Nora Castañeda (12 June 1942 – 16 May 2015) was a

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

n economist and activist who was President of the Women's Development Bank from 2001 to 2015.

Biography

She was born and raised by her mother as one of six children; her father placed them in the care of a relative after her mother had first become pregnant. Castañeda joined the Socialist League in the 1970s. After marrying Jesus Rivero, she moved to

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

and joined the

Sandinista National Liberation Front The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a Socialism, socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after ...

during the later stages of the

Nicaraguan Revolution The Nicaraguan Revolution ( es, Revolución Nicaragüense or Revolución Popular Sandinista, link=no) encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Fr ...

. After the Sandinistas came to power in the early 1980s, she returned to Venezuela, joining the working class women’s movement. Throughout the 1990s, Castañeda became an advisor to and ally of

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...

. Her contributions to the policies during the

1999 Constituent National Assembly The Constituent National Assembly ( es, Asamblea Nacional Constituyente) or ANC was a constitutional convention held in Venezuela in 1999 to draft a new Constitution of Venezuela, but the assembly also gave itself the role of a supreme power abov ...

included women homemakers' rights to social security, as well as female pronouns being included in the

Constitution of Venezuela The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela (CRBV)) is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constituent assembly that h ...

. After her death in 2015, she was awarded an Order of the Liberator by Vice President

Jorge Arreaza Jorge Alberto Arreaza Montserrat (Venezuelan ; born 6 June 1973) is a Venezuelan politician who has held several important positions in the administration of President Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro. From August 2017 to August 2 ...

References

External links

Interview with Nora Castañeda
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castaneda, Nora 1942 births 2015 deaths 20th-century Venezuelan economists Venezuelan women economists Venezuelan economists Venezuelan women in business 21st-century Venezuelan economists