Mann Deshi Foundation's Chetna Sinha To Join WEF All-Women Panel

The 48^th World Economic Forum is right round the corner. And an Indian, social entrepreneur Chetna Sinha of Mann Deshi Mahila Banks, is on board to join the all-women co-chairs for the Forum’s annual congregation.

WEF is scheduled to be held from January 23 to 26 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. The theme for this year’s WEF is 'Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World'.

Sinha will be on the panel along with IMF’s Christine Lagarde, Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg and IBM chief Ginni Rometty. Apart from them, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow, CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti and ENGIE CEO Isabelle Kocher will also join the co-chairs.

This all-women panel at the Davos annual meeting will create history as it is for the first time that only women will chair the panel

Sinha is also a a micro-finance banker, an economist, a farmer and an activist apart from being the founder of Mann Deshi Foundation and Mann Deshi Mahila Bank. She has been working with marginalised communities for about three decades now. The activist did not restrict her work just to India. She has collaborated with organisations in the US and Europe. This way she has opened up avenues for the corporate community globally to have a view of how micro-finance efforts are transforming local rural population.

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In a statement, the WEF spokesperson said these co-chairs represent both public and private sectors, international organisations, organised labour, academia and science as well as civil society and social entrepreneurship, Financial Express reported.

“They will lend a strong voice to all parts of society. They will also ensure a multi-stakeholder approach to the programme and eventually the impact of the Annual Meeting 2018,” it added.

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The WEF will see over 3,000 global leaders from business, government, politics, academia and social sectors. It will include over 100 CEOs and several government leaders from India alone. The attendees will also have nearly 50 heads of state and government. And over 300 ministerial-level government participants, and business representation at the CEO and Chairperson levels.

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Among the other co-chairs, Lagarde of IMF is a regular at the WEF. She actually became the first woman in the executive board of the IMF in 2011.

Picture credit- CAFRAL