WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 28, 2011) --- Geeta Rao Gupta, former president of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), is the 2011 winner of the Commitment to Development "Ideas in Action" Award, sponsored jointly by the Center for Global Development (CGD) and Foreign Policy magazine.
The award, bestowed annually since 2003, honors an individual or organization for making a significant contribution to changing attitudes and policies of the rich and powerful toward the developing world.
“Geeta’s leadership at ICRW ensured a constant flow of research evidence about how to translate advocacy for women in the developing world into policy priorities and practical programs. Her own work on the link between women’s status and the AIDS pandemic is one example; her plenary address at the 2000 International AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, put gender at the heart of the global fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said CGD president Nancy Birdsall, co-chair of the selection committee.
“At least the development community now takes the role of women as fundamental to development. But it wouldn’t be that way without the kind of analytic work Geeta and her predecessors did at ICRW,” Birdsall added.
CGD and Foreign Policy will present Dr. Rao Gupta with the award during a public event on December 7, 2011.
“We hope this award shines a spotlight on the ways that addressing gender inequality in areas such as property rights, secondary education for girls, maternal mortality, and violence against women not only helps women and girls but strengthens societies and boosts development," said selection committee co-chair Moisés Naím, an international columnist and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Rao Gupta grew up in India, where she studied at University of Delhi and Bangalore University. While pursuing advanced degrees in social psychology, she worked as a counselor at a drop-in center in New Delhi and lectured in the psychology departments of several universities. At the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, she worked with a team to develop the first women’s studies curriculum for graduate students in India.
Currently the Deputy Executive Director at UNICEF, she was previously a senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and served as the president of ICRW from 1996 to 2010.
Birdsall and Naím co-chair the award's distinguished selection panel which includes: Susan Glasser, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine; Eveline Herfkens, founder of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Campaign and former Dutch minister of development cooperation; Duncan Green, head of research for Oxfam Great Britain; and Isabel Munilla, recipient of the 2011 Commitment to Development Award on behalf of Publish What You Pay.
Previous winners of the Commitment to Development Award include: the European ministers of international development who constitute the Utstein Group (2003); Oxfam's Make Trade Fair Campaign (2004); then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown (2005), then-U.S. Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) (2006), Global Witness (2007), the ONE Campaign (2008), Diego Hidalgo Schnur (2009), and Publish What You Pay (2010).
Notes for Editors:
For more information on the Commitment to Development Award, see /section/about/commitment_to_development_award.
*Members of the media interested in attending please RSVP to media relations coordinator Jessica Brinton at [email protected].
The Center for Global Development: CGD works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community to make the world a more prosperous, just, and safe place for all people. As a nimble, independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit think tank, focused on improving the policies and practices of the rich and powerful, the Center combines world-class scholarly research with policy analysis and innovative outreach and communications to turn ideas into action.
Image: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas
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