Major hat-tip to RHReality Check.
US President Barack Obama announced Friday the creation of a new foreign policy position designed to tackle global women’s issues.
Obama named Melanne Verveer, an aide in former president Bill Clinton’s administration, as ambassador-at-large for international women’s issues. She will serve at the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Verveer will have to be approved by the Senate.
More about her at Wikipedia and from her lengthy bio at Vital Voices (two Republican women are honorary members of the board, listed at the very top: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker):
Melanne Verveer is Co-Founder, Chair and Co-CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international nonprofit that invests in emerging women leaders – pioneers of economic, political and social progress in their countries. Vital Voices builds the capabilities, connections and credibility of emerging social entrepreneurs to unlock their potential as catalysts of global progress. Through its leadership development and local empowerment programs around the world, Vital Voices works to expand women’s roles in generating economic opportunity, increasing political participation and protecting human rights. The Vital Voices Global Leadership Network of more than 5000 women in 85 countries represents the vital voices of our time.
The bio there will give you all the background re: her prior role in the Clinton Administration and many other roles she’s had over the years.
It appears that this announcement came in a late Friday afternoon batch of appointments, caught, in particular, by Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times.
From the announcement Sweet published:
Previously, Verveer served as Executive Vice President of People for the American Way, a civil rights and constitutional liberties organization where she played a key role in the passage of several landmark civil rights bills. She was Coordinator for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs for the U.S. Catholic Conference, Field Manager of Common Cause and worked in the U.S. House and Senate as Legislative Director and Special Assistant respectively. Verveer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Women’s Foreign Policy Group, the Washington Institute on Foreign Affairs and Women In International Security.
The President’s decision to nominate an Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues is unprecedented and reflects the elevated importance of global women’s issues to the President and his entire Administration.
On paper, she certainly sounds incredibly well-qualified. This post, I assume, will go well with Sen. Boxer’s new subcommittee responsibilities for global women’s issues.
Cross-post from Writes Like She Talks.