Theo Sowa is Chief Executive Officer at the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) and an independent advisor and consultant specialising in international social development and women and children’s rights. Born in Ghana, she has lived and worked in many countries in Africa, and holds advisory roles to African and international women’s rights activists and leaders. Theo was awarded a CBE in June 2010 and in 2012 delivered the TED talk We Need the Voices of African Rural Women. In 2015 Gaia released the report Celebrating African Rural Women – Custodians of Seed, Food and Traditional Knowledge for Climate Change Resilience alongside the African Biodiversity Network and the African Women’s Development Fund. Theo wrote the foreword to the report and spoke at the launch. She says in the report that “at the heart of this relationship between Africa’s women farmers and seed is a legacy of traditional knowledge that we cannot afford to lose.”