About Us
We created Where the Future Was Built to commemorate the shared history of generations of women leaders. Learn more about the project and its authors here.
Maya Greenberg, A Different World is Possible, 2024, Felt and thread embroidery on linen, 24” x 24"
Our Mission
The UN Foundation’s Girls & Women Strategy team embarked on this project with profound gratitude for the women who banded together to change the world over the past 50 years, and with deep reverence for the preservation of their memories so that succeeding generations could find joy and inspiration in the women’s courage and contribution to humanity.
This site is a love letter to what’s possible, and to a future that remains possible for all people everywhere.
Our Team
The Girls & Women Strategy team at the UN Foundation works to defend and advance the rights of all girls and women by fostering collective, ambitious action in partnership with civil society, UN leaders, Member States, and the private sector. We recruit and nourish champions. We serve as convener and an intermediary funder. We offer technical expertise on policy issues. We build partnerships, communities, and bridges.
Our strategy is rooted in a 26-year legacy of working in solidarity with the world’s girls and women, and focusing on the stubborn challenges that are most responsible for the lack of enduring and meaningful change.
Still, we are hopeful and determined, striving to faithfully carry the legacy of the advocates who came before us.
Learn more about the team’s work here.
The team was also compelled to illuminate the power and potential of global cooperation to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,” as stated in the Preamble of the UN Charter.
Top: For the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the G&W Strategy team at the UN Foundation created a Nest Hub for partners. Photo features partners in the event space. (via UN Foundation)
Bottom: The G&W Strategy team and its partners hosted an Africa Regional Bridge-Building workshop in Kigali, Rwanda. Photo features participants during workshop session. (via UN Foundation)
Our Authors
Stephanie Oula is the Director for UN and Civil Society Engagement on the Girls & Women Strategy team at the UN Foundation. Her first job was to corral the Girl Declaration Joint Advocacy Group, a civil society coalition for adolescent girls during the negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2014. She has been energized and inspired by the way feminist movements take up space in UN advocacy ever since. In 2021, she led the team’s engagement in the Generation Equality Forum and presently works on a civil society revitalization effort for UN advocacy on gender equality that was inspired by this research.
Sia Nowrojee is the Associate Vice President for Girls & Women Strategy at the UN Foundation. Sia was introduced to the UN as part of a secondary school delegation at the 1985 World Conference on Women in her hometown of Nairobi. She later attended the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, having worked with the International Women’s Health Coalition, DAWN, and the US Women of Color Coalition to inform the global reproductive and sexual health agenda. Decades later, Sia continues to believe in the power of the global community, especially when feminist movements are involved.
Mayra Buvinic is a Senior Fellow at the UN Foundation/Data2X and Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Center for Global Development. She served as Director of Gender and Development at the World Bank, Chief of the Social Development Division at the Inter-American Development Bank, and was a founding member and President of the International Center for Research on Women. She authored an annotated bibliography for the 1975 Mexico City conference and participated in the mid-decade conference in Copenhagen, the end-of-the-decade conference in Nairobi, and the landmark 1995 conference in Beijing. She has been privileged to witness five decades of progress and challenges for women and girls globally.
Acknowledgements
This research was made possible by members of the outstanding Girls & Women Strategy team at the UN Foundation: Gabriela Carbó Zack and Grace Anderson, who served as overall project managers and research contributors for this work; Estefania Acuña Lacarieri, Gabrielle Crooks, and Maggie Roache, who provided support as research associates; Luisa Kislinger, who provided valuable feedback and insights; and Michelle Milford Morse, who lent critical editorial input throughout. The authors would also like to thank Geeta Rao Gupta and Caren Grown for their valuable feedback at various stages of the research project. Special thanks go to the key informants interviewed for their thoughtful insights and contributions, and to the many civil society and UN partners informally consulted for their support and enthusiasm.
The authors relied on key materials from the archives of the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the United Nations, and would like to express particular thanks to the Rockefeller Archive Center staff for their invaluable assistance in the archival research for this project. Finally, the authors are grateful to the Gates Foundation for the support that enabled this research.
The team is also grateful for its partnership with The Meteor, who brought this research to vibrant life on this site, with special thanks to the site dream team of Cindi Leive, Tara Abrahams, Danielle Balderas, Bianca Alvarez, Rebecca Carroll, Shannon Melero, and Lauren Lumsden.
Get in Touch
Were you at one of these conferences? Do you have a memory or artifact to share? We'd love to hear more!