Podcast appearances and mentions of isobel coleman

Washington Post business of food reporter Laura Reiley speaks with Isobel Coleman, USAID deputy administrator for policy and programming, and Alexandre Chequim, CEO of DigiFarmz, about the global hunger crisis and how the public and private sectors are harnessing innovation for longer-term solutions. Conversation recorded on June 20, 2023.

On today's episode of HERO, the last show of the season, we look at how a Women for Women International program in the Democratic Republic of Congo worked with families to try to overcome longstanding cultural barriers to women owning land. We hear from a mother, father, and son who participated in this program. Also, Women for Women International's country director in the DRC, Rachel Boketa, explains how this project attempted to change men's and boy's opinions about female property ownership. Special thanks to Francis Shok Mweze, who acted as our field producer for this segment.   Boketa's program was supported with a grant from the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. The U.S. currently gives more money to international development than any other country in the world, largely through USAID. In the second part of the episode, host Reena Ninan talks to Isobel Coleman, the deputy administrator of USAID. Coleman explains why the Biden administration is doubling funding towards gender programming and how USAID plans to invest that financing. This conversation first took place at Foreign Policy's Her Power Summit, an annual gathering all about women's leadership.  Finally, we are conducting a listener survey to better understand what you like about the podcast and what else you'd like to hear in future episodes. All participants in the survey who provide their email will be placed in a raffle to win a $25 Amazon gift card. To participate, follow the survey link below. Thank you very much for your time and feedback.  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/heropodcast

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius speaks with USAID Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming Isobel Coleman, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and former Director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Christopher Krebs about the greatest threats faced by democracies worldwide.

In her most recent book, Paradise Beneath Her Feet (2010), Isobel Coleman tells the stories of the women and men who, in the face of rising fundamentalism, are working from within Islam to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women and a growing movement of Islamic feminism. The author of three books on US foreign policy and the Middle East, Coleman argues that change is happening, and more often than not, it is being led by women. Isobel Coleman is Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she focuses on the Middle East and South Asia. She is the director of CFR’s Civil Society, Markets and Democracy Initiative. She is also the director of the Council’s Women and Foreign Policy Program. Her areas of expertise include democratization, civil society and economic development, regional gender issues, educational reform, and microfinance. She is the author and co-author of numerous publications, including Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East (Random House, 2010), Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President (Brookings Institution Press, 2008) and Strategic Foreign Assistance: Civil Society in International Security(Hoover Press, 2006). Her writings have also appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, and online venues such as the Huffington Post. She is a frequent speaker at academic, business, and policy conferences. In 2010, she served as a track leader for the Clinton Global Initiative. Prior to joining the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Coleman was CEO of a healthcare services company and a partner with McKinsey & Co. in New York. A Marshall Scholar, she holds a DPhil and MPhil in international relations from Oxford University and a BA in public policy and East Asian studies from Princeton University. She serves on several non-profit boards, including Plan USA and Student Sponsor Partners.

Across the Middle East, a grassroots reform movement is stirring as women increasingly demand their rights. Isobel Coleman will discuss how, in a time of rising religiosity, many of these activists today are working within an Islamic framework to bring about sustainable change, rather than trying to fight against the pervasive influence of Islam. In her new book, Paradise Beneath Her Feet, she highlights the lives of courageous women in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq who are fighting for economic and social change. Coleman argues that their success is crucial for progress and stability in the Islamic world, and that a growing movement of Islamic feminism could be one of the strongest forces for moderating extremism.

To the Western world, women’s rights and political Islam can appear incompatible. Deeply ingrained social norms and particular interpretations of Islamic law leave women in most Middle Eastern countries without legal protection from domestic violence or spousal rape. Women generally have fewer rights than men when it comes to education, work, divorce, and daily life — from dress to driving to being alone outside the home. But a budding grassroots reform movement has seen women begin to demand their rights within an Islamic framework, rather than against it. In the last two decades, more women have begun pursuing education — including college, advanced degrees and even religious education — and participating in politics, business, and the media. Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Isobel Coleman, author of Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East, visited Zócalo in an event co-sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations to discuss Islamic feminism, the women behind the movement, and why their success is crucial to fighting extremism and creating progress and stability in the Islamic world.