Steering Committee

Anke Kurat studied Regional Studies Latin America as well as Political Science, Spanish and French at the University of Cologne and in Lisbon. Since 2002 she is working for the Association of German Development and Humanitarian Aid Non-Governmental Organizations (VENRO). At the association she was responsible for the areas of European Development Policy, Climate Change and Migration. From 2006 to 2018 she also held the position of Deputy Managing Director. Since 2019 she is heading the area of ​​Global Justice and Sustainable Development at VENRO.

Before 2002 she was responsible for the foreign projects in Chile and northeastern Brazil at Kindernothilfe (German charity organization for children in need) in Duisburg. At the German Red Cross she was responsible for personnel recruitment and deployment to the Balkans and Latin America.

Ben Bestor is a senior program coordinator on the Global Development Policy and Learning team at InterAction. In this role, he coordinates the G7/G20 Advocacy Alliance, a group of US-based CSOs who work together to influence the annual G7 and G20 summits. Ben also manages InterAction’s Evaluation and Program Effectiveness Community of Practice and supports the recently redesigned NGO Aid Map.

Dereje Alemayehu is an executive coordinator of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice. Prior to that he worked as chairman of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice and Senior Economic Policy Advisor of Tax Justice Network Africa. Before his work in the development sector, Dereje Alemayehu was a lecturer at the Free University in Berlin from 1987-1998 where he holds a MA in Development Studies and PhD in Economics.

Emilia Reyes has specialized in gender responsive public policies and budgets linked to sustainable development, including comprehensive disaster risk management and climate change; in those fields she has trained governmental officers from the Legislative, Judiciary and Executive Branch, as well as officers from UN agencies at national and regional level. For five years she was an Organizing Partner of the Women’s Major Group for the 2030 Agenda; for two years she was Co-chair of the High Level Political Forum’s Major Groups and Stakeholders Coordination Mechanism. She is currently the Programme Director of Policies and Budgets for Equality and Sustainable Development, at Equidad de Género: Ciudadanía, Trabajo y Familia (Gender Equity: Citizenship, Work and Family). She is Co-Convenor of the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development, and coordinator of the Campaign of Campaigns.

Harjeet Singh is a climate justice advocate and has been supporting civil society and governments across the world on climate change, emergency response and disaster resilience. He is the Global Director – Engagement and Partnerships for the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. He is also a senior advisor at Climate Action Network International.

He is a member of the United Nations’ expert group on Comprehensive Risk Management under the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. He has served as a board member of Climate Action Network International and the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR).Harjeet co-founded Satat Sampada, a social enterprise that promotes sustainable environmental solutions such as organic food and farming in India and beyond.

Jürgen Maier is director of the German NGO Forum Environment & Development since 1996. He co-organized the civil society involvement in the German G7/G8 presidencies in 2015, 2007 and 1999 and the German G20 presidency in 2017. Organiser of „The Other Economic Summit“ in Munich 1992 during the G7 summit. Member of the C20 Steering Committee in 2018-2020 and the International Civil Society Advisory Committee for the Russian G8 presidency 2006.

Lorna Fuller works as the director of the small non-profit organisation Project 90 by 2030, where she is responsible for the strategic direction. The organisation, established in 2007, has achieved a favourable reputation in the climate and energy justice arena with emphasis on community partnerships, policy & advocacy work and developing young climate change leaders.

As a biodiversity conservationist, Lorna Fuller spent 25 years working with wildlife and endangered species. Her concern shifted in 2012 when she wanted to do more to understand the social and climate injustices emerging. Her passion now is mentoring and helping elevate the voices of the previously unheard youth, mainly to support young climate activists in South Africa.

Mariam Sow is the director of ENDA Pronat, a Senegalese NGO dedicated to supporting ecological agriculture, family farms, and women’s rights.

Mathilde Dupré is co-director of the Institut Veblen. Graduated from Sciences-po Paris, with a master’s degree in “International Development Economics”, she joined CCFD-Terre Solidaire, a French development NGO for which she was in charge of advocacy on development financing and the regulation of multinational companies. As a member of the Board of Directors of the Tax Justice Network, from 2010 to 2014 she led the “Tax and Judicial Heavens” platform and represented French civil society in OECD and EU expert groups on the subject. Between 2014 and 2015, she coordinated the Citizen Forum for CSR and participated in the drafting of the French law on the duty of vigilance of companies. She joined the Veblen Institute in 2015 in order to develop a programme on European trade policy. She is co-author of the book “Après le libre-échange. Quel commerce international face aux défis écologiques”, with Samuel Leré, published by Les Petits Matins, in 2020.

