On behalf of the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Sage Fund and openDemocracy, welcome and thank you for joining this virtual roundtable. This discussion is being hosted and facilitated by openDemocracy with support from the Ford Foundation.
As brief context and background for this discussion, the Ford Foundation initiated a global exploration on quality work in 2015, alongside program staff who are, or are now, colleagues with the Sage Fund and OSF. We released a report that provides a synthesis of the insights gathered from the work of partners and grantees, collaborations with external partners, research, and the collective knowledge of the program staff involved in the exploration. All along, we hoped that the insights summarised in this report would spur new ideas, necessary innovations, and dynamic conversations across the field. We also recognise that in order to address the systemic barriers and powerful actors underscored in the report, it is essential that we build solidarity across borders and issues, and to unite an array of actors and institutions to act collectively towards our aims for a more fair, just and inclusive society worldwide.
As such, the Ford Foundation is partnering with openDemocracy to host and facilitate a roundtable to bring together multi-stakeholders from across fields to discuss questions of strategic importance.
