Jennifer Obado Joel

Jennifer Obado Joel is a Program Fellow in the Gender Equity and Governance Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She focuses on the monitoring and evaluation of strategies and grants, assisting in identifying potential grantees, and performing due diligence. She also facilitates cross-program learning, engages with peer funders, and participates 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.