Anita Vandenbeld

Her father was born in Deventer, the Netherlands in 1940 at the beginning of World War Two.

In 1945, Herman Vandenbeld got his first candy from Canadian soldiers during the Liberation of the Netherlands.

His family were union leaders who were part of the Dutch underground resistance during World War Two.

His grandfather and uncle were political prisoners at the Herzogenbusch concentration camp "Kamp Vught".

He was the eldest of a working-class family who arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax in 1960 with all their worldly possessions, including the bed that he slept in for 52 years of marriage to Anita's mother, Maria.

He worked as a labourer for several years in Calgary before starting his piano tuning business which he ran with his wife Maria for 40 years.

Vandenbeld's mother Maria was a kindergarten teacher who immigrated from the Netherlands at the age of 19.

She met Anita's father while boarding with his family in Calgary.

Anita Vandenbeld was the first in her family to graduate from University.

Anita M. Vandenbeld (born December 3, 1971) is a Canadian politician, who was elected to represent the riding of Ottawa West—Nepean for the Liberal Party of Canada in the House of Commons of Canada in the 2015 Canadian federal election.

She attended Assumption School and graduated from St. Francis High School in 1989.

As a teen she worked as a page at the Bowness branch of the Calgary Public Library.

Vandenbeld's parents were immigrants from the Netherlands who built their own log home, in which she spent her early childhood.

She attended the University of Calgary, earning a B.A. (Hon.), History and Political Science, and would later study at York University, receiving an M.A. in Political and Constitutional History in 1994.

Vandenbeld was the President of the University of Calgary Young Liberals during her student years.

Anita Vandenbeld worked for over a decade in international democratic development, having worked in over 20 countries on inclusive governance and women’s leadership, with a specific focus on women's political participation, parliamentary development and Women, Peace and Security.

Vandenbeld worked on several short and long-term projects with the United Nations Development Programme and UNIFEM.

She worked with the United Nations Development Programme Democratic Governance Group in New York, where she managed a multi-partner international network to promote women's political participation International Knowledge Network of Women in Politics.

Before that, she was based at the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre in Norway.

Vandenbeld was also as a technical specialist on parliamentary committees and outreach with UNDP in Dhaka, Bangladesh, lead author on a study on the decline of women's representation in politics in Viet Nam, and she conducted numerous trainings on women's political leadership around the world.

Vandenbeld was the global manager of the International Knowledge Network of Women in Politics (iKNOWPolitics.org), an online peer support network of women in politics which operates in 4 languages across 5 continents.

Anita Vandenbeld worked in both Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and in Kosovo with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In the OSCE Mission in BiH she coordinated an anti-corruption campaign during the 2000 national elections.

This extensive public awareness campaign included television and radio commercials, a music video, billboards, factsheets and newspaper advertisements.

iKNOWPolitics was established in 2007 as a project of 5 international organizations who decided to combine efforts to encourage women's political participation: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNIFEM (now UN Women), Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), International IDEA, and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).

During her tenure as Global project manager, Vandenbeld expanded the project by hiring regional project managers in Asia (Jakarta), the Arab States (Amman and Cairo), Sub-Saharan Africa (Bamako), Europe (Brussels), North America (New York and Washington) and South America (Lima).

In 2009 Vandenbeld oversaw the expansion of the project into Arabic, including traveling extensively across the region to consult with women about the arabic network and host a regional launch in Jordan in 2009 with Princess Basma bint Talal as the keynote speaker and female MP's, Ministers, opposition members and civil society leaders from across the Arab States.

Vandenbeld led the resource mobilization effort of the project which expanded the project budget from $500,000 a year to $3 million a year.

Anita Vandenbeld has worked with the National Democratic Institute in a number of different roles, including as resident director in the Democratic Republic of Congo, conducting a women's political leadership academy in Haiti.

contributing case studies on political party policy development, and as one of the five initial partners in the iKNOWPolitics project.

Vandenbeld oversaw the project's Asia-Pacific launch in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2010, and partnered on a project with the Club de Madrid on 'Women's Leadership for Peace and Security in the Horn of Africa'.

Vandenbeld was resident director in the National Democratic Institute office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where she established a political party program during the November 2011 Congolese elections.

Vandenbeld conducted a women's campaign college for over 100 women and hosted a launch of the iKNOWPolitics network with over 250 women leaders, candidates, activists and representatives of women's organizations.

Vandenbeld led a program of inter-party dialogue to support peaceful competition in elections.

She established a steering committee of 15 majority, opposition and unaligned political parties that met weekly in the months leading to the 2011 national elections.

Under her leadership, the Institute organized multiparty workshops on communications, campaign management and women’s political involvement to help parties’ participation in the elections.

As part of the political parties program, Vandenbeld invited former US ambassador to the UN and former Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson to meet with Congolese political leaders to prevent election-related violence, assure transparency in the election process and continue democratic dialogue after the election The delegation met with President Kabila, and convened a meeting of 11 presidential candidates.

One of the key outcomes of these meetings included a declaration on sexual violence that was developed by civil society and signed by most of the presidential candidates.

She was re-elected in the same riding in 2019, and re-elected in 2021.

Vandenbeld currently serves as Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Development.

Vandenbeld was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, in the neighbourhood of Bowness.