Seven years after stepping out of the political limelight, Hillary Clinton is still influencing policy — or hoping to, at least. The former secretary of state is launching a new Women’s Initiative through Columbia University — first reported on by Women Rule — that will produce research and policy recommendations on issues that disproportionately affect women. The research will span across four areas: women’s economic opportunity; women’s health; women’s safety and security; and women’s leadership, democracy and human rights. “We're not interested in just another gathering to talk about these problems. We understand they're very challenging,” Clinton told Women Rule in an interview. “We really want to bring people together who can contribute to not just raising awareness about them, but also addressing them.” The initiative, developed with Keren Yarhi-Milo, Dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, officially launches on Monday. It’s part of Columbia’s Institute of Global Politics. This week, I talked with Clinton and Yarhi-Milo about their goals for the initiative and how they plan to get those policies implemented. Here’s our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity. Gardner: Why now? What are some of the world events that make this initiative necessary and timely? Clinton: The initiative is specifically designed to center women in all of the most urgent policy conversations here in the United States and around the world. We know that women are disproportionately impacted by many global challenges, whether it's the rise of authoritarianism or climate change or generative artificial intelligence, and we feel a particular urgency to focus on what is happening in the world today. There is a concerted push back against women's rights and autonomy and opportunities. And we've seen that in our own country, but it's also popping up in many parts of the world, often driven by authoritarian leaders who choose to pursue political, ideological and religious agendas by trying to turn the clock back on women. Gardner: What was the catalyst? How did you develop the idea? Clinton: We’ve been discussing this for over a year, and our first efforts were to stand up the Institute of Global Politics, because the IGP is the umbrella for the women's initiative and much of our other work around enlisting students and faculty and experts in looking at research or policies and coming up with impactful solutions. Yarhi-Milo: We launched the Institute of Global Politics on Oct. 3, and we have 14 Carnegie distinguished fellows here at IGP. Many of them are women who played vital roles fighting for women's rights, and they are already informally working as part of the women’s initiative, like Stacey Abrams working on broadband access for women in rural areas, or Maria Ressa working on an initiative looking at the impact of online harassment on women who are running for office. Gardner: Can you give me a few examples of some of the projects you’d like to see the Women’s Initiative tackle? What would those projects look like? Clinton: If you look at the program for our launch on Monday, we're looking at economic opportunities with Abrams and Gina Raimondo. We're also spotlighting alumni of [the School of International and Public Affairs]. One happens to be the Fire Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department — first woman ever — one is a member of Congress, one is the former Colombian senator and Mayor of Bogota. We've also invited Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, but she's got a busy day job. We're going to be looking at advancing gender equity in the workplace, … also looking at women and girls in conflict, conflict resolution, peace processes and of course, women in elections confronting online abuse and disinformation. And then finally, reproductive rights are under attack, so looking at lessons to be learned from not just the United States, but abroad. Yarhi-Milo: The two guiding principles are: ‘where can we really make a difference? Where can we bring academic research that is needed in order to get better policies and have the impact that we want?’ And so we're going to focus on areas where we feel that there are gaps that we can uniquely fill. Clinton: We're not interested in just another gathering to talk about these problems; we understand they're very challenging. We really want to bring people together who can contribute to not just raising awareness about them, but also addressing them. Gardner: How will you get lawmakers to listen to your policy recommendations? Clinton: That's always the question you have to ask and answer. There's a lot of different ways of doing it. We will have people on Monday who are in Congress, who are in the White House. We obviously want to disseminate any ideas that we have for policy changes as broadly as possible. We have developed and are developing a very active, cooperative network of people in Washington.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment