Ella Lamakh

Ella Lamakh is founder and chair of the board of the Kyiv-based Democracy Development Center (DDC), which promotes the democratic and economic rights of women and youth in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she has supported her extensive network of women leaders in Ukraine as they transitioned from gender rights promotion to humanitarian support for their communities, working with veterans, internally displaced persons and the most vulnerable.

Ms. Lamakh is a prominent Ukrainian civil society leader who began her work in that field shortly after Ukrainian independence in 1991 with leading global organizations such as the International Renaissance Foundation (the Soros Foundation) and Winrock International. She established the DDC in 2009, following a stint in the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports. Ms. Lamakh is a prominent leader in Ukraine on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), having participated in the writing of Ukraine’s Shadow Report, and on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, training local civil society and government leaders on its implementation in Ukraine’s regions.  

She was a Fulbright Scholar in the United States from 2015 to 2016.