ACFID is proud and excited to announce that Arthur Larok, Secretary General of ActionAid International and prominent advocate for social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication, will be joining us in Sydney to deliver a keynote address.

A political sociologist with 20 years’ experience in development and social change, Arthur joined ActionAid Uganda as the Country Director in 2012 and has been involved in global campaigns for poverty, debt cancellation and closing civic space. He is also a member of the Transitions Assistance Practice Group (TAPG) hosted by the Institute for Integrated Transition (IFIT) in Barcelona, as well as Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Civic Research Network (CRN).

His deep knowledge of social movements has been developed over years of action, having previously worked with the Uganda National NGO Forum, the Forum for Education NGOs in Uganda and as chair of Civil Society for Peace in Northern Uganda. He has championed numerous citizen mobilisations and solidarity campaigns, including the Citizens Manifesto in Uganda to reshape better monitoring of the democratic decision-making process; and the Black Monday Movement, engaging Ugandan citizens to fight corruption and call out theft of public funds.

More recently, with ActionAid Uganda, Arthur led his team in response to shrinking civic space and direct raids and attack against the organisation, causing immense disruption to their operations, but providing them with valuable lessons on how to turn a crisis into an opportunity.

“We’re delighted that Arthur Larok has made time to join us at this year’s ACFID conference and share with us his immense knowledge of social movements and strengthening social justice” says Marc Purcell, CEO of the Australian Council for International Development.

Join us over 23/24^th October 2024, as we hear from actors across the globe explore the theme of “Solidarity and Resilience”.  Early Birds are on sale now until Friday 23 August 2024.