H.E Sibille de Cartier
Ambassador of Belgium
Sibille de Cartier is the Ambassador of Belgium in Bangkok, accredited to Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and PDR Lao. She is a career diplomat and has previously served as Ambassador of Belgium in Cairo, covering Egypt and Sudan. She has served her country in the last 20 years in various places of the world, including Kenya, Rwanda and Austria. She has also occupied various functions in the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has notably worked as adviser of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Didier Reynders. She is married and mother of two.
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Ambassador of Belgium
Solinn Lim
Country Director
Oxfam in Cambodia
Solinn is Cambodian and a proud feminist who has 20+ years of hands-on experience in countries across Asia, Europe and United States, in building community economic resilience and social protection, natural resource management and climate change, humanitarian relief and preparedness, and civic engagement and governance. Solinn has worked with grassroot communities and feminist leaders and collaborated with impact investors and champions in governments across Southeast Asia. Solinn is a member of Asia Society's Young Leaders. She holds a BA degree in Sociology from Royal University of Phnom Penh as well as an MSc. degree in Environmental Policy from Oxford University. She is happily married and a mother of two young children.
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Country Director
Oxfam in Cambodia
Lilian Mercado
Regional Director Asia
Oxfam
Lan Mercado is Oxfam International’s Co-Director for Strategy and Feminist Futures and, concurrently, is the Regional Director for Asia. She is a humanitarian and development worker and an advocate with over 30 years of international experience working with civil society groups, environmental movements, and women's rights organizations. In the Philippines, she is a convenor and founding member of EveryWoman and Baigani, and is a member of the board of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism where she once worked on the environment desk. She is a founding board member of the Citizens for the Promotion of Human Rights.
Under her leadership, Oxfam is implementing a future-oriented strategy in Asia for an inclusive, sustainable and resilient region. Lan returned to Asia after serving as Oxfam’s Deputy Director for Global Campaigns. Prior to this, she was Country Director in the Philippines and served as Advisor to the ASEAN on disaster management and emergency response.
For many years before joining Oxfam, Lan held various positions in Philippine consumer groups, human rights and anti-dictatorship movements, and an international women’s NGO. She practiced as a journalist and radio broadcaster.
Lan has a degree in mass communication and pursued post-graduate studies on sustainable development. Working with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism team of reporters, she had won first prize for investigative journalism. She was recently recognized by the University of the Philippines as a Distinguished Alumna for Poverty Alleviation and Human Development. In 2017, she was conferred the inaugural Glory Award by the UP College of Mass Communication for social advocacy and leadership in the development sector.
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Regional Director Asia
Oxfam
Ryce Chanchai
ASEAN Governance, Peace and Security Lead
UN Women Indonesia
Ryce Chanchai has over 15 years of diverse professional experiences in international development with geographic specialisation in Southeast Asia. As the UN official, she has supported various countries in formulating and implementing policies and programmes to advance democratic governance, gender equality and social inclusion of disadvantaged populations in developing Asia.
Her areas of focus include increasing political participation, access to economic opportunities and social protection, particularly for women and girls in developing Asia. She has a proven track record of evidence-based policy research analysis, campaign and advocacy for social change, resource mobilization and partnership building with high-level government officials and multi-stakeholder groups in the Asia region. She has a wide range of country-level experiences, particularly in Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Over the past decade, she has worked to support the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its Member States to promote human rights and gender equality. More specifically, she is currently leading the regional programme, ‘Empowering women for sustainable peace: preventing violence and promoting social cohesion in ASEAN. Previously, she also managed the Peace Building Fund (PBF) projects, focusing on women’s political participation in peace processes in Myanmar and the Philippines (2014-2015). Prior to joining UN Women, she worked for UNDP Regional Hub in Bangkok.
Ryce Chanchai was trained in political science and economics. She completed a Master of Philosophy in International Relations at the University of Cambridge, England and the Master of Arts in International Economics and Southeast Asia Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, as a recipient of both the Shell Centenary Chevening Scholarship and the Fulbright Scholarship, respectively.
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ASEAN Governance, Peace and Security Lead
UN Women Indonesia
Margaret Araujo
Programme Officer
ILO Liaison Office for Timor-Leste
Margaret Araujo was born in Timor-Leste in 1976. She has over 12 years of professional experience in the areas of gender, communities’ empowerment, project administration and finance.
