Moema Maria Marques de Miranda, convener from Latin America, is an anthropologist with an MA. from the Graduate Programme in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where she studied rural labor and politics.Since 1992 she works at the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Research (IBASE) on different projects and initiatives.

Initially, she was the Secretary-General of the Agrarian Reform National Campaign. Between 1998 and 2001, she worked on the issues of favelas (slums) and urbanization in Rio de Janeiro, being a member of the steering committee of the National Forum on Urban Reform. She was an active participant of the Citizenship Action against Hunger and for Life, one of the largest popular mobilizations in Brazilian history. Currently she is a coordinator of two programmes at IBASE: the World Social Forum (WSF) Process; and Democratic Alternatives to Globalization. Recently, she has also taken charge of IBASE's Human Rights initiative.

As IBASE's representative in the WSF International Council, she has been a member of the organizing committee of the last five global WSF events. A ‘Carioca’, as natives of Rio de Janeiro City are called, Ms. Miranda has two daughters and one son.

When asked why she joined the Building Global Democracy Programme and what her aspirations for the programme were, Moema replied:

"The BGD proposal is extremely interesting to those of us directly or indirectly involved in finding democratic alternatives to globalisation. At Ibase, I work directly with this subject and with programmes seeking to help strengthen a planetary citizenry, which we consider the fundamental agent and embodiment of democratisation processes, whose strategies and initiatives multifaceted and diverse. At the World Social Forum too – where I sit, on Ibase’s behalf, on the International Council and the Expansion Commission – the issues addressed by BGD form part of the priority agenda.

In addition, I believe we need jointly to develop new methodologies and arrangements for assuring in-depth, wide-ranging, democratic discussions, regarded as open, collective processes permanently under construction, on priority items of the contemporary agenda.

We live in times that call, insistently and with the utmost urgency, for new alternatives for building a world of greater justice and equity, and that can restore the meaning of, and respect for, our common goods and the profound bonds of harmony between humankind and nature. I believe that BGD can contribute to that!"

"I believe and hope that the programme will gain strength as a democratic space for discussions of, and common quests for, alternatives with regard to some of the most demanding issues of our times, among them politics, planetary justice, democracy and globalisation with solidarity and respect for the self-determination of peoples. These are items of an agenda under construction.

The dynamics proposed by the programme allows discussions to be pursued in depth, while responses are constructed in common and doubts and hopes are shared.

In recent years, we have often found – both among academics and in social and political movements – simplistic readings and proposals for the complex and disconcerting realities of the world we live in. Theories constructed in recent years do not account for the phenomena ongoing in daily social life. The possibility of our having a long-term process that links up thinkers, activists, intellectuals and politicians from all the world’s regions offers a valuable and productive environment in these times of searching and construction."