The architects of the future are the women closest to the stakes.
We back the women their countries already depend on, and the institutions and networks around them, across peace and security, health, climate, education and economic opportunity.
The future of peace, health and prosperity is being decided now.
In ministries, negotiating rooms, boardrooms and multilateral forums, decisions about security, health, climate, education and growth are being made faster and under more pressure than ever.
The women who hold communities together through crisis are rarely in those rooms. When they are, they are often alone, underpaid and unprotected. We can’t afford to keep leaving their judgment at the door.
Why now
65
state-based conflicts in 2025, the most since records began in 1946
PRIO, June 2026750M
women and girls live within 50 km of an active conflict, 40 million more than a year earlier
UN Secretary-General, Oct 20261 in 4
civilians killed in war in 2025 were women and girls, double their share in 2021
UN Secretary-General, Oct 20265%
of negotiators across 57 peace processes in 2025 were women
UN Secretary-General, Oct 2026−23%
official development assistance in 2025, the largest annual drop on record
OECD, April 202640%
of women’s organisations in crisis settings expect to close within a year
UN Secretary-General, Oct 2026More conflict, less aid, and fewer women in the rooms where peace is made. The leaders closest to the stakes are being asked to carry more with less.
Why Co-Agency
No one leads alone.
Agency is the power to act. No leader holds it alone. Every woman closest to the stakes is carried by the institutions, networks and communities around her, and she carries them in turn.
That is the co in Co-Agency. We back the leader and the web around her together, because that is how change holds.
Nominations open
The 2027 Champions Cohort convenes its first Lab at the United Nations in Geneva, June 2027.
What we do
We back women leaders, and the ecosystems around them.
A leader rarely changes a country alone. Co-Agency invests in women leaders and in the organisations, coalitions and successors that make their work last. As an initiative of RAIS, which builds sovereign security, we treat leadership as infrastructure: something you finance, reinforce and plan to outlast any one person.
How it worksWhere our champions lead
Peace and security
Conflict prevention, mediation, humanitarian response and the safety of women in public life.
Health
Health systems, maternal and child health, and mental health and wellbeing.
Climate and food systems
Climate resilience, land and water, and agricultural and food security.
Education
Access, learning and the pathways from school into leadership.
Economic opportunity
Jobs, enterprise, finance and women’s economic power.
Innovation and technology run across all five: we back leaders who use new tools to reach further and decide better.
How change spreads
Backing one leader well moves outward, ring by ring, to the people she serves.
- LeaderWe invest in her Masterplan, four Labs, brokered access, and security and wellbeing support.She gains the seats, platforms and resources to shape decisions. AiLun Ku rose from COO to CEO.
- InstitutionWe support her organisation through transitions, and offer fiscal hosting and shared services through RAIS.Her organisation outlasts any one person. HomeWorks Trenton has raised $1.9M+ for a home for 40 scholars.
- EcosystemWe connect champions across issues and borders, and open our learning to community leaders and successors.Coalitions form and the next leaders are ready. The first cohort rallied behind Jaha Dukureh’s African summit on FGM and child marriage.
- Community and countryThe outcome we are building towards.Decisions about security, health and peace are made with the people closest to them. HAkA’s $26M court win restores a forest that communities across Aceh depend on.
Perspectives
In the words of our leaders and partners
“The lab offered an incredibly safe place for me to be courageous and vulnerable.”
“The encounter and involvement with other emerging women gave me the confidence boost and strength I needed to elevate others in my community.”
“Women from minority countries and regions often work alone but have huge impact and make the most direct difference.”
“You don’t have to get to rock bottom to be given help and giving help can be as valuable as seeking it.”
“Connected women leaders leverage their constituencies, communities and networks and accelerate progress towards full equality.”
“What they all have in common is what matters the most: commitment and heart.”
How it works
Two years, built around one woman’s agenda.
A champion arrives with a mission already in motion. We spend two years making it faster, safer and harder to ignore, on her plan and her timetable.
