INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE
The International Committee or the Board of Trustees oversees and serves as the advisory body of the Forum. It is the policy-making body of the Forum for the period when the General membership is not convened. The IC has eight (8) members elected or appointed by the General Membership in a meeting for that purpose or in the Forum Annual Meeting (FAM). They have a two-year term of office and are eligible for re-election or appointment.
At least five (5) of the members come from Developing Member Countries of the ADB, representing collectively at least three (3) of the Forum’s sub-region. At least one IC member come from the Philippines. At least one IC member come from the Donor Countries of the ADB. The Executive Director is an ex-officio member of the IC. The Convener or President presides over IC meetings.
HASAN MEHEDI
International Convenor
SOUTH ASIA
Coastal Livelihood and Environmental Action Network (CLEAN)
Hasan Mehedi has been working in the non-profit sector since 1998. His major focus is on the policy and practices in Environment & Forest, Climate Catastrophe, Food & Livelihoods, Socioeconomic Justice, and Water Management sectors. Hasan Mehedi was one of the Alternative IC Member of the Forum for the period of 2012-2014.
He founded Coastal Livelihood and Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) in 2010 and currently working as Chief Executive of the organization. CLEAN is a member of NGO Forum on ADB, Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), Climate Action Network - South Asia (CANSA), Food Security Network of Bangladesh (KHANI), Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), Democratic Budget Movement (DBM) including other national and international networks on equity and justice for the poor and marginal producers.
Mehedi is also one of the editors of Mangropedia, a free and open-sourced encyclopedia on Mangroves. A life-long activist, Mehedi has led environmental and human rights campaigns specializing in environmental and socio-economic rights for more than 20 years. He has a number of publications on climate change, forced migration, national and regional policies, and human rights.
Traveling, reading, collecting films, and chatting are Mehedi's hobbies.
DEWI PUSPA
Honorary Vice IC
Southeast Asia
Puspa Dewy, feminist activist who has fight for women rights and other marginalized groups for the past 10 years. She is active in women’s, environmental and social movements in Indonesia. Puspa Dewy has actively involved in fighting for women's rights through strengthening and organizing marginalized women, advocacy and campaigning for women's rights, including IFI’s issue in local, national, regional and International level.
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In 2014, Puspa Dewy was part of Organizing Committee APWLD (Asia Pacific on Women, Law and Development) Climate Justice program, and actively involved in advocacy work at the national, regional and international level in pushing gender equity in climate change negotiations. In 2019, Puspa Dewy was elected as the National Monitoring Board for Solidaritas Perempuan - Women's Solidarity (2019-2023), and the Regional Council of Walhi (Friend of the Earth Indonesia in Jakarta) (2018-2022).
Currently, Puspa Dewy is part of AKSI! For Gender, Social and Ecological Justice team as a researcher. In AKSI!, she works actively give capacity building for activist and women groups in community, monitor and advocate for development fund issues, including IFI’s issues to push and ensure feminist and gender justice perspective.Puspa Dewy, feminist activist who has fight for women rights and other marginalized groups for the past 15 years. She is active in women’s, environmental and social movements in Indonesia. Puspa Dewy has actively involved in fighting for women's rights through strengthening and organizing marginalized women, advocacy and campaigning for women's rights, including IFI’s issue in local, national, regional and International level.
DR. RENE OFRENEO
Treasurer
Philippines
Dr. Rene E. Ofreneo is a Professor Emeritus of the University of the Philippines and former Dean of the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations. He served as Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Undersecretary for Labor Relations in 1997-98, at the height of the Asian financial crisis.
Dr. Ofreneo is one of the leading scholars on labor relations and labor market studies in the Philippines and in the Asia-Pacific. He sits on the editorial board of several international journals. Among his international publications are: Asia and the Pacific: Advancing Decent Work Amidst Deepening Inequalities (Singapore: ITUC-AP, 2013); A Toolkit for Labour Law Reform Advocacy (Singapore: ITUC-AP, 2011); and Green Jobs and Green Skills in a Brown Philippine Economy (Geneva: ILO, 2010).
Dr. Ofreneo writes a weekly column, “Laborem Exercens”, for Business Mirror. Dr. Ofreneo is President of three civil society organizations: Freedom from Debt Coalition, Integrated Rural Development Foundation and Philippine Movement for Climate Justice.
