appointment of Catherine Chinedum (‘ChiChi’) Aniagolu-Okoye as its new
regional director for its office serving West Africa. Aniagolu-Okoye
began the Lagos-based role in September.
Aniagolu-Okoye succeeds the late Innocent Chukwuma who served as
regional director from 2013 to 2021 and helped the foundation to build
its brand in the region and to establish solid partnerships with donors,
civil society, public and private sector leaders.
With over 20 years in the social change sector, Aniagolu-Okoye is a
respected leader on the African continent and brings many years of
extensive experience leading diverse international development
organizations, managing country programs, donor projects and country
strategies in West Africa and across Africa.
As regional director, she will oversee the foundation’s local team,
external relations and administrative operations in West Africa. She
will also lead on program strategy development and implementation in the
region, with a focus on advancing democracy, human rights and social
inclusion for all especially youth, women and people with disabilities.
“I am delighted to welcome ChiChi to the foundation. Her international
experience and leadership, and her expertise in navigating civil society
circles will be invaluable as our work in West Africa grows,” said
Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. “ChiChi’s reputation as
a strong operational leader and an African feminist will bring a
critical perspective to our work to help address some of the region’s
most pressing opportunities and challenges.”
Throughout her career, Aniagolu-Okoye has designed and implemented
strategies at regional and global organizations on key social issues
such as improving governance, reducing poverty, advancing transparency
in the extractives sector, and furthering women and girl’s empowerment –
all through engaging civil society as well as the public and private
sectors.
Before Ford, Aniagolu-Okoye was most recently the Country Director of
Technoserve, an international NGO that provides business solutions to
poverty with women at the heart of the work. Prior, she was the Country
Director for WaterAid in Nigeria where she provided grants to civil
society organizations advocating for improved access to water,
sanitation, and hygiene services and strengthening civil society
networks, including one focused on journalists dedicated to telling more
accurate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) stories. Before WaterAid,
ChiChi led Girl Effect, an initiative of the Nike Foundation focused on
girls’ empowerment, and also served as Country Director for
Oxfam/Nigeria. At Oxfam, she led strategies on reducing inequalities
through initiatives on tax and gender justice, including the VOICE
program that addressed gender-based violence and transparency in the
extractives sector.
Earlier in her career Aniagolu-Okoye was Deputy Program Director of a
European Union project focused on reforming public sector service
delivery with more efficient management of public finances, budget
reform and accountability in six Nigerian states. Prior to that, she was
the West Africa Director for ASHOKA Innovators for the Public, focusing
on advancing social entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and
Mali.
“I am very excited to be joining a team and a foundation so passionately
focused on building a world where everyone has the power to shape their
own lives and live with dignity,” says Aniagolu-Okoye. “The Ford
Foundation successfully promotes social justice and reducing inequality
in West Africa – a vision I am fully aligned with and honored to help
shepherd and grow in the regional office.”
She will be taking over from Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima who served as
interim regional director since January while continuing his primary
role as program officer leading the foundation’s intersectional work in
the West Africa region.
Aniagolu-Okoye holds a Ph.D in Sociology specializing in Gender and
Development from University College Cork in Ireland, and a B.Sc in
Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She is
a founder of the South Saharan Social Development Organization (SSDO), a
member of the Advisory Board of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy
Centre (CISLAC), and an Africa Policy Advisory board member of The One
Campaign.