Board of Directors
Cornelius Williams is a highly respected expert with over 35 years of experience in global child protection programming and child rights advocacy. He has worked with international organisations like UNICEF and Save the Children to improve protection for children from exploitation, violence, and abuse.
As the former Global Director for Child Protection at UNICEF, Cornelius led several humanitarian and developmental programmes in various child protection areas. He has served on multiple Advisory Boards, including ID4Africa, CPC Learning Network, and Changing the Way We Care. Cornelius has served on several UN committees, such as the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation and the Global Programme to End Child Marriage. He was also part of the UN Legal Identity Taskforce, the Global Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Group and the Core Group of Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics.
His work continues to shape global strategies to safeguard children’s right to legal identity and protection from exploitation, violence, and abuse. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Consortium for Street Children and the Policy Board of WeProtect Global Alliance to End Child Sexual Exploitation Online. He also serves as a board member at Maestral International, focusing on advancing children’s rights and well-being. Additionally, he collaborates with Child Identity Protection as an expert on children’s legal identity.
He is a national of Sierra Leone and holds a Master of Arts in International Child Welfare from the University of East Anglia in the UK.
