FP Virtual Dialogue: Women, Peace & Security: The Next 20 Years

John R. Allen currently serves as the 8th president of the Brookings Institution. He is a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. Prior to his role at Brookings, Allen served as senior advisor to the secretary of defense on Middle East Security and as special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. Allen is the first Marine to command a theater of war, as well as the first Marine to be named commandant of midshipmen for the U.S. Naval Academy. Beyond his operational and diplomatic credentials, Allen has led professional military educational programs, including as director of the Marine Infantry Officer Program and commanding officer of the Marine Corps Basic School. Allen was the Marine Corps fellow to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the first Marine officer to serve as a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where today he is a permanent member. Among his other affiliations, Allen is a senior fellow at the Merrill Center of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. He is an “Ancien” of the NATO Defense College in Rome, and a frequent lecturer there. Allen is also the recipient of numerous U.S. and foreign awards. He holds a Bachelor of Science in operations analysis from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Master of Arts in national security studies from Georgetown University, a Master of Science in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College, and a Master of Science in national security strategy from the National Defense University.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury has been a career diplomat, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, President of the UN Security Council, President of UNICEF Executive Board, UN Under-Secretary-General, Senior Special Advisor to UN General Assembly President, and recipient of the U Thant Peace Award, UNESCO Gandhi Gold Medal for Culture of Peace, Spirit of the UN Award, University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor’s Medal for Global Leadership for Peace and the 2018 Global Women’s Peace Award. He is widely recognized for his leadership in steering the nine-month-long negotiations resulting in adoption of the UN Declaration and Programme of Action on Culture of Peace in 1999.
Ambassador Chowdhury is also globally known for his pioneering initiative in March 2000 as the President of the Security Council leading to the groundbreaking UN Security Council Resolution 1325 which recognized for the first time the role and contribution of women in peace and security and the equality of participation at all decision-making levels. He received Honorary Doctorates from Soka University of Japan in Tokyo in 2003 and from Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey, USA, in 2012.He is the Founder of the New York based civil society coalition, the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP).

Sahana Dharmapuri is the Director of Our Secure Future, a program of One Earth Future Foundation. From 2006-2016 she was an independent gender advisor on gender, peace, and security issues to USAID, NATO, The Swedish Armed Forces, the United States Institute for Peace, International Peace Institute, and other international development organizations. Ms. Dharmapuri was a writer-residence at the Carey Institute for Global Good (Winter 2016) where she completed her first book, Women, Peace & Security: 10 Things You Should Know. She was appointed a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2011-2013) and she was an Investing in Women in Development Fellow at the United States Agency for International Development (2003-2005). She has published widely on Women, Peace and Security issues including with CNN, Christian Science Monitor, The Fletcher Security Review, Hedaya and The Center for Global Counter-Terrorism, Women’s E-News, Human Rights Quarterly, The Global Responsibility to Protect Journal, The Global Observatory, The Alliance for Peacebuilding Online Journal, the Louisiana Literature Review, The US Naval War College’s Women, Peace and Security monograph series, and Parameters: The Senior Professional Journal of the US Army. She received her Bachelor’s and two Master’s degrees from the University of Chicago. She is a very happy breast-cancer survivor.

From the student antiwar protests of the ‘60s to her election to Congress in 2012 where she represents South Florida, Congresswoman Lois Frankel has spent her lifetime delivering positive change to her community as a civic leader, state legislator, mayor, and now Member of the United States House of Representatives where she sits on House Appropriations Committee, serving on the Subcommittees for: Energy and Water Development; Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies; and State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs. A trailblazer in the Florida State Legislature, Lois served as the first woman Democratic minority leader. She became a leading force to improve the economic condition of families and seniors and protect human rights and women’s reproductive freedom - fights she continues today in Congress as co-chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus. Prior to her election to Congress, Lois served as Mayor of West Palm Beach, raising her city to a new vitality and earning a reputation as an innovative problem solver. On a personal note, Lois is an avid abstract painter and is most proud of her son Ben, a United States Marine war veteran.

Amy Mackinnon is a staff writer for Foreign Policy magazine. Originally from Scotland, she has reported from across Eastern Europe and was based in Moscow and Tbilisi Georgia as a senior editor for the crisis-reporting site Coda Story. Mackinnon was a 2018 recipient of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia award for her reporting from St. Petersburg on the Reveal podcast “Russia’s New Scapegoats.” She is a regular commentator for BBC World Service radio and television and her work has been published and broadcast by Coda Story, BBC Radio Scotland, Slate, Vice and CNN among others. She speaks Russian and has a master's in journalism from the Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY and a joint master's in Russian, Central and East European Studies from the University of Glasgow and Corvinus University in Budapest.

Katherine Maher is the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. She is a longtime advocate for free and open societies, and has lived and worked around the world leading the introduction of technology and innovation in human rights, good governance, and international development. Katherine has worked with UNICEF, the National Democratic Institute, the World Bank, and Access Now on programs supporting technologies for democratic participation, civic engagement, and open government. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Council on Human Rights and the Council on Foreign Relations, and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project. She is on the Board of the American University of Beirut, Digital Public Library of America and the Sunlight Foundation.

Jacqueline O’Neill is Canada’s first Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security. Appointed by the Prime Minister in June 2019, her primary role is to advise Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense, and numerous other departments engaged in implementing Canada’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. Previously, Ambassador O’Neill was President of The Institute for Inclusive Security.  Over 13 years at Inclusive Security, she supported the creation of national strategies and policy frameworks for more than 30 countries, NATO, the OSCE, and the United Nations. She also worked directly with coalitions of women leaders in Colombia, South Sudan, Sudan, Pakistan, and beyond. Prior to that, Ambassador O’Neill worked at the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan and at Khartoum’s Ahfad University for Women. Along with former Lt. General Roméo Dallaire, she helped found the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative to eliminate the use of children during conflict. She was also a policy advisor to Canada’s Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region. Most recently, Ambassador O’Neill was a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian International Council. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Alberta and a Master in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.