Professor Sarah Bradshaw has been working in the general field of gender and development for the last 30 years. Based at Middlesex University, where she is a Professor of Gender and Sustainable Development, and the Head of the School of Law, she has always sought to combine teaching and research with advocacy work. She has lived and worked in Nicaragua, working with women’s groups and the feminist movement there, to promote gendered and generational rights, and in particular sexual and reproductive rights as they intersect with economic rights. More recently as a member of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) she worked to influence the shape of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the associated Sustainable Development Goals, writing the background report on gender for the Secretary General’s High Level Panel.

While in Nicaragua she lived through Hurricane Mitch, and this led to an interest in ‘disasters’ and to undertake UN funded research on the gendered impacts of the event on the region. She published the first book to focus on the nexus of Gender, Development and Disasters (Edward Elgar, 2013). More recently she engaged with the inter-governmental negotiations around the international disaster risk reduction policy framework (Sendai Framework) in Geneva. She has been invited to speak to various organisations, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, as well as at the High-level military conference on Women, Peace and Security hosted by the Commander in Chief of the Swedish Armed Forces.