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SMUN WOMEN IN WORLD AFFAIRS CONFERENCE

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Sarah Harder, President, National Peace Foundation

Sarah Harder

Over thirty years of projects involving women in social change at grassroots, national and international levels have engaged Sarah Harder. She has been National Peace Foundation (NPF) president since 2000. She co-chairs the National Women's Conference Committee and serves on the
National Council of Women's Organizations in Washington DC, both of which she helped create.

As president of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) 1985-89, Harder also chaired its $46 million Educational Foundation, launching the AAUW SHORTCHANGING AMERICA project on girls in public education.  She was vice-president of Geneva-based International Federation of University Women (IFUW). Harder is and emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, having administered academic support services for minority, disadvantaged and reentry students.  A tenured member of the English Department, she also headed the Women's Studies program and multiple projects for girls and low-income women.

Sarah Harder built women's advocacy networks both nationally and
internationally.  She helped establish NGO leadership networks in 34 state
capitals. Others organized after the 1995 Beijing UN World Conference for
Women built upon Harder's NGO work at 1980 and 1985 UN Conferences.  Her
study and action guide, "Women's Future, World Future: Education for
Survival and Progress," has been used by IFUW affiliates in 68 countries.
It models practical projects to implement United Nations priorities,
particularly empowerment and peace building.

Since 1989 with the National Peace Foundation, Sarah Harder has focused on
partnerships in the former Soviet Union. As President of Women for
Meaningful Summits, she co-chaired the 1990 Soviet-American Women's Summit
that brought an ideologically diverse USSR delegation together with 100
heads of US women's organizations.  The NPF South Caucasus Women's Dialogue
pioneered citizen peace-building and conflict resolution in 1992 and was
transferred in 2000 to UNIFEM where it still operates. Harder has
volunteered on nearly 100 on-site consultations with leaders across Russia
and the South Caucasus, averaging four months yearly.

Civic Forums organized with Olga Bessolova in 1995 established women's
networks in 12 Russian regions focused on political, economic and social
transitions. Co-chair of the international symposium ("Women, Politics &
Environmental Action") in Moscow, Harder organized its return Wisconsin
Conference on Empowerment and Sustainable Development. A 1995 partnership
with Women of the Don Region and Bessolova built and sustains a series of
Chechen War post-conflict projects. NPF focus on since 2001 on Russia's
youth drug addiction crisis with has engaged U.S. professionals in North
Urals and Ivanovo Region projects involving recovering addicts, officials,
professionals, NGOs, universities, business and federal ministries.

NPF projects have been funded through by the Open World Leadership Program,
the Mott, Eurasia, and MacArthur Foundations, the National Endowment for
Democracy, and Russian corporations.

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