Cornelius Williams is a highly respected expert with more than 35 years of experience in global child protection programming and child rights advocacy. He has worked extensively with international organizations, including UNICEF and Save the Children, to strengthen protections for children affected by exploitation, violence, and abuse.
As former Global Director for Child Protection at UNICEF, Cornelius led major humanitarian and development initiatives across a wide range of child protection areas. He has served on numerous advisory and governance bodies, including ID4Africa, the CPC Learning Network, and Changing the Way We Care, and has contributed to several UN-led global initiatives. These include the UNFPA–UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation, the Global Programme to End Child Marriage, and the UN Legal Identity Taskforce, as well as global efforts to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics systems (CRVS).
His work has helped shape global strategies to advance children’s rights to legal identity and protection from harm. Cornelius currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Consortium for Street Children and the Policy Board of WeProtect Global Alliance to End Child Sexual Exploitation Online, and also collaborates with Child Identity Protection as an expert on children’s legal identity. He is a senior member of the HDPI Child Protection Working Group, contributing to global discourse and system-wide reforms on the future of child protection. He additionally serves as Chair of the Supervisory Board of ECPAT International and as a member of the Steering Committee of the To Zero Initiative, contributing to global efforts to end sexual violence against children.
A national of Sierra Leone, he holds a Master of Arts in International Child Welfare from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.