Margaret Araujo is currently working as program officer with ILO Timor-Leste. Since 2019, she has been focusing her work on the Spotlight Initiative launched in Timor-Leste, as a multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030. In Timor-Leste, the Initiative is focused on the elimination of domestic violence and intimate partner violence. Margaret Araujo joined the ILO Timor-Leste as administration and finance officer in 2005 and continues performing that responsibility for all projects.
Margaret Araujo started her professional career as program manager in a project known as Project BELE (Bele is 'to be able' in Tetum). with USAID in 2000. She managed a community-focused project in two municipalities aimed at empowering communities, especially women, through engaging their participation in project identification, selection and implementation, as well as assist in rehabilitating rural socio-economic infrastructure at the local, grassroots level.
She holds a Bachelor of Economics/ Management major in Banking and Finance Management from Academic Finance and Banking in Indonesia.
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Programme Officer
ILO Liaison Office for Timor-Leste
Aura Sevilla
Programme Consultant for Southeast Asia and Older Workers
WIEGO
Aura Sevilla is a development worker, older people's rights, and social protection specialist. She primarily works in improving ageing and social protection policies, gathering evidence, advocating for change with the government, providing technical advice, networking, and building the capacity of older people and workers in the informal economy to affect institutional change both at the national and regional levels. She specializes in gender-responsive social protection, with a focus on life-course perspective and the intersection of gender, ageing, and informal employment. Currently, Aura is working part-time as the Focal Person in Southeast Asia and Older Workers of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).
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Programme Consultant for Southeast Asia and Older Workers
WIEGO
H.E Ariunzaya Ayush
Minister for Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia
Mrs. Ariunzaya Ayush has been working as Member of the Cabinet of the Government and Minister for Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia since July, 2020.
Previously, Mrs. Ariunzaya Ayush has experience working in private and public sectors, including as Human Resource manager and General Manager in the insurance field (2005- 2013), as Director of the Management and Strategic Planning Department, Director of Socio-Economic Policy Development Department of the Mongolian People's Party (2013- 2016), and Chairperson of National Statistics Office of Mongolia (2016-2020).
She did her primary education in Mongolian-Russian joint school No.3, one of the prestigious Russian secondary schools of Mongolia, and pursued her higher education at the Institute of German Studies of Halle, Germany, later on obtained her master’s degree in major of political science, sociology and history at the University of Hannover of Germany, and in major of business administration at the National University of Economics of Mongolia. Moreover, she also graduated in the field of international leadership and management at the International Law Institute of Georgetown University, USA.
Regarding her language skills, she can speak in English, German and Russian fluently.
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Minister for Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia
Dr. Diya Dutta
Independent Consultant - Social Development Research
Dr. Diya Dutta holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Jawahar Lal Nehru University and an M.Phil in Development Studies from Oxford University. She was awarded the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan to read for the Oxford degree. Diya has been engaged in development sector research for 18 years and has conducted numerous field based primary studies as well as desk research studies. She is specialised in qualitative research. In terms of sectors, while she has worked in multidisciplinary sectors, her passion and focus has been on gender empowerment. She has been conducting research on unpaid care work for some time and published in the Oxfam India Inequality report for 2 years consecutively. She presented her research findings on unpaid care work in India at the IAFFE (International Association for Feminist Economists) in the summer of 2019 in Glasgow, England. She has also presented her work at several webinars and written extensively in the media.
Diya is currently developing a policy paper on gender transformative social protection can help address Unpaid Care and Domestic Work in the ASEAN region for Oxfam in Cambodia.
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Independent Consultant - Social Development Research
Florencia Caro Sachetti
Coordinator of the Social Protection Programme
Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC)
Florencia Caro Sachetti is Coordinator of the Social Protection Programme at the Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC), based in Argentina. She is also involved in the T20 and W20 networks, delivering policy recommendations to G20 leaders. With broad experience in policy research, practice and advocacy, her work focuses on promoting gender equality and social inclusion through the implementation of evidence-based policies that are people-centred.
Florencia holds a MSc in Development Studies (LSE, UK) and a BSc in Economics (Torcuato di Tella University, Argentina). She is a member of Global Shapers. Among other distinctions, she was selected as a Young Global Changer by the Global Solutions Initiative.
