Mr. Wim Kok (Netherlands), Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands (1994-2002)
Mr. Kok is a Member of the Club of Madrid and a representative of “The Shared Societies Project: Leadership for Dialogue, Diversity and Social Cohesion”. The project is a global initiative to promote better understanding of the benefits of social cohesion and the means for its advancement.
Mr. Kok served as a chairman of the European Employment Task Force, established by the European Council and as a chair of the High-Level Group on the Lisbon Strategy. He is currently is a member of several supervisory boards (Supervisory Board on ING Group, KLM airline and others).
Ms. Bience Gawanas (Namibia), Commissioner for Social Affairs, African Union
Ms. Gawanas has been African Union’s Commissioner for Social Affairs since 2003. She is a former Commissioner on the Public Service Commission in Nambia (1991-1996) and an Ombudsman in the Namibian Government from 1996-2003). She has also been a lecturer in Gender Law at the University of Namibia and served as a Director of the Board of the Central bank of Namibia
She worked on advocacy and the harmonization and coordination of regional and continental policies and programmes relating to social development issues including health, HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, migration, population, culture and sport, drug control, social welfare of disadvantaged groups, labour and employment.
She is the member of the International Board of Trustees of the African Child Policy Forum, an African NGO based in Ethiopia. She has also been active in other NGOs and served as a Secretary-General of the Namibian National Women’s Organization and patron of Namibian Federation of Persons with Disabilities.
Ms. Maria Ines da Silva Barbosa (Brazil), Executive Coordinator Programme, UNIFEM Brazil and Southern Cone.
Ms. Barbosa is a former Director of Affirmative Policies of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil. She was active in institutionalizing the National Politics for Promotion of Racial Equity in Brazil.
Currently she is a member of the United Nations Development Fund for Development – UNIFEM Brazil & Southern Cone team. She coordinates the Programme “Incorporating of Equity of Gender, Race and Ethnic Dimensions” in the anti-poverty programmes in four countries of Latin America.
Ms. Barbosa’s professional experience also includes work on community development, basic education, and health services.
Bimal Kumar Phnuyal (Nepal)(Nepal), Country Director, ActionAid Nepal
Mr. Bimal has been a Country Director of ActionAid Nepal since March 2008. His responsibilities comprise overall management of the organisation including programmes fighting poverty and injustice in Nepal. He is a focal point on HIV and AIDS, one of the key activities in ActionAid Country Programmes in Asia.
Mr. Bimal is a social analyst, non-formal educator and political activist. He has been involved in different social movements, rights advocacy and community education works including innovating participatory learning approaches both in Nepal and internationally.
He has contributed articles, book chapters and is an editor of a book “Learning for Social Transformation” in Nepal.
Mr. Xavier Prats-Monné (Spain), Director for employment policy and international relations at the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. [ 
Video ]
Mr. Prats-Monné is also a member of the European Commission's Impact Assessment Board. He previously served as Director for the European Social Fund, and in the Cabinets of the Commission Vice President for external relations and of the Commissioner for Cohesion policy. He is from Spain, fluent in Spanish, English, French, Italian and Catalan.
Mr. Tariq Banuri (Pakistan), Director, Division for Sustainable Development
[ Video ]
Mr. Banuri is the director of the Division for Sustainable Development/CSD Secretariat. He has broad experience on the interface between policy, research, and practical actions on the realization of the goal of sustainable development. He has worked in government, academia, civil society, and the international system. Before joining the United Nations, he was Senior Fellow and Director of the Future Sustainability Program at the Stockholm Environment Institute.
He has served on national as well as international forums for policy, advocacy, and research, including as a Coordinating Lead Author on the Nobel Prize-winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as member of the board of governors of Pakistan’s central bank, and of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Council, and member/secretary of Pakistan’s Presidential Steering Committee on Higher Education. He has also served as the chair of the Board of Governors of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), and was a founding member of the Great Transition Initiative (GTI).
Mr. Tavengwa Nhongo (Zimbabwe), Africa Policy Director, HelpAge International [ Video ]
Mr. Nhongo is a Social Worker by profession and currently HelpAge International’s Africa Policy Director. Tavengwa has worked in the field of ageing since 1988, living and working with displaced refugees in a Helpage International Refugee Programme, becoming the programme’s Deputy Field Director in 1990. He went on to lead a national ageing organisation in Zimbabwe (HelpAge Zimbabwe) as Director. He became HelpAge International’s Regional Representative for Africa from 1997 to 2008. During that time he worked to develop and support programmes with older people in the whole of Africa and working closely with international and regional bodies such as the African Union. He has been on the boards and committees of many local and international NGOs working on addressing various social issues.
Ms. Faith Innerarity (Jamaica), Ministry of Information, Culture, and Youth and Sports [ Video ]
Ms. Innerarity is currently Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Culture, and Youth & Sports (which also has portfolio responsibility for Community Development and Gender Affairs). As a senior public servant working in the social sector for 28 years, she has contributed significantly to the development of social policies and programmes in Jamaica. During the period 2005-2007 she was the Chief Technical Director in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, after serving as Director Social Security for ten years. Previous functions also include serving in various professional/managerial capacities in the Ministry of Agriculture. She has also undertaken short-term consultancy assignments with the Inter-American Development Bank and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in agriculture and other multilaterally funded projects in the Caribbean.
Mrs Innerarity has represented Jamaica at the United Nations Commission for Social Development since 1996 and served as Chairman of the Commission in 2001 and 2002.
Mr. Henk-Jan Brinkman (Netherlands), World Food Programme [ Video ]
Mr. Brinkman is chief of the New York Liaison Office of the chief of the World Food Programme (WFP). From 2006 to 2008, he was chief of the Economic Analysis Service of WFP in Rome, Italy. From 2001 to 2006 he was a Senior Economic Affairs Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations, where he advised the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General on economic, social and environmental issues. Between 1989 and 2001, he was in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. He holds an M.A. in economics from the University of Groningen and a Ph.D. in economics from the New School for Social Research. He has written on such topics as economic adjustment in Africa and human stature as a measure of the standard of living. He is the author of Explaining Prices in the Global Economy: A Post-Keynesian Model, which was published by Edward Elgar in 1999.
Mr. Juho Saari (Finland), University of Kuopio [ Video ]
Juho Saari is Professor of welfare research at the University of Kuopio. Previously he worked as a Ministerial Adviser at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Among others, he was a member of the Social Protection Committee of the EU. He is the author, co-author or editor or co-editor of 35 books on social policy and public economy, altruism and justice, and European and global governance. Currently he is responsible on the project on the future of welfare state in Finland, commissioned by the Committee for the Future of Finland’s parliament.
Note by the Secretariat on the impact of current global crises on social development
