Maggie O’ Kane

Executive Director

Global Media Camapign to End FGM

Maggie O’Kane is the Executive Director of the Global Media Campaign to End FGM and co-founder of the #FrontlineEndingFGM. A former Emmy award-winning foreign correspondent and investigations editor at the Guardian in London, she also worked for the BBC, The Economist and CNN. She left the intenational media in 2014 to establish the GMC to End FGM that drives funds to frontline grassroots organisations for local campaigns. After 10 years of working closely with the UNFPA to build the #FrontlineEndingFGM grassroots network (over 1000 frontline organisations and activists), she launched #FrontlineEndingFGM with UNFPA and WGF across Africa in 2022.

Event Schedule

DAY 1

19 July 2023

Start Time	End Time	Session	Description	Action
04:30 pm EEST	06:00 pm EEST	#FrontlineEndingFGM:- Directly Funding Grassroots Concurrent Room AD 12-2	Made up of over 1000 women’s organisations and mostly female activists across Africa. #FrontlineEndingFGM is a movement ending FGM faster and cheaper than any other. Yet Read More Made up of over 1000 women’s organisations and mostly female activists across Africa. #FrontlineEndingFGM is a movement ending FGM faster and cheaper than any other. Yet only two per cent of donor funding reaches them directly. Why? Come and meet this powerful force of local campaigners, many of them survivors, who are taking back control of ending FGM from the international private contractors – or what the Economist calls: “beltway bandits” #FrontlineEndingFGM will also unveil the techniques and tools they are already using in 14 countries across Africa to end FGM – from the smallest local radio station to the Frontline Feminist Digital Directory that has taken ten years to build. Backed for nearly ten years now by the United National Population Fund, UNFPA, the Wallace Global Fund and the Global Media Campaign to End FGM . The #FrontlineEndingFGM leadership in this session will show how funding, local know-how, and survivor passion will end FGM by 2030. Session format: Whole System in a Room Organized by UNFPA, Wallace Global Fund, iREP, Brighter Society Initiative, Global Media Campaign, FrontlineEndingFGM Read Less Speakers Maggie O’ Kane Executive Director Global Media Camapign to End FGM Susan Gibbs Program Director Women's Rights Wallace Global Fund Jeremiah Kipainoi Director of Communication Global Media Campaign to End FGM Sadia Hussein Women Rights Advocate Brighter Society Initiative BSI Domtila Chesang #FrontlineEndingFGM Activist Global Media Campaign Natalia Kanem Executive Director UNFPA