Patricia Miranda has been working as Global Advocacy Director at the Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice LATINDADD since March 2018, prior to that she has represented Latindadd as Senior Officer on Finance for Development, under the umbrella of its member in Bolivia, Fundación Jubileo, since 2006.

She is in charge of leading analysis and advocacy on debt and publicly backed up private finance, at global and regional levels, such as UN, G7, G20, IMF, WB, ECLAC; coordinating views and inputs from the twenty-three member organisations along 13 countries in the region. She was co-chair of the International Financial Architecture Working Group of the Civil 20 Italy and member of the C20 Steering Committee since 2017.

Currently policy manager with Bond UK, Sandra Martinsone has over 20 years of experience in international development, humanitarian assistance, diplomacy and international relations, research, advocacy and campaigning for social and economic justice.  She currently leads Bond’s work on sustainable economic development with a focus on more structural and systemic issues which shape, nurture and sustain development. Before Bond she has worked on tax justice, ethical trade issues and have managed research projects at ODI focusing on political economy of development.

Sandra holds MA in International political economy from University of Leeds in the UK, BA in Politics from Vidzeme University College in Latvia, is currently studying Public Finance management at UCL/SOAS.

Sena Kwaku Adessou is a biologist, specialized in Environmental Management. He holds an international professional Master’s degree in Development, specializing in Environmental Management (Senghor University of Alexandria)..

He has about 17 years of experience in the NGO world. He has gained experience in the field of agroecology, environment and local development, notably at the Agence Béninoise de l’Environnement (ABE) in Benin, at the NGO Jeunes Volontaires pour l’Environnement (JVE) in Togo, and at the institution Investir Dans l’Humain (IDH) in Togo.

After having been Director of the National Office of Inades-Formation Togo, he is currently the Secretary General of Inades-Formation International, a pan-African development organisation, recognised as being of public utility and established in ten French and English speaking countries, whose headquarter is based in Abidjan (Ivory Coast).

Shoko Uchida is the Co-president of Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC) and Board member of the Japan Volunteer Center (JVC). During the G20 summit in Japan in 2019 she was the local coordinator of the Trade & Investment Working Group and Digital Task Group of the Civil 20 process. Her research focus is on Trade, focusing on WTO, and other Free Trade Agreements including CPTPP, RCEP as well as on Digital Economy issues including a perspective of human rights, democracy, and ethics.

Stefania Burbo has been working as focal point and advocacy officer for the Global Health Italian Network since 2004. It is composed of CSOs promoting the right to health, focusing on fragile countries. Since 2017 she is co-spokesperson of GCAP – Global Call to Action against Poverty Italy, expression of the largest global CS movement, calling for an end to poverty and inequality, promoting sustainable policies that respect human rights, gender equality, social and environmental justice, within the 2030 Agenda framework. It is a key interlocutor for Italian institutions on G7/G20 processes, and the 2030 Agenda implementation.

In 2021 she was appointed both C20 Chair and National Coordinator of the C20 Global Health Working Group. Stefania Burbo graduated in Political Science and has worked in the field of international cooperation since 1997. She started working in sub-Saharan Africa in both development and emergency projects.

Sugeng Bahagijo is an Indonesian national. He is executive director of INFID, a policy advocacy and national NGO forum in Jakarta, where he manages policy advocacy and research on SDG, Inequality, Prevention of extremism, human rights-democracy. He is Steering Committee member of Asia Democracy Network (ADN) and current OPen Government Partnership (OGP) Envoy. He was a member of Open Government Partnership steering committee (OGP), a National Wage Council appointed by The President, and Vocational Training Committee appointed by The Ministry of Manpower.

Ziad Abdel Samad is the Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), Based in Beirut, since 1999 ANND brings together 30 NGOs and 9 national networks from 10 Arab countries, active in the protection of social and economic rights.

Abdel Samad is engaged in many global and regional networks focusing in the Economic and Social public policies and targeting regional and global Institutions.

He is also engaged with research institutions and active in electoral reforms and monitoring at the national and regional levels. He is part time instructor in the Lebanese American University (LAU) Member of the Order of Engineers and Architects in Lebanon.