Policy and Advocacy Strategist
UN Foundation, USA
Alyson Neel serves as Policy and Advocacy Strategist for the UN Foundation’s Global Policy team, with journalism, policy design, and advocacy experience in Turkey, the United States, and most recently Myanmar. Neel has worked to shed light on and address many manifestations of gender inequity, including gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the gender wage gap, with The Washington Post, UN Women, and the Offices of Louisiana Senator “JP” Morrell and U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin. Neel recently returned to New York after spending 18 months in Yangon, Myanmar, where she supported a local women’s organization and authored a bilingual children’s book, Girl Power in Myanmar, about women rocking their communities across the country. Neel holds an MPA from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and a BA in political communication from Louisiana State University.
| Event Title: Advancing Youth through Social and Economic Empowerment | Date: September 25, 2019 |
SPEECH
UNA-USA Youth member participation in human rights mechanisms and UN Summits
Empowerment may be the first piece, and we are seeing more of this, but those in power actually release some of their power to allow young people at the table to be another. In the implementation and reporting of the Sustainable Development Goals, we know that multi-stakeholder participation remains a challenge. The good practices of VNR, VLR and 2019 opportunities will also be useful for implementing change. The United Nations Fund works specifically to empower young people through the Girl Up campaign and the UNA-USA grassroots network.
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