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Coordinator of the Social Protection Programme
Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC)
Kathy Richards
Country Manager
Oxfam in Laos
Kathy Richards is the Country Manager for Oxfam in Laos. Previously she was the Country Director for Oxfam in Timor-Leste. Kathy has worked for the Australian Government Aid Program on Timor-Leste and the Philippines. Kathy has worked as the Manager of Equality Rights Alliance, Australia’s largest network advocating for women’s equality and recognition of women’s diversity, and also with Transparency International and Amnesty International, including as Vice President of Amnesty International Australia. Born in the Blue Mountains in Australia, Kathy acknowledges the Dharug and Gundungurra Aboriginal people as the Traditional Custodians of the land where she was raised. Kathy now lives in Vientiane Laos with her fabulous family where they grow herbs, ride bikes and try to live as plastic free as possible.
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Country Manager
Oxfam in Laos
Evelyn Astor
Economic and Social Policy Advisor
ITUC
Evelyn Astor is Advisor on Economic and Social Policy at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). She provides specialist advice and support to trade unions on employment and social policy issues, including on minimum living wages, social protection and job creation. She is a member of the Tripartite Advisory Committee for the ILO’s Global Flagship Programme for Social Protection Floors, a member of the steering committee for the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection and a Board Member of the Ethical Trading Initiative. Prior to joining the ITUC, she worked on social policies for several years at the European Commission and worked to develop EU-level legislation on paid parental and carers’ leave. She also has experience working with a number of NGOs on issues related to childcare, education, housing and income support.
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Economic and Social Policy Advisor
ITUC
Dr. Stephen Kidd
Director
Development Pathways
Dr Stephen Kidd is a Principal Social Protection Specialist at Development Pathways and has worked in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. He was previously Director of Policy at HelpAge International, led DFID’s Social Protection Team and was a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. He has experience across many aspects of social protection, has successfully supported national policy development in many countries and undertaken research on a wide range of topics.
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Director
Development Pathways
Ma. Victoria (Marivic) Raquiza
Co-Convenor
Social Watch Philippines
Ma. Victoria (Marivic) Raquiza is Co-Convenor of Social Watch Philippines and is a member of the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors. She is an Associate Professor of the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), University of the Philippines Diliman, where she teaches courses on poverty, inequality, the developmental state and governance as well as on social policy. She received her MA degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands and her PhD degree from the City University of Hong Kong. She sits as a member of the Sub-Committee on Social Protection convened by the Philippine Department of Social Work and Development and the Committee on Social Protection Statistics convened by Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). She is also Board Member and Fellow of the Social Weather Stations.
Marivic lived in North Cotabato, Mindanao in the early nineties, working with poor farmers to promote a sustainable rural development program when she was with the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM). She promoted lifelong learning programs with various stakeholders in Southeast Asia when she was with the Asia South Pacific Bureau for Adult Education as well as the SDGs as an active member of Social Watch Asia.
Marivic was part of a number of official country delegations to different UN conferences particularly focused on social development, the MDGs and later the SDGs and on financing for development. She has published on the themes of social equity, the conditional cash transfer program, on social policy and on the state of poverty and inequality in the Philippines.
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Co-Convenor
Social Watch Philippines
Mayor Attorney Melchor Mergal
Municipal Mayor
Salcedo Eastern Samar
This is his last term as Municipal Mayor and nearly 8 years of being the Local Chief Executive of the Municipality of Salcedo.
He believes that he will not be forever Mayor of the Municipality. He envisioned how to make people become resilient, and empowered. He brought recognition to the Municipality as a 4 time seal of good local governance (SGLG) awardee, The only consistent LGU in Eastern Samar that is a holder of SGLG for 4 consecutive years and ranked 2nd throughout Region 8 as SGLG holder.
Given the limited resources as a Mayor of a fifth class municipality, he institutionalized partnerships with NGO’s and INGO’s to help him accomplish relevant basic services in all areas of local government operations. He is always introduced as DRR Champion, Health Champion, Education Champion, and Environment Champion by agencies of the government. His municipality is modeling an adaptive, resilient, and disaster ready communities. He is instrumental in enacting Women Economic Empowerment and Care Ordinance that demonstrates commitment for increase investment in care related services, improving water facilities; provision of time labor saving equipment to reduce arduous tasks of unpaid care work; and include unpaid care in the annual investment programs.
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Municipal Mayor
Salcedo Eastern Samar
