Southern Africa

Eka Esu Williams

Program Officer Johannesburg

Eka Williams works on sexuality and reproductive health and rights in the foundation's Southern Africa office in Johannesburg. Her grant making addresses key reproductive health and rights issues facing young women in the region within the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She promotes efforts to reduce the vulnerability of young women to adverse reproductive health outcomes.

Eka joined the Ford Foundation in 2007. Over the past two decades, her work has concentrated on HIV/AIDS and reproductive health and rights issues in several sub-Saharan African countries. She was research associate at the Population Council in Washington, D.C., and Johannesburg from 1998 to 2007. Previously, she was resident adviser for Family Health International in Nigeria. She also spent several years in academia at the University of Calabar, Nigeria and is a founding member of the Society for Women Against AIDS in Africa.

Eka has a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of London and a master's degree in public health from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She was born in Nigeria and obtained her first degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.