Lake Como Italy, July 25-29 2017

The Women's Leadership Forum

In the wake of many political challenges facing the world today, such as migration, terrorism, climate change, inequality, and new technologies, 28 women leaders from 17 countries gathered at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in July 2017 for the Women’s Leadership Forum. The Women's Leadership Forum, under the leadership of Pat Mitchell, was organized by the Rockefeller Foundation, in partnership with the Council of Women World Leaders, the Skoll Foundation, the Carter Center, and Apolitico. The objective of this forum was to bring women leaders from across different countries, backgrounds, and departments, many of whom are tackling the same complex problems, in order to offer new approaches to problem-solving and to collaborate across silos to confront global challenges. Council members former President of Malawi, Joyce Banda and former President of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga were present at the Forum, with the CWWL Secretary General, Laura Liswood. 
 
Together these women leaders developed the “Way Forward Framework” which includes high-level decisions and three concrete categories of recommendations. In addition, they worked to answer the question “What is transformative women’s leadership and how can it be harnessed throughout politics and policy to find better solutions to today’s global challenges” and came up with seven transformative leadership qualities.