Benyam Dawit Mezmur is currently Eleanor Roosevelt Fellow at the Harvard Law School human rights program. He is a professor of law at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. Since 2012, he is serving on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and served as its chairperson from 2015-2017. In 2018, Pope Francis appointed him to serve on the Pontifical Commission on the Protection of Minors. In September 2022, he was reappointed for a five years term.

Bergen Cooper is the director of policy research at Fòs Feminista, an international feminist alliance centered around sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice for women, girls, and gender-diverse people. She is the architect of the SRHR Index and one of the leading experts on the “global gag rule.”

Bernard McCaul is Latin America regional director and deputy director of program innovation at GOAL. He is a chartered engineer with a master’s degree in engineering science. Bernard is the inspiration behind GOAL’s Resilience, Innovation and Learning Hub and led the development of the Resilience for Social Systems approach and the Analysis of the Resilience of Communities to Disasters toolkit. Bernard has also guided the development of GOAL’s programs in the Latin America and the Caribbean region targeting resilience of informal urban settlements — Barrio Resiliente — and Resilience of the Blue Economy.

Bernard Vanlauwe joined the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Kenya in March 2012 to lead the Central Africa hub and the natural resource management research area.

Bernhard Reinsberg is a professor of international political economy and development at the University of Glasgow and a research associate in political economy at the Centre for Business Research of the University of Cambridge. His research is on the funding, politics, and effectiveness of international development cooperation.

Bernhard Straub is CEO of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, one of the largest foundations in Europe associated with a private company. The foundation is active in the areas of health, education, and global issues. Before joining the foundation, Straub held various positions within the Robert Bosch Group in Germany and abroad.

Bessie Schwarz is the co-founder and president of Cloud To Street, a tech startup that provides inclusive climate risk information to vulnerable communities and their governments. Bessie also holds a position at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, a research center studying the psychology of climate change. With a background in community organizing, her work is centered at the nexus of big data spatial analysis and citizen empowerment.

Bester Mulauzi is the director of program development and quality in South Sudan at Save the Children. At Save the Children, Mulauzi manages a team of 11 senior expatriate staff in one of the most challenging contexts in the world. He is a member of the South Sudan leadership team charged with designing and leading child health and nutrition programs in an extremely challenging environment. As a spokesperson for the organization, he has given voice to the need for increased donor investments in South Sudan. He is also featured in a prominent global development blog and podcast highlighting the maternal and child health crisis in the country.

Beth Cole is currently a specialist in trauma and a first responder. She is a published author, university lecturer, and public speaker who served in leadership positions at USAID, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and several NGOs.

Beth Roberts is a law, policy, and gender practitioner who works to further gender, climate, and natural resource justice worldwide. Beth leads Landesa’s Center for Women’s Land Rights and Landesa’s work on the Stand for Her Land campaign.