Global Women Pursuing Change

In this article, we shall see how two women coming from different parts of the world met together and founded The Pursuit – Global Women for Change, thus starting on their way to becoming potential global leaders.

After meeting each other in Berlin at the 2018 Global Solutions Summit, Eduarda Zoghbi from Brazil and Nancy Hoque from the USA were inspired to continue working together.

“We brainstormed, and we wanted to do an initiative where we could share different voices of women from around the world focused on change and action, as we were inspired by our Summer School experience as Young Global Changers,” says Nancy. After talking to them about this initiative, Eduarda explains, “we settled on the podcast interview format after we heard inspiring life stories from Young Global Changers at the Global Solutions Summit 2018 and felt compelled to invite them to share their insights as young experts who had actually experienced in their countries what the G20 task forces discuss.”

Promoting women’s experiences and stories

Together, they founded The Pursuit – Global Women for Change, a platform for dialogue among women worldwide focused on sharing experiences and stories of women change-makers through a cultural and gender lens.

Women were the target audience. They were also invited to be the guest speakers to promote the experiences and stories of those who would ordinarily not be heard in G20 high-level events.

Too often, “we understand infrastructure and challenges based on our own countries and experiences,” says Eduarda. That is precisely why it becomes essential to “hear from women about the challenges they face in their countries and as experts in their specific fields.”

Both strongly believe that it is important to promote women’s voices who may otherwise be hidden and unknown. Women’s potential to make a positive contribution to the global economy is huge, and greater participation, equality, and inclusion should be widely promoted.

Indeed, a recent Argentina representative at the 2018 Summit said, “if women participated in the economy in the same way as men, there would be a 26% growth in global GDP by 2025.”

The podcast topics are related to the G20 countries’ issues each year at their annual Summits and in their specific G20 taskforces.

However, Eduarda cautions that “there is not enough transparency in the G20 process.” What is being discussed in these task forces and how the G20 countries will ultimately implement proposals is often unclear.

Balancing work and studies

Balancing full-time work and studies with family life and voluntary work while building up The Pursuit, which includes identifying speakers, recording podcasts, and promoting them, is not a simple task and takes considerable time. 

Eduarda says, “all of us involved have so many things to do and projects on our plate!” Currently, Eduarda is pursuing an MPA in energy and environment at Columbia University while working for the UN Sustainable Energy for All, at the Institute of Latin American Studies, and participating in two other projects: the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative Youth Challenge Team and the G20 Energy Policy Tracker. 

Nancy currently works for Adobe and supports their go-to-market strategy and sales operations while also raising two young boys. She was recently announced as a 2020 Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 40 under 40 honouree. Both were selected to represent the 2020 Global Solutions Summit as Young Global Changers Ambassadors.    

 To date, five podcasts have been produced, and with each one, the number of listeners is growing.

The topics so far have included: Impacts of Trade Policy on Women, Youth Empowerment in the Climate Crisis, The Future of Work and Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia, Women Issues and Gender Equity, and Technology as a tool for gender health equity during COVID-19.

Future ambitions

Inspired by the people they interact with and their stories, both Eduarda and Nancy plan to keep producing podcasts for The Pursuit and, as Nancy says, “continue expanding our team.”

They agree that “it’s important to expand the diversity of voices represented, spanning across sectors, countries, and experiences: entrepreneurs, political advisors, social advocates, and more. Our collective dialogue makes us more effective.”

Both have found that working on a podcast creates many opportunities to develop new technical skills. “For example,” says Eduarda, “I taught myself podcast editing, and Nancy was more involved in putting together the discussion guides and deciding how they were going to relate to the G20 taskforce topics with the women we invited and coming up with good questions to ask. It’s a team effort to put the podcasts together!”

It has been just over a year since The Pursuit was founded. A lot has already been achieved with a website and social media pages created and much work going on behind the scenes.

While they consider it a positive start, both Eduarda and Nancy plan on continuing to grow the platform further. They now intend to produce a new podcast every month.

Engaging the Young Global Changers network

It is doubtful The Pursuit would have been established had it not been for Eduarda and Nancy meeting each other at the 2018 Global Solutions Summit. 

Almost all their podcast episodes have featured female Young Global Changers, as Nancy and Eduarda wish to tap into the network offered by Global Solutions Initiative to share these women’s projects and ideas so they can hopefully be replicated worldwide.

Linda Du (from the United Kingdom) and Swati Dhawan (from India) were the first two Young Global Changers from the 2018 cohort to feature in a podcast, while Sweetie Anang (from Ghana) from the 2019 cohort participated in the most recent podcast.

The alumni network, they believe, can continue to be a useful network for engaging and inspiring women from around the world and more widely promote their stories, experiences, achievements, and, just as importantly, the challenges they have faced. 

Other female Young Global Changers interested in being featured on a future podcast can reach out to Eduarda and Nancy through their website. 

Editor’s note: This article was first published on the Global Solutions blog. It has been republished here with the author’s permission