Meet our panel

Nana Afadzinu, Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), has worked with and within the civil society sector for the past 23 years. She is a passionate advocate for sustainable development in Africa with the full participation of an effective, efficient, influential and sustainable civil society. Her passion for leading change and challenging the Status Quo on the continent, recently landed her a place on the Avance Media 2020 100 Most Influential African Women List.  

Renee Olende is a member of CIFF’s Africa leadership team developing innovative programmes to support the Foundation’s objectives across issue areas. Renee shapes the delivery of Strategic Engagement and Communications (SEC) in priority countries in Africa.

Crystal Simeoni has 10 years’ experience working on macro level inequalities. She currently works on women’s rights and macroeconomic policy at continental and global policy spaces. She champions for and works with women at all levels to be able to influence, analyse, deconstruct and reconstruct macroeconomic policy decision-making through an intersectional Pan African Feminist lens. She is currently an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity.

Claire Mathonsi is the Deputy Executive Director of the Advocacy Accelerator. She is an African feminist with extensive experience in women’s rights and gender equality in a global context with direct experience across Asia, Anglophone and Francophone Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America & the Caribbean. Throughout her career, she has worked in diverse sectors at national, regional and global level.