Our world of eight billion: what does it mean for women’s rights?

Silvia Giorguli’s research focuses on international migration from Mexico to the United States, transitions to adulthood in Latin America and the effects of demographic change. She currently participates as a researcher in the Mexican Migration Project with the universities of Princeton, Guadalajara and Brown, and co-chairs the Central and North American Working Group on Migration. Before assuming her current role as the President of El Colegio de México, Giorguli served as the director of the Center for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies, president of the Mexican Society of Demography and founding director of the magazine, Coyuntura Demográfica. Revista sobre los procesos demográficos en México hoy.

As the Executive Director of the UNFPA, Dr Natalia Kanem heads the United Nations sexual and reproductive health and rights agency. Kanem started her career in academia at the Johns Hopkins and Columbia University schools of medicine and public health. She first joined UNFPA as the country representative in the United Republic of Tanzania and went on to become the deputy executive director. Previously, Kanem also served as the founding president of ELMA Philanthropies, Inc., the deputy vice-president of the Ford Foundation’s peace and social justice programmes, and a senior associate at the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies.

Dubravka Šuica leads the Commission’s work on deliberative democracy and the Conference on the Future of Europe, giving people a say in how the Union is run and what it does. She is in charge of ensuring that Europe’s social protection systems adequately address the needs of an ageing population, as well as coordinating a long-term vision for rural areas and better reconciliation between work and family life. Šuica is a former member of the European and Croatian parliaments. She served as the vice-president of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe for 10 years and was the first female to serve as mayor of the city of Dubrovnik.