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Months 0–3
Masterplan
A deep needs assessment, then a two-year plan with three near-term and three long-term goals, set by her.
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Lab one
Collaborate
One-on-one work with senior experts on financing, strategy, team and personal resilience.
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Lab two
Connect
Coalition work. The cohort maps its partners and agrees how to back each other’s agendas.
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Lab three
Create
Narrative and media: op-eds, talks, books and film, developed with editors, producers and agents.
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Lab four
Convene
The cohort acts as one alliance at a global moment, then plans what lasts.
What each champion receives
Strategy and finance
Organizational and personal financial reviews, a fundraising plan, board and succession advice.
Access
Introductions to ministries, multilaterals and funders, and nominations for fellowships, awards and stages.
Voice
Speaker and press training, a media kit and portrait, and a pitch session with a major speaking platform.
Safety and wellbeing
Private mental health support, digital and physical security advice, and a peer circle that lasts.
Investment
Flexible funding directed by her Masterplan, for the work she is already leading.
Alliance
Fourteen peers who amplify one another’s campaigns at key moments.
How champions are selected
- 1NominationPartners, regional hubs and alumni put forward women they have seen lead.
- 2ReviewOur team assesses track record, reach and readiness, and checks references discreetly.
- 3ConversationShortlisted leaders meet the team to test fit, timing and the risks they carry.
- 4DecisionAn independent selection committee chooses the fifteen, balancing region and field.
How we measure
Every Masterplan is its own scorecard. Each champion sets her milestones at the start; we review them with her at six and twenty-four months and report to partners on five things:
- Policy and decisions she shaped
- Positions, seats and platforms she gained
- Resources moved to her work
- Her own safety and sustainability
- The health of the ecosystem around her: her organisation, coalitions and successors
Duty of care: before any public step, we assess digital, physical, legal and reputational risk with her. She decides what is shared, where and when.
Impact
What our leaders have built since 2019.
From one Lab: organisations built, coalitions formed, a forest restored, a home for 40 scholars. Their achievements are their own. We are proud to have stood alongside them from the start.
$26M
won in court to restore Indonesia’s Leuser forest, by Farwiza Farhan and HAkA
2022
Asia’s Nobel
The Ramon Magsaysay Award, to Farwiza Farhan, followed by Whitley Gold and a Rolex laureateship
2024–26
Two films
Afghan Dreamers and the feature Rule Breakers tell the story of Roya Mahboob and her robotics team
2023–25
125,000+
people have seen Ifeoma Fafunwa’s Hear Word!, the first Nigerian play curated into the Edinburgh International Festival
To 2024
$1.9M+
raised by Natalie Tung’s HomeWorks Trenton, now building a home for 40 scholars
2024
23 countries
in Lila Igram’s 2025 ConnectHER Film Festival: 150 films and $32,500 in prizes
2025
The cohort in action · Senegal, 2019
The first African Leaders Summit on FGM and Child Marriage
In 2019, months after the first Lab, Jaha Dukureh convened Africa’s first leaders’ summit on FGM and child marriage in Senegal. Co-Agency supported her on site, and the cohort put its combined networks behind it.
The outcome: the Deputy Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, one of Sunni Islam’s most authoritative institutions, issued a fatwa against child marriage.
In the ten months after the first Lab in March 2019
$700K
secured for leaders and their organizations
24
speaking and profile platforms, including UNGA, Davos and Chatham House
7
awards won after Co-Agency nomination or support
100%
of leaders would recommend the Lab, in an anonymous survey
Who we are
Who we are and why we exist
Our background
Co-Agency began as a pilot Lab at UN Headquarters in 2019, convened with the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the MIT Media Lab. After the pilot we paused to rebuild the model for a harder world.
Our home
Co-Agency now returns as an initiative of RAIS, Resilient Architecture for Integration and Security, with a sharper focus on the leaders who shape national decisions.
