Roshaneh Zafar
Ms Zafar is the founder and managing director of Kashf Foundation. She worked with the World Bank in Islamabad in the Water and Sanitation department for several years before setting up the Foundation. Ms. Zafar was one of the first Ashoka Fellows in Pakistan and has been a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur since 2004. Ms. Zafar has also been awarded the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan's highest civilian awards, by the President of Pakistan for her work in the field of development and women’s empowerment and was also awarded the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2007 and the Vital Voices award for Economic Empowerment in 2010. She is also served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Taskforce on Austerity and Federal Government restructuring and sits on the board of several institutions including the Finca Microfinance Bank, Kinnaird College and Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS). Ms. Zafar is a graduate of the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, USA and also holds a Master’s degree in Development Economics from Yale University, USA.
SATURDAY Saturday 2nd March
Navigating Economic Challenges
Location: Hall 1
Inflation is a debilitating economic condition that impacts women and marginalized groups first. While the research shows that women have less money to begin with, crises like shrinkflation and recession mean that they pay double the prices on items of daily use with an additional cost if those items are deemed a luxury. The last three years have seen a significant amount of women talking about the rising costs of fuel impacting their mobility to being forced to take very hard decisions for their children. In this panel we will examine the structural barriers that impede women's productivity and the intersecting effects of inflation on women's lived realities.
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