Stakeholder Forum Fellows and Associates are individual experts at stakeholder engagement in sustainability policy processes on the global, regional, or local level. They share the vision of Stakeholder Forum to advance sustainable development at all levels. Together, they bring decades of experience from within all levels of government, academia, business and industry, the NGO community, and the United Nations’ inter-governmental environment and development processes.
Fellows and Associates are structurally affiliated with Stakeholder Forum in a variety of capacities. Some are engaged to deliver project work for Stakeholder Forum, others are Project Leaders for work that they have brought in-house to be under the Stakeholder Forum umbrella, and some are renowned women and men who bring topic-specific knowledge to the organization. And others are the next generation of sustainability practitioners who share a common vision with Stakeholder Forum.
Leida Rijnhout, Fellow
Leida Rijnhout
Leida Rijnhout is the Chief Executive of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) and has been a key advisor to Stakeholder Forum for many years. Before joining the SF family, she worked as a freelancer (www.leapfrog2SD.org) and was the programme coordinator of Resource Justice and Sustainability at Friends of the Earth Europe. In her position as Executive Director of ANPED and director of Global Policies at the European Environmental Bureau, Leida facilitated and coordinated the global NGO community to realize their active engagement in United Nations processes on Sustainable Development and the Environment.
She was heavily involved at and in the preparations of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 (the Johannesburg Summit), at Rio+20 in 2012 (Rio de Janeiro), the development of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development including the SDGs, and the UN Environment Assemblies (UNEA). She is the initiator of SDG Watch Europe.
Professor Daniella Tilbury, Fellow
Prof. Daniella Tilbury
Professor Tilbury is a policy expert, change-maker, and academic leader in Sustainable Development, credited with having developed the initial frameworks for this area of learning. She was a member of the Board of WWF Australia that brought Earth Hour to the World in 2007 and has been actively involved in international initiatives that inspire transitions towards sustainability. Her 2020 ‘Today4Tomorrow’ initiative is focused on embedding intergenerational rights in public policy and governance frameworks.
Before becoming HM Government of Gibraltar’s Commissioner for Sustainable Development in 2018, Daniella was the inaugural Vice-Chancellor and CEO of the University of Gibraltar, an institution that embeds sustainability at its core. She previously held academic leadership and research positions in Australia, the UK, and Hong Kong, and her work has been recognised with over 27 competitive grants and 18 awards. Daniella has been commissioned by over 35 government agencies as well as travelled extensively in Africa, Central, and South America to evaluate the investment and impact of sustainability programmes.
Currently, the UK government’s representative on the UN Economic Commission for Europe on matters relating to Education for Sustainable Development, during 1995-2019 Daniella Chaired several UN Committees and was commissioned by UNESCO to develop think pieces, expert reviews, policy advice, frameworks, and sector evaluations in sustainable development. She advises the European Commission on matters relating to learning for sustainable development, and a Commission working group that brings together government agencies from across member states to advance commitments in this area.
Professor Tilbury has been involved in international meetings on climate change (UNFCCC) and World Summits on Sustainable Development since 1992, informing texts and dialogues during these meetings. In 2021, she was recognised with an Hon. Fellowship by the University of Cambridge, St Catharine’s College, and a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain.
Felix Dodds, Fellow
Prof. Felix Dodds (photo credit: Earth Negotiations Bulletin)
Felix Dodds has been a leading thinker on global governance for 30 years. Now an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina, and Vice President of Multilateral Affairs at the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainable Solutions Service at Arizona State University, he was an advisor to the Ford Foundation and their grantees for the development of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Co-founder of the Communitas Coalition for supporting SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities, Felix was Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum from 1992 to 2012, and during that time he chaired the first UN Conference in 2011 to identify a set of indicative SDGs.
Author or editor of 24 books on sustainable development, his most recent is ‘Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage,’ and with Ambassador David Donoghue and Jimena Leiva Roesch he co-wrote ‘Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals,’ which explained how the SDGs came about and who key players were.
David Horan, Ph.D., Fellow, SDG Partnerships & Governance for the SDGs
David Horan, Ph.D.
Dr. Horan is an Adjunct Research Fellow at University College Dublin’s School of Politics & International Relations. Since 2018, David has been conducting research on data and governance frameworks for the SDGs with a focus on multi-stakeholder partnerships and their role in supporting effective and equitable implementation. He is the author of “A New Approach to Partnerships for SDG Transformations” and “Towards a Portfolio Approach: Partnerships for Sustainable Transformations.” From 2018-2020, David was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development and UNSDSN in New York.
Under the guidance of senior SF colleagues, Dr. Horan is leading the organization of an annual multistakeholder conference on SDG Partnerships to commence in 2022. David has considerable experience in UN engagements on sustainable development, having served for two years as a UCD Additional Representative to the UN. He was invited to speak on partnerships at the UN Expert Group Meeting on SDG17 in 2019 and UN Sustainable Development Transformations Forums 2020-21. To further understand advanced partnership frameworks for well-integrated and inclusive SDG implementation, David is currently studying transnational partnerships in the UN SIDS database for climate action (SDG13), sustainable oceans (SDG14), and biodiversity protection (SDG15). His articles have appeared in Global Policy (forthcoming), Sustainability, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, among other journals.
David can be reached at [email protected]
Dr. Elira Karaja, Associate
Elira Karaja, Ph. D.
Elira is an Economist with extensive experience in research, policy, and project implementation in political economy analysis and sustainable development. Working among others with the World Bank, UN, UNDP, and UNIDO she has experience in development work and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Specifically, in the areas of the renewable energy transition, the role of small and medium enterprises, gender inequality, and the blue-green economy. Formally an Affiliate at Columbia University, Dr. Karaja collaborated as Advisor on Blue-Green Political Economy for the Alliance for Global Resilience and Regeneration Network. Before that, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in New York and the Columbia University Business School.
From 2019 to early 2020, Elira served as the Lead Economist and Strategy and Partnership facilitator for the Global Partnership for Ocean Wave Energy Technology (GPOWET) initiative. In this role, she helped to establish the Private Public Partnership, while advocating for inclusive sustainable and renewable energy solutions in the context of the 2030 Agenda. Dr. Karaja facilitated dialogues around GPOWET’s unique wave energy conversion technology, SurfWEC, was an expert panelist at the 2019 UN Science Technology and Innovation Forum (the STI Forum) and collaborated with UN Member States, UNDESA, and the SIDS Unit of UNDESA.
Tanner Glenn, Associate
Tanner Glenn
Tanner Glenn is the founder and principal consultant of TPG Advisory Group, a strategy and social impact consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning, content development, event planning and facilitation, partnerships, community engagement, and digital marketing for private-sector, non-profit, education, and philanthropic organizations around the world. He primarily supports Stakeholder Forum by planning and facilitating virtual workshops, developing budgets and itineraries for major conferences, and coordinating stakeholder partnerships. Since 2016, Tanner has worked with Felix Dodds, former SF Executive Director, to support the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development by editing and publishing the Governance for Sustainable Development book series. In this capacity, he regularly collaborates with key partners such as the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) and Article 19. Tanner is also the host of Sustainable Society Cafe, a podcast that focuses on emerging technologies and how they fit into realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Tanner holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and urban planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at UNC, he established the nonpartisan University of North Carolina Institute of Politics (IOP) and served for two years as the Institute’s executive director. His work has been featured in major publications including the Washington Post and the New York Times.
You must be logged in to post a comment.