Diakhoumba Gassama

Diakhoumba Gassama is a Program Officer in the Gender Equity and Governance Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She manages a portfolio of grants that aim to increase government responsiveness to the needs of underserved populations, especially women and youth, in selected African countries and Mexico.

A national of Senegal and Belgium, Diakhoumba is a passionate feminist, war resister, and defender of all rights for all. A lawyer by training, she has spent more than 15 years at the service of international criminal law, the right to development, women’s and minorities’ rights and gender equality in Africa, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

Prior to joining Hewlett, Diakhoumba served as the Regional Activism and Youth Coordinator for Africa for Amnesty International. Previously, she held roles at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania; the African Union Commission in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia; UNWomen from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; and UNDP in New York and Bangkok.

Diakhoumba is a member of the Senegalese Council of Women, the African Feminist Forum and a Board member of AWID and of the Research and Support Center for Development Alternatives for the Indian Ocean. She is also the outgoing Vice President of the West African Young Women’s Leaders Network in Senegal. She holds a LLB in European and International Law from the University of Aix-Marseille 3 and a LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of the Western Cape. She is fluent in Mandinka, French, English, and Spanish. She relocated from Dakar, Senegal to the Bay Area in April 2022 and loves to nurture children’s capacity to dream, laugh, and save the planet.