7 Billion: Conversations that Matter – Lessons from the Crisis in Somalia

Note: This is a past event, additional resources may be available below.

Date

Mon Oct 17, 2011
12:30pm – 2:00pm

Location

Washington, DC 20045, United States
The National Press Club
529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor

Join The Aspen Institute in welcoming Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, Dr. Walid Abdelkarim, Principal Officer and Team Leader for Somalia and Support to the African Union, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and Geoff Dabelko, Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program.

Nineteen years after she visited Somalia as President of Ireland, Mary Robinson returned this summer to an all-too-familiar crisis on an even larger scale. Six regions in Somalia have been declared famines. Families are fleeing disaster and drought brought on by changing environmental conditions and poor access to resources and health services. Children are dying every day – over 30,000 in the past three months. Join us as Mary Robinson, Walid Abdelkarim and Geoff Dabelko discuss what lessons we can learn from the challenges of Somalia. This country has the 8th highest birth rate in the world, with an average family size over 7 children. How do issues like population, women’s empowerment, and resource distribution impact economic and food security in Somalia and other fragile or failing states? How are the population growth rate a part of the impact – or of the cause?

This event will be moderated by Peggy Clark, Executive Director of Aspen Global Health and Development and Vice President of Policy Programs at The Aspen Institute, and will be preceded by lunch at 12:00 p.m.

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Danielle Kirby

Danielle is a Finance Associate of Aspen Global Innovators Group

Vrinda Batra

Vrinda Batra is an Administrative and Executive Associate at the Aspen Institute’s Global Innovators Group (AGI). There, she supports AGI’s programs on long-term community resilience that aim to advance global health equity. This includes planning and executing flagship AGI convenings at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York and the annual Aspen Ideas Health and Festival in Colorado, among others. Vrinda completed her Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University in December 2022, where she worked as an Editorial Assistant for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. Her studies focused on gender, development, and security in South Asia. While at Georgetown, Vrinda was also a Research Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and a Graduate Consultant with nonprofit HasNa. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Humanities from O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat, India.

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