Facilitation Group

Adrian Watson

Rural environmental groups representative

Adrian is from Kingston, Jamaica. He holds a BSc. in Geography and Zoology from the University of the West Indies at Mona and has been working in the area of natural resources management focusing on biodiversity and climate change for the last 10 years. He applies a youth and community development lens to his work and has collaborated with partners at the local, regional and international levels. He has done this type of work with several different organizations including the Seaview Gardens Community Development Committee, Jamaica Red Cross, Jamaica Organic Agricultural Movement, Caribbean Youth Environment Network and Global Youth Biodiversity Network.

Hallima Nyota Ang’uria

Youth representative

Hallima Nyota is a young female leader passionate about women empowerment, peace and security, transformative leadership and meaningful youth engagement. She is Young Woman Mediation Ambassador at the International Center for Peace, Human Rights and Development- IPHRD- Africa, championing the role of young women in peace building and conflict resolution across Kenya. She is a fellow for the second edition of the 2063 Academy at Atlas for Development. Hallima works as programs Coordinator at YLS organization, where she centers her work on addressing gender issues.

Roseline Kihumba

Older persons’ representative

Roseline has accumulated diverse experience and knowledge working with older people in multigenerational households, including building alliances with diverse CSOs working in areas such as youth, people with disabilities and women. Further, since late 2012, she has been leading HelpAge’s post-2015/SDGs influencing work and data revolution on older people work in the Africa. She is co-chair of the Stakeholders Group on Ageing Africa and co-chair of the African Major Group and Other Stakeholders. Her roles demand working with diverse stakeholders, coordinating activities of movements and building alliances with a wide range of networks and organisations at all levels.

Lahoucine Amouzay

Indigenous Peoples’ representative

Lahoucine is a researcher in linguistics and human rights at the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture. He is also an expert in the field of human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples. His research interests include the revitalisation and linguistic planning of indigenous languages as well as cultural rights and linguistic diversity. Lahoucine was the Indigenous Peoples’ representative in the A4SD Facilitation Group for the 2018-2020 cycle. In 2020, he contributed to the World Report on Indigenous Languages 2020 through a study on linguistic revitalization of indigenous languages, coordinated by UNESCO.

Dil Bahadur Bishwakarma “Dil Ji”

Dalit and other minorities representative (open category)

Dil Bahadur Bishwakarma, also known as “Dil Ji”, is involved in the political and social sectors as well as the Dalit movement. In earlier years, he was an energetic national youth leader in Nepal. Dil was recommended as a Member of the Proportionate Constituent Assembly in 2010, and recommended as a Member of Parliament in 2014. Dil is also an author and has written novels, stories, poems, drama, biographies and other genres. He is the author of hundreds of articles on different socio-political issues. Dil is a draft committee member of the National Youth Council and a member of Youth Vision 2025, and he  acts as Secretary-General of the NDLC Academy.

Rosemary Olive Mbone Enie

Women representative

Rosemary Olive Mbone Enie is a pan Africanist, geologist, environmentalist, eco-community builder and gender/childhood ambassador. She has been actively involved in water, sanitation, hygiene, environmental education and gender projects across Africa since 1991, initiating several pan African projects. She is the founder of the Women Environment and Climate Action Network (WECAN) Africa. She has been following the International Climate Negotiations for the past 20 years participating in the Poznan 2008, Copenhagen 2009 and Durban 2011 Climate Summits.

Toka Sunday

Persons with disabilities’ representative

Toka is a Climate Change Specialist with a passion for disability rights and inclusion. He has over 10 years’ technical experience in advocacy, hazards, vulnerability assessments, adaptation, greenhouse gas inventory, carbon footprint and policy. He has a BSc and an MSc in Geography and Environmental Management and an MBA from Nigerian universities, as well as an MSc in Climate Change from Swansea University.  He currently works as a Chief Scientific Officer with the Lagos State Ministry of Environment and Water Resources. He is a member of the UNFCCC Roster of Experts from Nigeria.

Tola Winjobi

Sub-Saharan Africa representative

Dr. David Tola Winjobi is a human rights activist, a seasoned trainer of trainers, a gender analyst, a community development consultant, a researcher, and a conflict manager. Tola works as a lecturer and he has over 25 years’ senior management work experience. He has worked as a Development Officer of Amnesty International, where he built the capacity of members across Nigeria. He has also been Coordinator of Research and Programmes on Democracy and Human Rights and Policy Advocacy Officer of CAFOD, UK. He has acted as National Coordinator of the Global Call to Action against Poverty/MDGs Nigeria, and he is the former Africa Focal Point for TAP Network. He is currently the National Coordinator of the Civil Society Coalition on Sustainable Development.

Daisy Ndikuno Owomugasho

Sub-Saharan Africa representative

Dr. Daisy Owomugasho is the Regional Director for The Hunger Project in East Africa, where she also served as a Country Director for Uganda since 2011. Before joining The Hunger Project she was a lecturer at Makerere University, Kampala. She has also worked as Executive Director at the African Women’s Economic Policy Network, a pan-African faith-based organization, as well as the Uganda Debt Network, a policy advocacy organisation. She has served as Secretary, Chair Governence Committee and Executive Committee member of the CIVICUS Board of Directors from 2018 to 2020. She also serves on several local Boards. Daisy earned her PhD in Economics from Makerere University. She has a Master’s Degree in Development Economics from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada and a B.A. Degree in Economics from Makerere University.

Daya Sagar Shrestha

Asia representative

Daya is a development professional and SDGs advocate. He has an MSc. in Regional Development and an MA. in Sociology. He has extensive knowledge on development, governance, civic space, democracy and development justice issues. He is now an RCC member and the SSWA Focal Point in AP-RCEM, and he facilitates CSO work in the sub-region. He is the author of “Introduction of 2030 Agenda and SDGs” and he is serving as resource person on the SDGs. He also wrote a review paper titled “Overview of SDGs Implementation and Progress in Nepal”. Daya played a very important role to establish SDGs National Network in Nepal. He has successfully organized several Peoples’ Forums at the national and regional level.

Marlene Ramirez

Asia representative

Marlene is Secretary General of the Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (AsiaDHRRA) from 1999 to present. She began working for rural development and poverty eradication in the Philippines with PhilDHRRA in 1987 and was Executive Director from 1993-1998. Both at national and regional levels, her expertise covers civil society network development and management, program development and implementation, resource building and mobilization, strategic partnerships, and policy advocacy. In 1999, she catalised a regional farmers’ alliance, now an autonomous body called Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA). From 2010 to date, she serves as interlocuter for civil society engagement with FAO-RAP.

Marie-Luise Abshagen

Europe representative

Marie-Luise has been working on sustainable development since 2013 at the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development, where she leads the team on SDGs. She coordinates and supports CSOs’ on SDG implementation on a national, European and international level. Since 2017 she is a Steering Group member of SDG Watch Europe. She had been a consultant on research as well as civil society projects on sustainable development. Besides her work on the SDGs, she coordinates the work of German CSOs against deep sea mining, and she is active in movements against right-wing extremisms as well as feminism. She holds an M.A. in Political Science with a focus on East Asian Area Studies.

Robert Križanič

Europe representative

Robert has been working in the international development and humanitarian fields for over 20 years. He is the founder and director of the Povod Institute, based in Slovenia. He has extensive experience in monitoring and promoting the sustainable development agenda actively since the year 2000 with the launch of MDGs, and he is particularly familiar with the European and EU realities. He acts as chair of the board of Sloga, the Slovenian national platform of development and humanitarian NGOs, and he represents Slovenian civil society in several European and global constituencies like CONCORD Europe and the Anna Lindh Foundation. Robert is also a stakeholder in international programs like Make Europe Sustainable Again, and he is active with SDG Watch Europe.

Gabriela Paliza Romero

Latin America and the Caribbean representative

Gabriela is a 31-year-old lawyer born in Cusco, an Andean region in the interior of Peru. She has been working on issues related to environmental management, training, citizen participation and access to environmental justice for over seven years. She has been a public official of the Ministry of the Environment for more than 5 years. In 2019, together with a group of other women, she founded NGO Maqay, an organisation promoting sustainable development through the right to access to information, citizen participation and justice. Throughout 2020 Maquay developed a series of environmental education actions as part of the School of Environmental Participation project.

