Elizabeth Anne Reid AO,

FASSA The Fassa Valley (Ladin: ''Fascia'', it, Val di Fassa, german: Fassatal) is a valley in the Dolomites in Trentino, northern Italy. As an administrative valley community (Italian: ''Comunità di valle'', German: ''Talgemeinschaft'') of Trentino, it ...

, (born 3 July 1942) is an Australian development practitioner,

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

with a distinguished career in and significant contribution to national and international public service. She founded, established and worked with a number of pioneering and specialised

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

institutions,

government agencies A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administratio ...

and

non-governmental organisation A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...

s. Reid was appointed the world's first advisor on women's affairs to a head of government by the

Australian Labor The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

Gough Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the he ...

in 1973.

Early life and education

Reid was born in

Taree, New South Wales Taree is a town on the Mid North Coast, New South Wales, Australia. Taree and nearby Cundletown were settled in 1831 by William Wynter. Since then Taree has grown to a population of 26,381, and is the centre of a significant agricultural distri ...

. At 19 she began a Statistics Cadet and became a Program Officer for the

Australian Bureau of Statistics The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is the independent statutory agency of the Australian Government responsible for statistical collection and analysis and for giving evidence-based advice to federal, state and territory governments ...

and from 1964 to 1966 she was a computer programmer and training officer. She went on to complete a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

with

First Class Honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

in 1965. Subsequently she was awarded a Commonwealth Travelling Scholarship and completed a

Bachelor of Philosophy Bachelor of Philosophy (BPhil, BPh, or PhB; la, Baccalaureus Philosophiae or ) is the title of an academic degree that usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects. Unlike many other bachelor's ...

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 1970. She returned to Australia and worked as a Senior Tutor in the Department of Philosophy at the Australian National University from 1970 to 1973. During 1976 Reid was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics and the

John F. Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Professional career

Reid was the Australian Representative to the United Nations Forum on the Role of Women in Population and Development, held in New York in February 1974. She has performed many roles in the areas of

international development International development or global development is a broad concept denoting the idea that societies and countries have differing levels of economic or human development on an international scale. It is the basis for international classifications ...

and

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

for the

and other bodies including Director and Policy Adviser of the

United Nations Development Program The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

from 1989 to 1998. She was the Leader of the Australian Delegation to the World Conference of the International Women's Year in Mexico City in 1975. She has 30 years of professional development experience in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Central America, Eastern Europe and the

Commonwealth of Independent States The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of and has an estimated population of 239,796,010. ...

. Reid has had a long career with the

, including milestones such as Founding Director of the United Nations Development Programme HIV and Development Program in New York from 1992 to 1997), Director of the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

Division for

Women in Development Women in development is an approach of development projects that emerged in the 1960s, calling for treatment of women's issues in development projects. It is the integration of women into the global economies by improving their status and assisting ...

from 1989 to 1991 and Founding Director of the United Nations Asian and Pacific Centre for Women and Development in Tehran, Iran from 1977 to 1979. She is a visiting fellow at the Gender Relations Centre and the School of International, Political and Strategic Studies of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the

. Reid continues with her development practice and is also Senior Adviser to th
Collaboration for Health in Papua New Guinea
a Public-Private Partnership for Health. As part of her work with Collaboration for Health in Papua New Guinea and the ANU Gender Relations Centre in 2002 Reid convened and chaired an International Roundtable on Increasing Access to HIV Care and Treatment in Resource Poor Settings. The organisations Reid consults with includes the UN System, where she is involved in capacity building for a unified

United Nations System The United Nations System consists of the United Nations' six principal organs (the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the UN Secretariat), ...

response to the HIV epidemic as well as national HIV policy development and implementation.

Honours

In 2001 Reid was appointed an Officer of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

"for service to

international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...

, particularly through the

, to the welfare of women, and to

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

policy development, both in Australia and internationally". She was elected as a Fellow of the

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is an independent, non-governmental organisation devoted to the advancement of knowledge and research in the social sciences. It has its origins in the Social Science Research Council of Austr ...

in 1996 and received a citation in the Centenary of Federation Honour Roll of Women in 2014.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20130409173917/http://www.pioneerwomen.com.au/content/view/9/10/ * {{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Elizabeth Anne 1942 births Living people Australian feminists Australian National University alumni Australian National University faculty Officers of the Order of Australia People from Taree Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford