the 4 and 1/2 years that Ed was General Manager of the SFPUC, he was also the Chair of the Water Utility Climate Alliance composed of 10 large water utilities in the United States with 45 million customers, focused on providing leadership and collaboration on climate change issues affecting water utilities and the customers they serve.
From 1991 to 2008, Ed was the Controller for the City and County of San Francisco managing the City's budget, payroll, accounting and auditing programs. As Controller he started the City Services Auditor function which provides audit, performance management and strategic planning services to City Departments.
In December 2012 he completed his term as a member of the Financial Accounting Foundation that oversees the work of the Financial and Governmental Accounting Standards Board for the United States where he co-chaired the Standard Setting Oversight committee and served on the Executive and Appointments and Evaluations Committees. Ed was on the Board of the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada from 1999 to 2006 and President of the organization in 2004. Ed received his license as a Certified Public Accountant while employed at KPMG, an international accounting firm, in the early 1980's.
Ed was an officer in the Harvey Milk Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club in San Francisco. He and his husband live in Sonoma County in Northern California.
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ATHENA RONQUILLO-BALLESTEROS
(Filipino)
Athena is a passionate activist from the Philippines and currently based in Washington DC. Athena leads the development and implementation of the Asia Climate Finance strategy for the Growald Family Fund organization. Prior to joining the fund, Athena was Director of World Resource Institute’s Sustainable Finance program for 8 years.
Athena has many years of leadership and management experience in environment, development and natural resource governance in developing countries with a particular focus on climate change, clean energy and sustainable finance. She worked actively on climate policy, sustainable finance and clean energy in China, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Japan. She is a long-time policy advisor to the Philippine government’s official climate change negotiating team at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She has published widely on the issue of climate change, climate finance, clean energy, governance and human rights.
Athena also holds strategic and leadership positions and serves on the board of several non-profit organizations such as the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, International Rivers and, Greenpeace International. She holds post-graduate degrees in Development Planning from the University of the Philippines, in Development Management from the Asian Institute of Management, and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Journalism from the University of the Philippines.
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S. RAVI RAJAN
Ravi Rajan is a faculty member of the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he has served since his appointment in 1997. He is also a Vis-iting Senior Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, and Visiting Pro-fessor at TERI University. He received his undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Delhi, and his doctorate at the University of Oxford. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University, and the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin. Ravi has three broad research interests: a) the political economy of environment – development conflicts; b) environmental human rights and environmental justice, and c) risk and disasters. He is the author of many academic publications, and has mentored several doctoral students.
Ravi has also made significant contributions to higher education administration. As Provost of College Eight at UC Santa Cruz (2006-2012), he did pioneering work designing a "green" curriculum aimed at nurturing environmental entrepreneurs. Amongst the highlights were a novel three quarter freshman core course including an national award winning sustainability field practicum; a popular online learning and teaching portal based on the latest web based interactive technologies; and a series of programs aimed at forging environmental entrepreneurship amongst students. He has held several faculty leadership appointments at UC Santa Cruz, including terms on the Education Abroad Program Committee, the Committee on Planning and Budget, and the Committee on Educational Policy. He also contributed substantially to the reconceptualizing and redesign of the campus's General Educational Requirements.
Ravi has also been a significant presence in national and international academic institutions. He has served as Chair of the Outreach Committee of the American Society for Environmental History, and on many of its committees in the past, including as the Program Chair for the So-ciety's Annual Meeting. He was a founding member of the editorial board of the journal, Envi-ronment and History, and currently serves on the editorial board of the journal, Environmental Justice, and of the book series of the European Society for Environmental History. He has served as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation (USA) and the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), as well as for a number of leading journals and publishers. His public service includes the Presidency of the Board of Directors of Pesticide Action Network, North America (PANNA); board service for the International Media Project, which produces the weekly radio news program, Making Contact; membership of the city of Santa Cruz's Green Building Committee, which created the new building code for the city; and Charter Member-ship of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Silicon Valley, the world's largest not for profit organi-zation for entrepreneurs.
Rajan is married and has three adorable children – a human and two feline.
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MICHAEL HAMMER
Michael Hammer is Director of ROCsalt, a network of independent researchers and consultants specialising in policy and reform of international organisations. Previously he served for three years as Director of INTRAC, an international non-governmental civil society strengthening organisation. From 2006 to 2013 he led not for profit global governance research group One World Trust, benchmarking global organisations’ accountability to citizens.
