Anne Gathumbi

Senior Program Officer for Sexual Health and Rights

American Jewish World Service (AJWS)

Anne Gathumbi is the Senior Program Officer for Sexual Health and Rights (SHR), managing AJWS’s SHR portfolios in Kenya, Uganda and Liberia. Anne is a human rights, gender and social justice advocate with experience both in civil society and as a grant maker with private and public foundations in the fields of human rights and governance, rule of law and access to justice, public health and HIV/AIDS, social economic justice, women’s rights, sexual reproductive health rights, and sexual minority and gender identity rights. 

For the past two years, Anne has worked as an independent consultant, offering her skills to the philanthropy and not-for-profit sector at country, regional, and global levels. Previously, Anne was the Director of Sexual Health and Rights Program (SHARP) of the Public Health Program at Open Society Foundations where, in addition to advancing the health and human rights of those discriminated against because of their identity, she established Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa’s health and Rights program as well as the Learning, Evaluation and Impact Assessment Program – LEAP. Anne has also worked both as a program manager and Deputy Regional Representative of Trocaire’s East and Horn of Africa regional office, and at the Legal Resources Foundation. She was a founding member and Director of the Coalition on Violence against Women, an organization that campaigned for eradication of all forms of violence against women and she spearheaded law and policy reform initiatives on women’s rights issues. Gathumbi graduated from the University of Nairobi Law School and holds an Executive MBA from Jomo Kenyatta University of Technology and postgraduate diploma in community development. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Environmental Law.