Eleanor Jolliffe is 'absolutely delighted' to have been selected as a UN UK Women's delegate for the 68th Commission on the Status of Women. The CSW is the largest global policy-making body advocating for gender equality and women's empowerment and UN Women is the UN Organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. It was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

Eleanor explains 'women disporportionately feel the impact of climate crisis. Globally the responsibility of providing food and water often falls on women and girls, which will be compounded by droughts and changing climates. Greater representation of women in decision-making leads to more stringent climate measures, in turn lowering emissions, as well as ensuring gendered climate impacts are accounted for in policy.' 

Eleanor, who has a background in climate science, is looking forward to exploring and learning more about the intersection of gender and climate. After leaving Churcher's, Eleanor was part of the founding cohort at the London Interdisciplinary School which opened in 2020 and is studying Interdisciplinary Problems and Methods (BASc) -  the first programme of its kind in the UK. Eleanor explains the course is problem centric meaning each team takes a problem (eg: wealth, inequality, sustainability, women's rights etc) and then studies relevant disciplines such as economics, politics and climate science to better understand a problem through a nuanced lens. In tandem with this she studies qualitative and quantitative research methods like data science, enthnography and systems thinking - these run alongside each term's 'problem'. Eleanor has recently finished a semester aborad in the Chilean capital Santiago where she was able to brush up on her Spanish whilst studying anthropology and climate science!

Our congratulations goes to Eleanor for her selection and we look forward to hearing more news from her later this year.