Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation has a long and strong history of working on democracy, justice, and human rights issues across the world. The Office for Southern Africa works in an integrated, collaborative manner to address inequality with our primary goal to narrow the gap between the promise of democracy, dignity and equality and the lived reality for women, girls, youth, LGBTI and marginalized communities across the Southern African region.

The Office works to address four problems in order to achieve this ambitious goal with an emphasis on an intersectional understanding of how race, class, gender, nationality, sexual orientation and age impact on the nature of these problems:

(i) Harmful cultural narratives across the African region that fuel violence, discrimination and a lack of social cohesion;

(ii) Laws and policies that criminalize and constitute discrimination against women, girls, youth, LGBTI, and communities affected by mining and spatial inequality in the region;

(iii) The inability of ordinary citizens to benefit from the public resources of countries in the region and the lack of accountability at government and non-state actor levels; and

(iv) Decreased donor resources to the region and a corresponding lack of a diverse, resilient civil society movement able to navigate partnerships so as to enhance sustainability, effectiveness, and efficiency.

Working with the Regional Office Director and Program Team in OSA, we seek a Program Officer who is able to address the above four problems with a specific focus on women, girls, youth and LGBTI communities whilst also being able to apply an intersectional analysis to the above four problems. The Program Officer should have specific expertise related to strengthening sustainable, effective civil society partners.