At the sixth annual lecture on November 7, 2018 at the Metropolitan Club in New York City, the Aspen Global Innovators Group honored Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel Laureate and former President of the Republic of Liberia. At the lecture, 200 Aspen Institute board members, trustees, partners, and others gathered as President Sirleaf shared her vision to move from incremental to transformative change in Africa.

Anne Mosle and Peggy Clark led a rich conversation on how to harness the energy of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements to unite women and men across generations, geographies, and backgrounds to build a just and equitable world where women and girls have equal opportunity to succeed and lead. Key discussion areas included economic impact of sexual harassment and policy solutions for the 21st century.

At the 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival, Anne Mosle and Peggy Clark hosted a lunch session at the Paepcke Library on what's ahead for women and girls. The intimate lunch discussion in Aspen, CO dove into what is next for the women's movement in 2017 and beyond. 

On December 6, 2016, Ascend fellow C. Nicole Mason participated in a conversation with Jonathan Capehart, member of the Washington Post Editorial Board and MSNBC contributor at the Aspen Institute to discuss her new book Born Bright: A Young Girl’s Journey From Nothing to Something in America.

The Aspen Forum on Women and Girls facilitated the Aspen Institute's role as a lead partner for the 2016 United State of Women conference, co-hosted with the White House. First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep, Laverne Cox, and other leaders discussed topics ranging from entrepreneurship to equal pay to violence against women. 

High-level representatives celebrated the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals and reaffirmed resolve for sexual and reproductive health and rights as drivers of poverty eradication, food security, gender equality, climate change response, and economic empowerment, among other development priorities

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are fundamental human rights. They also drive progress towards a broad range of sustainable development goals, including poverty eradication, food security, gender equality, climate change mitigation, economic empowerment, among so many others.

On May 19th, 2014, Anne Mosle, Vice President, The Aspen Institute and Executive Director of Ascend at the Aspen Institute, welcomed 40 practitioners, researchers, parents, and public and private sector leaders to the “Women and Working Families: An Ascend at the Aspen Institute Roundtable.”

The Demographic Dividend is an opportunity that arises when a country transitions from high to low rates of fertility and child and infant mortality. This transition creates a generation that is significantly larger than the generations immediately preceding and following it. As this cohort enters working age, they have the ability to enter into productive economic activities and invest savings at relatively high rates, thus spurring heightened economic growth. This growth depends however, on the right enabling policy environment.

Water is humanity’s most essential need, and yet one third of our planet’s population lacks access to safe water, spreading disease and conflict. As climate change makes draught and disaster increasingly common, leading to melting water sources and wells pumped past the point of renewability, the water we do have is distributed and consumed in a starkly inequitable way. Population growth is making scarce resources like food and water scarcer, and pushing families to join the rush of migration into thirsty mega-cities. In many societies, the struggle to provide water every day falls to women, who are walking growing distances to find it.