Jared Ortiz González

Latin America and the Caribbean representative

Jared was born in 1978 in the city of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He pursued studies on marketing at APEC University. He has over 17 years’ experience in the non-profit sector, both nationally and internationally, where he has focused on fundraising, strategy formulation and process reengineering. He has served as Project Manager and later Executive Director at Alianza ONG, as Sponsorship Coordinator at World Vision Dominican Republic, and as Director of Fundraising and Communications at SOS Children’s Villages. He has coordinated the editing and publication of different studies on CSO accountability as well as corporate responsibility and the strengthening of civil society.

Zahra Bazzi

Middle East and Northern Africa representative

Zahra is the Programs Director at the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), a position she has held since November 2011. Her work mainly entails research coordination and project management focused on development, governance and human rights policies. She is engaged in networking and cooperation with national and global civil society organizations and other development actors. She previously worked as a Program Associate at the UNDP-Program on Governance in the Arab Region (UNDP-POGAR) and the UNDP project on Anti-Corruption and Integrity in Arab Countries (UNDP-ACIAC) from 2007 to 2011. She holds a Master’s degree in International Trade Law from Beirut Arab University and a BA in Law from the Lebanese University.

Mohammad Issa

Middle East and Northern Africa representative

Mohammad has been working as a community development specialist since 1997. He has a Master’s Degree in international cooperation and development from Bethlehem University. Mohammad used to work for different local and international organizations. He has trained, coached, and mentored thousands of youth and children. In the last 16 years, Mohammad has represented his country in different international forms and platforms. He is a CIVICUS member and a certified virtual and physical facilitator working with local and international organizations. During the past 4 years, he has facilitated several workshops as a part of SDGInnovation, a program by NGO Ibtikar. The project was developed to empower schools and teachers across Palestine to act on the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda through the use of social innovation tools.

Abdul Mufeez Shaheed

Pacific representative

Abdul is a 28-year-old Pacific Islander who has multiple identities and wears multiple hats in the development space. He is a descendant of the Indian indentured laborers, an Indo-Fijian by ethnicity, a Fijian by nationality, and a bisexual young person who is Muslim by religion. These and the other identities he shares are crucial in shaping the person that he is, his politics, his being, his perspective and his activism. Abdul has 10 years’ experience volunteering and working in youth activism spaces focusing on good governance, transparency and accountability, student unionism, diversity and inclusion among other intersectional topics. He has sat on governance boards of regional institutions and has been part of youth start-ups and delivered youth-centered projects.

Emeline Siale Ilolahia

Pacific representative

Siale is a Tongan civil society leader, women’s advocate and activist. As Executive Director of PIANGO, she represents the interests of Pacific civil society in a range of regional and international forums. Through her work with PIANGO and several coalitions and organisations in Tonga, Siale has been engaged in joint PIANGO-Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) research on diverse and inclusive humanitarian leadership. In her previous role as Executive Director of the Civil Society Forum of Tonga, Siale was instrumental in bringing together and supporting coalitions working on issues as diverse as ethical leadership, women’s access to finance, women’s leadership and political participation. Siale was awarded an inaugural Jose Edgardo Campos Collaborative Leadership Award in Washington DC in 2016 in recognition of her contributions to local leadership efforts in Tonga.

Elaine Ho

US & Canada representative

Elaine is currently completing her PhD in water monitoring and management, having had 13 years of formal training in resource-based sustainability and social-economic consideration. She sits on the Board of Directors at the Long Point Biosphere Reserve Foundation, where she is active in four committees: climate action, fund development, Indigenous reconciliation, and governance. She also consults independently and directs the Training and Consulting unit for Synergy Sustainable Development Group. She brings 15 years of SDG experience in renewable energy, youth entrepreneurship, women’s activism, and corporate sustainability. In 2006 she co-founded an initiative that resulted in over 5,000 homes being powered by solar electricity generated on over 360 school roofs in Toronto.

Rob Wheeler

US & Canada representative

Rob has represented the Global Ecovillage Network in most of the UN’s sustainable development processes over the past 20 years. He led a Sustainable Community campaign for five years in Santa Cruz County, California, in the 1990s. He has served on the UN NGO Millennium Forum Executive Committee, the US Citizen’s Network for Sustainable Development and the Commons Cluster of the NGO Major Group. He has participated actively in key Sustainable Development and climate forums for over 25 years. He also serves on the Advisory Council for the Ecosystem Restoration Camps. He is a Certified Trainer in Design for Sustainability.