Nadia Sánchez, founder and CEO of She Is Foundation (Fundación She Is), represented Colombia at CSW70, the 70th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, held in New York from March 9 to 19, 2026, leading a panel on access to justice for women and girls and heading a 20-woman delegation at the UN’s primary annual forum on gender equality.
Colombia’s participation at CSW70 came as the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that only 15% of executive positions in Latin America are held by women, while the World Economic Forum recorded 8.6 percentage points of regional progress in closing the gender gap since 2006. The contrast between documented advancement and a gap that remains large is precisely the debate Sánchez traveled to New York to push forward, carrying the Colombian voice into one of the most attended multilateral policy rooms in the world.
A decade of work behind the Colombian voice
Sánchez founded She Is in 2016 after winning a White House competition for emerging entrepreneurs during the Obama administration, which secured initial funding and an invitation to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya alongside then-President Barack Obama; she now teaches innovation and social entrepreneurship at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá and holds a seat on the Organization of American States (OAS) Committee of Women Leaders of the Americas.
The foundation operates two programs with a combined reach of over 23,400 women and girls across Colombia: “Ella es Esmeralda” supports women victims of the armed conflict through empowerment centers in Arauca, Tolima, and Putumayo, with 17,406 direct beneficiaries to date, while “Ella es Astronauta” has trained over 560 girls in STEAM skills, meaning science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, over consecutive six-month cycles since the program launched.
That domestic track record is what Sánchez brought to CSW70 in March 2026, converting nearly a decade of field work in Colombia’s most conflict-affected departments into a policy argument before the UN; the foundation’s numbers are not projections, they are the evidence behind the Colombian voice that reached New York.
Nadia Sánchez lleva el liderazgo femenino latinoamericano a la ONU y escenarios globales https://t.co/RJvwfxzTi0
— EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) April 2, 2026
The delegation and Colombia’s argument at the UN
Twenty Colombian women formed the Delegación She Is 2026 and participated in CSW70 activities at UN headquarters, honoring award-winning Colombian journalist and former war correspondent Adriana Aristizábal as their guest. Aristizábal, who built a communications firm in New York after years covering armed conflicts, added media experience and international visibility to the delegation’s advocacy work across the nine-day commission period.
The panel Sánchez led centered on access to justice for women and girls, connecting Colombia’s internal displacement history, where women and girls represent a disproportionate share of conflict victims, to the global gender justice framework that the Commission on the Status of Women advances each year through binding resolutions and funding recommendations to member states.
Worth noting, the She Is Delegation was the first Latin American delegation of its kind to participate in a structured advocacy program at CSW; the 20 Colombian women who joined Sánchez built institutional contacts and alliances across multiple countries, extending the foundation’s reach well beyond the proceedings of a single nine-day session in New York.
Colombia’s civil society takes its place at the UN
Colombia’s civil society organizations have consistently operated beyond formal institutional recognition, and She Is Foundation’s presence at CSW70 reflects an international standing in gender equality that the country’s formal policy structures have not always matched; Sánchez’s 20-woman delegation positioned Colombia’s contribution to the global gender debate as a civil society achievement as much as an official state effort.
This will be a test of whether Colombian institutions, from the national government to universities and development banks, align resources with the civil society networks that built this track record over 10 years; the Colombian voice that reached New York in March 2026 will count for most if it translates into structural change for the women and girls still waiting in Arauca, Tolima, and Putumayo.