Our vision
A world where the women closest to the stakes help decide how their countries protect people, make choices and build what lasts.
Alumni
The first cohort, and where they are now
Twenty women, seventeen countries.
Adwoa Aboah
United Kingdom
Founder of Gurls Talk and now an actor, with roles in Top Boy and Too Much and a 2025 SXSW premiere, Satisfaction.
Saara Bouhouche
France
Humanitarian leader who has run emergency responses in conflict zones, with a focus on Yemen and the wider MENA region.
Jamira Burley
United States
Chief of Community and External Partners at XQ Institute, host of The Other Side of Change and a 2026 US–Japan Leadership Program delegate.
Leina Yvonne Chi
Cameroon
Journalist and campaigner leading the fight to end breast ironing in Cameroon.
Jaha Dukureh
The Gambia
Founder of Safe Hands for Girls and UN Women’s first Regional Goodwill Ambassador for Africa, now working on agricultural and food security; author of I Will Scream to the World (2024).
Ifeoma Fafunwa
Nigeria
Director of Hear Word!, seen by 125,000+ people and the first Nigerian play curated into the Edinburgh International Festival.
Farwiza Farhan
Indonesia
Leads HAkA in defence of the Leuser Ecosystem; Ramon Magsaysay laureate, Whitley Gold winner and Rolex Perpetual Planet laureate.
Andrea Gaviria
Colombia
Economist who led Colombia's first public-private partnership in education.
Sarah Harvard
United States
Journalist turned stand-up comedian and senior copywriter at storyarb, with bylines in The Atlantic, The Washington Post and HuffPost.
Lila Igram
United States
Founder of Connecther, whose 2025 film festival drew 150 films from 23 countries and awarded $32,500 in prizes.
Aziza Khabbush
Libya and United Kingdom
Libyan Amazigh leader, leadership educator and Ashoka Visionary, now working on pharmaceutical and AI biosecurity.
AiLun Ku
Taiwan and United States
Rose to President and then CEO of Opportunity Network, and has since founded her own agency.
Roya Mahboob
Afghanistan
Founder of the Digital Citizen Fund and the Afghan Girls Robotics Team; her story is told in the films Afghan Dreamers and Rule Breakers.
Emi Mahmoud
Sudan
World Poetry Slam champion and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador; her poem on the war in Sudan, Sudan Balady, was featured by BBC Africa in 2024.
Viktorija Mickute
Lithuania
Senior producer at AJ Contrast, Al Jazeera's immersive studio, pioneering virtual reality journalism from the frontlines.
Christina Myers
Switzerland and Colombia
Co-founder of the Omnis Institute and Women in Games Hall of Fame inductee, now COO of RAIS.
Yasmine Ouirhrane
Italy and France
Young European of the Year 2019, former EU and African Union appointed expert, and founder of We Belong, a platform for the New Daughters of Europe.
Zahra Rasool
India
Created and leads AJ Contrast at Al Jazeera; three-time Emmy nominee whose film Still Here premiered at Sundance, and a 2021 Gracie Award winner.
Maryum Saifee
United States
Senior Advisor in the US State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, and a survivor-advocate working to end female genital cutting.
Natalie Tung
Hong Kong
Co-founder of HomeWorks Trenton, which has raised more than $1.9M and is building a home for 40 scholars; a 2024 Woman of Achievement.
Convened with
The pilot Lab ran at UN Headquarters with the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellows Program. Every leader was matched with expert partners for one-on-one coaching, twenty-eight in all.
Pro-bono experts and resources from
Get involved
Build the next cohort with us
Partner with Co-Agency
Every partnership is structured through RAIS and reported against each champion’s Masterplan.
- Sponsor a champion for her full two years
- Underwrite a Lab
- Fund a full annual cohort
- Contribute expertise, venues or in-kind support
Nominate a leader
Tell us about a woman who should be in the 2027 Champions Cohort. Nominations close 2 February 2027.