A warm welcome to new Environment Programme Director – Masego Madzwamuse –

Dear friends of Oak Foundation,

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Oak Trustees have selected Masego Madzwamuse to lead our Environment Programme team. 

Masego joins us from the Southern Africa Trust, where she was the Chief Executive Officer. She will be relocating to Oak’s Geneva office and should start working with us in early September.

Masego has an established track record as grant maker and a policy analyst specialising in climate justice, natural resources management, and social development.

With over 20 years-experience, Masego has worked on the rights of communities in conservation and supported social movements and civil society organisations advocating for social and economic justice. This has involved leading research and advocacy and working with: economic justice networks; trade, debt, and aid advocacy groups; parliamentary portfolio committees; and conservation and environmental organisations working on natural resource governance and socio-economic and cultural rights.

Her previous leadership roles included team leader of the Social and Economic Justice programme at the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa and country director of the Botswana Office for International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). While at the IUCN, she was part of the IUCN social policy team. She is also a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Economics and Social Policy.

Masego has lived in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa and holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Sciences and a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Environmental Science.

We look forward to finding an opportunity to introduce you to Masego in the coming months.

With my very best wishes,
Douglas Griffiths

President
Oak Foundation