Women and Democracy: Perspectives of Activists in Central America

Central America is currently in a phase of democratic backsliding, which involves attacks on women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights and gender equality. Anti-rights movements are also rising in the region, and their powerful presence and backing by authoritarian leaders and actors with significant resources threaten women’s rights.

Join World Affairs Council, YPIN and Seattle International Foundation for a discussion on the importance of empowering women and girls and their role in building democratic and equitable societies.

Make sure to arrive at 5:30 pm to catch up with the World Affairs Council’s members and friends and join us for a glass of wine.

Our Speakers

Irene Valdés Wochinger
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Director and Chief of Staff, Communications Division

Irene Valdés Wochinger serves as chief of staff to the Communications Division’s C-suite leader and executive team and supports the division’s culture, strategic implementation, learning and impact, and overall governance effectiveness, in addition to promoting communications-related collaboration and progress across the foundation. Her role includes leading the Office of the Chief Communications Officer and the division’s Measurement and Insights team and Strategy, Planning and Management team. Together, these teams support the division’s core business functions by designing and implementing operating models, policies, and processes that empower teams to implement their strategies and maximize impact.

Irene joined the foundation in 2022 as a deputy director, leading the Communications Division’s Strategy, Planning and Management team.

Earlier, Irene led the development and implementation of strategic frameworks to promote gender equality, youth empowerment, health care delivery, advocacy, and policy at Planned Parenthood Global, the international division of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In that leadership role, she supported global movements for sexual and reproductive health and rights, with a focus on organizational strategy, process design, and operational effectiveness to advance locally led movements in under-resourced communities in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Bolivia. She also served on Planned Parenthood’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council and its Latinx Strategy Table, developing strategies to foster an equitable and inclusive workplace for all staff members in the U.S. and globally.

Irene’s decades-long career also includes roles at Teach For America, Common Hope Foundation, the Research Foundation for the State University of New York (SUNY), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Irene began her career in international development as a recipient of a Fulbright Research Scholarship in southern Mexico, where she conducted research with local governments, nonprofits, public hospitals, and private clinics to identify social inequities affecting access to education and health care among Indigenous women and worked with local governments to develop policies to advance equity in health care and education.

Throughout her career, Irene has developed expertise in innovation and human-centered design techniques, organizational effectiveness, and social impact strategy. She focuses on leading strategy execution through culture, leadership and governance, and operational innovation.

Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Irene earned executive and graduate studies certificates in social impact and business operations management from the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Wharton School of Business, respectively, at the University of Pennsylvania. She has a master’s degree in applied anthropology from SUNY Albany and a bachelor’s degree in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Puerto Rico.

Natalia Lozano

Natalia is a young, Honduran feminist and activist for the human rights of women, LGBTQ+ and youth, with over 14 years of experience.

Natalia has a long-standing commitment to the defense of Human Rights and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), leading her to become involved in initiatives such as Youth Representative in the National Advisory Council on Human Rights Honduras, 2014. She has actively participated in the Network of Young Parliamentarians, identifying the main needs of Honduran youth from a legislative perspective through meaningful youth consultations. Natalia also contributed to the implementation of the Diploma in Parliamentary Techniques and Political Negotiation for the National Congress of Honduras with the Center of Investigation and Promotion of Human Rights (CIPRODEH) in 2015.

During the last 4 years, she has developed experience with national, regional and international advocacy. She is the former National Coordinator of the Honduran platform, Right Here, Right Now, which provided support to 15 organizations working for SRHR and prioritized the diversity of young people.

This path eventually led Natalia to regional and international advocacy, such as Youth Advocate for the Third Regional Conference on Population and Development at Lima, Perú, as well as Youth Advocate for the Commission and Status of Women (CSW 62 and 63) at the United Nations in 2018 and 2019, becoming part of the Honduran Official Delegation in 2019.

Natalia was a youth speaker at the Women Deliver Global Conference in Vancouver, Canada in 2019. She also followed up on the commitments of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Nairobi, Kenya and was invited by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) as speaker at the preparation meeting for the ICPD in Puebla, México. Natalia also advocated for youth at the 14th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago de Chile in 2020. This experience led to the creation of the Youth Shadow Universal Periodic Report, which Natalia presented in 2020 with the Right Here, Right Now Honduran Platform.

Natalia is a native Spanish speaker and speaks English as a second language.

Moderator

Adriana Beltrán

For more than twenty years, Adriana Beltrán has championed the promotion of policies and strategies to advance the rule of law and social justice in Central America. She has extensive experience addressing human rights, corruption, and governance related issues, and has worked closely with a wide range of civil society organizations, activists and networks in Central America, government officials, and multilateral entities.

Before joining SIF, Beltrán served as Director of the Citizen Security Program for the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a U.S.-based research and advocacy organization, where she monitored U.S.-Central America relations and promoted policies to address the drivers of migration, improve government accountability and transparency, and promote human rights in Central America. During her time at WOLA, she championed numerous advocacy initiatives, including for the establishment of a UN-sponsored commission to investigate and prosecute illicit networks linked to the state– an effort that culminated in the creation of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) in 2007. Most recently, she developed and oversaw a regional project to assess how the policies and strategies being implemented in Central America are contributing to the strengthening of the rule of law, improving transparency and accountability, and to reducing violence and insecurity.

She has written and co-authored various reports and articles on citizen security, corruption, governance, and democracy in Central America and on U.S. policy toward the region, including Protect and Serve? The Status of Police Reform, and Hidden Powers, a ground-breaking study documenting the rise and impact of illegal armed groups in post-conflict Guatemala. She has testified before U.S. Congress and is a frequent commentator in the media.

Beltrán was born and raised in Colombia and has traveled extensively in Central America and the region. She holds a Master’s degree in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Studies from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.

In partnership

Seattle International Foundation                         YPIN