Lindsay Coates is recently appointed as managing director of the BRAC Ultra Poor Graduation Initiative. BRAC is a global leader in creating opportunities for the world’s poor and one of the world’s largest non-governmental development organisations. Coates has non-profit executive experience and a legal background in civil rights which bring together her passion for human rights, the social sector and global development. Before joining BRAC, she served as the president of InterAction, where she oversaw management and institutional outreach to InterAction members and partners. Lindsay Coates has also served on the steering committee of the World Bank Global Partnership for Social Accountability, the executive committee for Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, and the boards of Episcopal Relief and Development, United States Global Leadership Coalition and Development Gateway. She also served on the Obama administration’s Task Force on Global Poverty. Prior to her work in the non-profit sector, she practiced civil rights law in various capacities.
Civil society is committed to channelling individual voices and perspectives toward an improved present and better future through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), civil society voices in the SDG agenda drove innovative and multi-sectoral approaches that are grounded in transparency and accountability of governments, thus living out the Busan principle that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society are ‘development actors in their own right’.¹