IKROM MAMADOV
Youth Group on Protection of Environment
Tajikistan
DR. NORA SAUSMIKAT
Europe
Nora Sausmikat is a qualified sinologist with more than 30 years of experience analyzing political reform processes in China with a special focus on environmental and human rights movements. She works with non-governmental organizations and policy makers. Since September 2019 she has been working in the influential Urgewald eV organization
In 2008, together with Klaus Fritsche, she founded the Asia House Foundation's China Program , which she continued to develop and manage until 2019. In addition, she founded the EU-China NGO Twinning Program , which up until 2019 included over 140 alumni from over 20 European countries and China. Nora Sausmikat organized the Belt and Road project of the Asia House Foundation as well as numerous European-Chinese civil society dialogues.
The focus was on human rights and the economy, raw materials policy, labor rights and civil society. In recent years she has increasingly focused her work on the environmental and social standards of the multilateral development banks, in particular the Chinese-dominated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as on the social and ecological effects of Chinese foreign investments, especially within the framework of the Silk Road Initiative (Belt and Road Initiative).
Nora specialized in the subject of memory politics in China and political generation history.
She studied Sinology, Tibetan, Ethnology, Political Science and Theater Studies at the Sichuan University in Chengdu / PR China and the Free University of Berlin. She was a fellow at Beijing University, guest lecturer at various European universities and lecturer in Venice, Cologne, Dortmund, Bremen and Berlin.
From 2000-2003 she worked as a research assistant at the University of Duisburg on political reform discourses and the influence of political ideas on real politics. She is a partner in the Excellence Forum China Global and the Ruhr University Bochum. Her main areas of research are Chinese civil society, political reforms and the role of intellectuals in these processes.
Dr. phil. habil. Nora Sausmikat lives in Cologne. Her passions are yoga / tai qi, hiking and literature / art.
She lived in Nepal from 1984-85, in Chengdu from 1988-90, and in Beijing from 1993-1994 and 2005-2006. She has been traveling to China at least once a year since 2007.
HEMANTHA WITHANAGE
Centre for Environmental Justice
Sri Lanka
Hemantha is a science graduate from the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka, Hemantha joined the environmental justice movement in 1990 as an environmental officer for the Environmental Foundation Ltd. In 2004, he co-founded the Centre for Environmental Justice - the most visible environmental organisation in Sri Lanka today.
From 2005-2008, Hemantha was Executive Director of the Philippines based NGO Forum on ADB, a network of civil society organisations monitoring the Asian Development Bank - for which he has also been the elected International Convenor a number of times.
Hemantha has held leadership positions in number of other regional and international networks and is a leading environmental activist in the Asia Pacific region. Hemantha was an elected member of Friends of the Earth International’s Executive Committee from 2010-2018.
EANG VUTHY
Mekong
Vuthy is an Advocate for Land and Housing Rights and the Executive Director of Equitable Cambodia (EC). This NGO is based in Phnom Penh and focuses on securing housing, land, and natural resources rights for the urban and rural poor. Most recently, EC has been assisting the affected communities of the Boeung Kak Lake, ADB-Railway Rehabilitation, and Rubber in seeking restitution.
Vuthy has been involved in civil society activism since 2003 when he began working with an NGO that provided legal aid to Khmer and urban poor communities. He later started a charity with some American friends that ultimately became Sustainable Cambodia, a group that provided technical assistance and alternative agricultural techniques to poor farmers.
This laid the groundwork for his involvement with EC, where he seeks to use his legal background to help empower communities to advocate for policy changes at the national and international levels. Vuthy has a Master’s Degree in Law and Political Science.
YUKI TANABE
Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society (JACSES)
Australia/Japan
Yuki Tanabe joined Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society (JACSES) in 2003 and became a Program Coordinator/Director in 2005. He oversees the Sustainable Development and Aid Program (SDAP) program including policy and project research and advocacy activities on social and environmental issues in development projects funded by international financial institutions.
He is a campaign coordinator of No Coal Go Green projects which is to urge the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to stop using tax money and public funds to finance coal-fired power plants.
He is also a coordinator Japan Coalition of Fair Finance for Guide, which is a web-based tool enabling bank clients to make their bank more socially responsible, fair and sustainable, by assessing and scoring bank policies on a wide range of topics against international standards of sustainability and human rights.