The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced that Ousseynou Ngom and Jennifer Obado Joel have joined the foundation’s Global Development and Population Program. Program Director Dana Hovig shared the following with grantees and foundation staff:
I am delighted to announce that we have new team members joining the Global Development and Population Program on June 1.
Ousseynou Ngom will be joining us as our newest Program Officer, leading and supporting an extensive portfolio of grants aimed at increasing responsive governance and creating the conditions for evidence-informed policymaking in Africa and Mexico.
Ousseynou comes to Hewlett after spending the past two years at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) as a senior regional coordinator for Africa and the Middle East, based in Senegal. In this role, he worked closely with governments and civil society in advancing transparency, participation, and accountability, while supporting the development and implementation of relevant and ambitious OGP country action plans.
Ousseynou’s expertise covers open contracting, extractives, aid effectiveness, open data, and public service delivery. As a senior associate at Development Gateway in Senegal, his work was instrumental in developing data strategies and policies, creating evidence-based advocacy and decision-making tools, and leading hands-on initiatives to inform national planning and drive global conversations.
Previously, Ousseynou was a research coordinator at Dalberg and a lecturer at the University of Bordeaux (UB), France. He holds a master’s degree in quantitative and qualitative research and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from UB.
Jennifer Obado Joel will be joining us as our Program Fellow. She will focus on monitoring and evaluation of strategies and grants, assisting in identifying potential grantees, and performing due diligence. She will also facilitate cross-program learning, engage with peer funders, and participate in developing and managing a small portfolio of grants.
Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Jennifer has over a decade of experience working in West Africa, Central Europe, and the United States. Her areas of expertise include women’s economic empowerment, governance, accountability and transparency, and the climate-conflict nexus. She has worked on several donor-funded research and evaluation projects for the United Nations, USAID, the International Development Research Centre, the Department for International Development, the World Bank, Open Society Foundations, and Habitat for Humanity.
Jennifer was a visiting faculty member on Informal Politics in Africa at the University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, and a professorial lecturer and visiting scholar at the Institute for African Studies at the George Washington University (GWU). Before joining GWU, Jennifer was an Atlas Corps fellow at the Centre on International Development and Governance (IDG) at the Urban Institute.
Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate at the Security Studies Program, School of Security, Politics, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and a master’s degree in public policy from the Central European University Budapest.
Jennifer and Ousseynou will continue to reside in Orlando and Dakar while we continue to work virtually, but they are looking forward to moving to the Bay Area after our office re-opens. We are thrilled to welcome Jennifer and Ousseynou to the foundation and hope you will join us in giving them a warm welcome!