Sexuality and Reproductive Health and Rights

Youth Sexuality, Reproductive Health, and Rights

Team

Susie Jolly

Program Officer Beijing

Susie Jolly works on sexuality and reproductive health and rights issues. Her grant making supports organizations that promote sexuality and reproductive health education in China with a particular focus on poor and vulnerable communities.

Before joining the Ford Foundation in 2010, Susie was convenor of the Sexuality and Development Programme in the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex. She earlier served as a researcher on the IDS health team and later as communications officer in the IDS gender information unit. From 1994 to 1998, Susie lived in Beijing, working as a program officer on poverty reduction for the United Nations Development Programme. She served in Brussels as political assistant to members of the European Parliament from 1991 to 1994.

Susie has been an activist for many years. She has taken part in struggles for justice by LGBT, sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS. She has joined efforts to challenge the "straitjacket" of gender and sexuality norms that disempower so many people.

Susie also has extensive experience managing training events and carrying out consultancies on HIV/AIDS and gender for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UK Department for International Development, the World Bank and international agencies in China and other parts of Asia.

She was awarded an MPhil in development studies at IDS in 2000. She earned her undergraduate degree at Oxford University and undertook further study at China Women's College in Beijing. Susie has published widely on gender, sexuality and development.