Innovation Dialogues

Poonam Muttreja - ActionAid International Board Member

Ms Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India, has for over 40 years been a strong advocate for women’s health, reproductive and sexual rights, and rural livelihoods.  She has co-conceived the popular transmedia initiative, Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon - I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything. Before joining PFI, she served as the India Country Director of the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation for 15 years and has also co-founded and led the Ashoka Foundation, Dastkar, and the Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI).  An alumna of Delhi University and Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government, Poonam serves on the governing council of several non-governmental organisations, and is a regular commentator in India and globally for television and the print media.

Marco de Ponte - Country Director ActionAid Italy

Marco De Ponte begun his engagement with social issues as a school representative in the 1980s and from there on becoming an activist for human rights throughout the 1990s in various roles, primarily within and on behalf of Amnesty International. He was their Italian vice-chair for six years, several times on their International Council and a staff member of the secretariat, campaigning primarily on Eastern Africa. He also wrote on the intersection between human rights and humanitarian law, before moving into humanitarian action as a staff member of an organization called InterSoS.

Following several other short-term assignments in universities and the UN system, he joined what was then called Azione Aiuto in 2001 and was one of the proponents and implementers of the first decade of internationalization within ActionAid, starting as a chair of the then ActionAid Alliance. He has overseen regional coordination in Europe, expansion, and “mergers” in new countries at the same time as he developed the first national program for in a European country.

Gino Govender, ActionAid International Board Member

Born into a working-class family in South Africa, his lived experiences in the community and the factories he worked in, shaped his political consciousness, a yearning for freedom and love for civic organising at a young age.  Since then, he has been called up to serve the cause of social justice in the political and labour movements from grassroots to global. His service within the labour movement spanning over 25 years enabled him to collaborate with workers and communities in diverse contexts within South Africa, across Africa and around the globe.

As a founding member of Earthrise Trust, for the past 8 years, together with his fellow trustees and the local village leadership built a vision for the Rustlers Valley Farm as a commons with the community at the forefront in driving their vision of a village of the future. He is currently working with the Fight Inequality Alliance to design and establish a global organising school for young activists.

At the 2021 General Assembly he was elected onto the International Board.  He brings into ActionAid, International diverse experience in organising, education, management and leadership spanning over four decades. He is deeply committed to the promotion of collective, consensus-building, solutions-oriented, and servant styles of leadership. He is a parent of four adult children and a grandfather of one.

Arthur Larok - Secretary General, ActionAid International

Arthur Larok is the Secretary General of ActionAid International. He was previously Federation Development Director for four years, and Country Director in Uganda for six years. He is a member of Carnegie Endowment’s Civic Research Network. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Politics and Sociology from Makerere University and a Master’s in Governance from University of Sussex in the UK. He has co-edited a Book on Uganda’s Civil Society and authored several papers, including ‘Uganda’s New Civic Activism: Beyond Egos and Logos’, ‘Modified activism after Ethiopia’s New Dawn’.

Tasneem Essop, climate activist and organiser

Biography and photo will go here. Tasneem´s LinkedIn profile is here. 

Andreia Louback, Climate Justice, Environmental Racism, Racial Equity and Communications Brazilian activist

Biography and photo will go here. Andreia´s LinkedIn profile is here. 

Ikal Ang’elei, Director of Friends of Lake Turkana; grassroots indigenous rights activist

Biography and photo will be here.