Prior to that Michael worked as West Africa Programme Director for peacebuilding organisation Conciliation Resources, leading local peace-monitoring and youth reintegration projects in Sierra Leone and Liberia. From 2000 to 2005 he was with Amnesty International initially as West Africa Campaigner and Researcher, and then Africa Programme Director and Head of Office of the Secretary General. Earlier in his career, Michael worked in sustainability and regional planning for Germany based Institut Raum & Energie.
Michael studied African history in Dakar, Senegal, and holds a research master's degree in geography, history and urban planning from the University of Hamburg, Germany. He lived and worked in West Africa for several years, researching urban and rural land conflicts in the context of slum rehabilitation and environmental resource degradation. His main professional research and organisational development focus is on accountability, governance and effectiveness of international organisations involved in providing and advocating for access to global public goods, as well as institutional reform in response to climate change.
His volunteer roots in international NGO work and advocacy lie with Amnesty International in Germany with whom he was active as a group member and country coordinator for the West African conflict zones in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea from the early 1990s to 2000. He has served on a number of NGO and charity boards including from 2008 to 2014 as a Trustee of BOND, the UK development NGO network. Before joining the International Board of Greenpeace, he served for six years as a Board member of Greenpeace Germany, and as Trustee on the Greenpeace International Council since 2012. He chairs the organisation’s international governance committee since 2013. Michael lives in the UK, and speaks English, German, French and Dutch. He spends too much time in meetings and is happiest in the forest and at sea.
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THULI MAKAMA
(Swazi)
Ms Thuli Brilliance Makama, a graduate of the University of Swaziland and the London School of Economics, is Advocate (Senior Counsel) of the High Court of Swaziland and Member of the Law Society of Swaziland. Combining law and advocacy, Thuli Makama has engaged in public interest environmental law challenges against powerful multinational corporations and her Government in defence of environmental and human rights of local communities.
She has over seventeen years' experience on governance in the not-for-profit sector, having served as Deputy Chair of the Open Society Initiative Southern Africa, Treasurer of IUCN World Conservation Union Eastern and Southern Africa board, Ombudsman of Friends of the Earth International, member of Coordinating Board of Friends of the Earth Africa, Trustee at groundWork - Friends of the Earth South Africa, Chair of the Coordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organisations in Swaziland, advisor to the Resident Coordinator of UN in Swaziland through the select Civil Society Advisory Committee, the Law Society of Swaziland Judicial Crisis Committee, amongst others.
In 2010, Thuli Makama was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in recognition of her successfully litigating and defending the right to public participation in environmental decision making in her country, Swaziland. This recognition and honor Thuli dedicated to an on-going gruesome campaign against extra judicial executions of local communities in the name of wildlife conservation by one private family owned wildlife safari company in Swaziland. The public interest environmental actions of Thuli and her organisation have sometimes attracted brutal responses and backlash from violators that have led to break-in's at the office premises and her home, and privately sponsored negative press releases in the media. Some of Thuli's work is featured in the documentary film "Unfair Game - The Politics of Poaching" produced by Emmy Award winning Mill Valley Film Group and narrated by Robert Redford.
Thuli has for fifteen years worked in her country as Executive Director of Yonge Nawe Environmental Action Group, during which time she has participated in Africa wide and sub-regional collaborations on environmental and social justice. Her previous work experience includes Skillshare International and, serving as Deputy Master of the High Court of Swaziland. She is the founder of the Legal Assistance Center (LAC), a non-profit initiative that seeks to promote public interest law in a national context where violations of basic human rights and social injustice are perverse. The LAC works to enable access to justice for many of the socio-economically disadvantaged members of society.
Thuli is mother to two beautiful loving daughters, Simphiwe and Nobunye.
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Anabella Rosemberg
(Argentine)
Anabella is a leading climate and environment advisor in the international trade union movement. Born in the Argentinean Patagonia, she is currently based in Paris, France. Advisor for the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) on environment and occupational health and safety issues since 2008, Anabella has promoted the integration of environmental issues in the labour movement’s work while deploying efforts to mainstream social and labour concerns in environmental debates. For the past ten years, she has also actively supported unions in their local and national efforts to address these challenges and subsequently strengthen the bridges between the social and the environmental.
As a lobbyist/advocate, she has lead teams which succeeded in integrating labour priorities in key intergovernmental processes (UNFCCC, RIO+20), such as the concept of Just Transition for workers.
Deeply committed to alliance building, Anabella has contributed to scale up the social discourse in predominantly environmental arenas and deepen mutual understanding and cooperation between labour and environmental groups.
Prior to joining the ITUC, Anabella has worked for non-governmental organisations, in the area of democracy and human rights.
Anabella has a Master's degree on Development Studies, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. She lives in Paris with husband Edouard and daughter Ines, where she tries to combine passions for environmental and social justice, poetry and football as much as possible.
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