Distinguished feminist economist, Dr. Mariama Williams, is the keynote speaker for the opening ceremony of the inaugural Gender and Development Forum, which forms part of the UNCTAD 15 Conference.

The quadrennial Conference is the highest decision-making body of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and will be hosted virtually by Barbados from 3 to 7 October 2021. It will be preceded, between 13 September and 1 October, by five forums focussing on Global Commodities, Youth, Civil Society, Gender and Development, and Creative Industries and Trade Digitisation.

Dr. Williams is a director of the Institute of Law and Economics (ILE), Jamaica; a member of the Caribbean Feminist Action Network; the Gender and Trade Coalition and a principal consultant with the Integrated Policy Research Institute (IPRI) and Senior Associate with the Political Ecology and Sustainability Programme of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN).

She obtained her B.A. in Economics and Political Science from New York University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research in New York.

Dr. Williams will speak on the topic, “Re-thinking Gender, Trade and Development in the Post COVID-19 ‘transformations’ and landscapes” at the Forum opening ceremony which is to be broadcast on 26 September 2021. Registration for the Gender and Development Forum is open at: https://indico.un.org/event/1000156/.