Evelyne Opondo

Evelyne Opondo (she/her) is the Africa Director at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) where she provides leadership for ICRW’s strategies and mission in Africa.  She is a skilled strategist and human rights, reproductive health and gender justice advocate with over two decades of practical experience working side by side with activists on the ground.  She has in-depth knowledge of the civil society sector, human rights advocacy, organizational leadership, and strategic communications.

Prior to joining ICRW, Evelyne served as the Senior Regional Director for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights (the Center) based in Kenya. In this role, she was responsible for developing, communicating, and executing strategies, as well as mobilizing resources to ensure successful delivery and sustainability of the Center’s mandate in Africa.

Before joining the Center, she served as the Africa Regional Policy Associate for Ipas, a global sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) organization, where she focused on regional norm building, working closely with the regional human rights mechanisms and partnering with both government and non-governmental organizations across several African countries to contribute to health systems strengthening and access to quality SRHR services for women. From 2004 – 2010, she worked for the Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya, a premier women’s rights organization, where she advocated for a broad range of women rights issues and held a series of progressively responsible positions, leaving the organization in 2010 as the Senior Program Officer.

Evelyne began her career in 2001 as a State Law Officer in the Office of the Attorney General of Kenya. She worked mostly with poor and vulnerable widows in the administration of estates particularly the identification of assets and beneficiaries, litigation, and subsequent transfer of estates.

Evelyne has written several opinion and issue-oriented articles, primarily on women’s rights and holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Pune University, India and a master’s degree in Gender and Development from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. She is a board member of FP2030 and the Chairperson of the Advisory Board of the Reproductive Health Network – Kenya.  She is also a member of Kenya’s Family Planning Total Market Approach Implementation Taskforce. She’s an alumna of WomenLift Health’s East Africa leadership journey, a program that provides the tools, mentorship, and coaching support to help expand the power and influence of women leaders in global health. She is also council member of The Council for Responsible Social Media .