Dr. Solange Bandiaky-Badji is the Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). She also serves as President of the Rights and Resources Group, the nonprofit coordinating mechanism of the RRI Coalition based in Washington, D.C. Bandiaky-Badji previously led RRI’s strategy for engagement in Africa with a focus on tenure rights reform. She built synergies around new strategic analyses, giving local and global actors a more strategic understanding of Africa’s trends, issues, options, and gender. She also spearheaded RRI’s Gender Justice thematic program and ensured the implementation of a global gender strategy on women’s tenure rights. Before RRI, she was with PartnersGlobal, where she led programs on access to justice, security sector reform, and peace-building. She has also worked as a regional expert on gender and climate change for the Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP) and the UNDP/ BDP Gender Team in New York. As Coordinator of RRI, Solange advises policy research, advocacy, and engagement in Asia, Latin America, and Africa and leads initiatives and networks to advance RRI’s mission. Bandiaky-Badji holds a PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies from Clark University, Massachusetts and an MA in Environmental Sciences and Philosophy from Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal. She has published and contributed extensively to research about natural resource management, decentralization, local forest tenure reforms, and women’s participation in climate solutions and peace-building.