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Group of community healthcare workers.

Regional Directors

IPPF's Regional Directors oversee and support the work of their respective Member Associations.

Six Regional Directors, and one Deputy Regional Director, one based at each IPPF Regional Office, oversee and support the work of Member Associations. They are part of the Senior Management Team. They are responsible for ensuring that good governance and high standards are maintained among the Member Associations. They play a critical role in managing monitoring and evaluation processes. They fulfil an important communications function by voicing country and regional concerns in central policy meetings, and in ensuring that Federation-wide policies and strategies are implemented regionally and locally. They work with their respective Regional Councils to plan work, allocate resources and manage budgets.

Marie-Evelyne Petrus-Barry, Africa Regional Director

We are delighted to welcome on board Marie-Evelyne or Evelyne as she likes to be called, in the position of Regional Director, Africa Region Office (ARO) in IPPF.

Evelyne holds an MA in American Studies and a BA in Translation and interpretation from the University of La Sorbonne in Paris. 

She joins us from Amnesty International where she has been working as the Regional Director for West and Central Africa based in Dakar, Senegal. There she has been overseeing areas across West Africa and Central Africa as well as operations in a further 22 Countries, working at scale and within incredibly complex settings.

Prior to Amnesty International Evelyne has worked for the several UN agencies including as the UN Resident Coordinator in Gabon and representative of UNDP, UNFPA, UN Nations Information Centre, UN Human Rights, Plan International along with other organisations.

Evelyne has strong experience in working with Governments, advocacy and impacting policy. She has developed competencies in human rights, particularly women’s rights, children’s rights and the rights of victims. She has also worked on SRHR issues throughout her career and along with this brings to IPPF significant leadership, advocacy and fundraising skills and experience.

Evelyne is fluent in English, French, Portuguese, Creole and Pular (spoken in 19 African Countries!). She has a fair understanding of Spanish as well.

Evelyne’s interests include literature and music and the rights of people of African descent.

Tomoko Fukuda, East and South East Asia and Oceania Regional Director

Ms. Tomoko Fukuda was appointed the new Regional Director of International Planned Parenthood Federation - East, South East Asia and Oceania Region - (IPPF ESEAOR) beginning 1 June 2019. 

Ms. Fukuda is the first IPPF Regional Director from Japan. With her joining ESEAOR, she brings to IPPF her extensive network experience including past stints as General Secretary of the Japan CSO Network on Global Health; Local Coordinator of the G20 Gender Working Group; Steering Committee Member of the Asia Pacific Alliance (APA) on SRHR; and as an Advisory Group Member of the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism for Universal Health Coverage - UHC2030.  

Ms. Fukuda was the Advocacy Manager of the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP) up until May 2019.  After joining the organization in 1995, initially she was in charge of development assistance projects in countries such as Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste.  Globally, she focused on technical transfer on health promotion and behavior change communication related to sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR).  During her role as Advocacy Manager, she was a part of global advocacy efforts on UHC, as well as advocacy for SRHR surrounding the G7 and G20.

Ms. Fukuda said, “In a rapidly changing society, the role sought by Member Associations is changing. We want to support each Member Association to provide appropriate, timely and affordable information and services and contribute to the achievement of UHC.  As IPPF, we will vigorously raise the voice for the realization of sexual reproductive rights for all people.” 

Tomoko Fukuda was born in Tokyo, Japan.  She spent her childhood years in the Philippines together with her parents.  She graduated from International Christian University, College of Liberal Arts.

Micah Grzywnowicz, European Network Regional Director

Micah Grzywnowicz has been the Regional Director of the IPPF European Network (IPPF EN) since November 2023.

Micah Grzywnowicz (they/them) is originally from Poland and has a Master’s degree in Human Rights from the Central European University. They have worked in the human rights field for the last 17 years, specifically focusing on sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics, as well as intersectionality, non-discrimination, and inclusion.

In their most recent role at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Micah spearheaded the development of the Institute’s portfolio on gender justice. They worked together with Indigenous Peoples organisations to develop indicators for monitoring of human rights of Indigenous Peoples. Prior to that, Micah worked as the International Advocacy Advisor at RFSL, the Swedish Federation for LGBTQI Rights, and led the organisation’s UN advocacy work with a specific focus on the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals and human rights.

As Regional Director, Micah Grzywnowicz is responsible for relationship building with volunteers and Member Associations, ensuring that the entire IPPF EN is operating according to IPPF’s mission, vision and values, and fulfilling its strategic priorities. They are also part of the Senior Management Team which is composed of the Director-General, the Regional Director and the Central Office Directors.

Fadoua Bakhadda, Arab World Regional Director

Fadoua Bakhadda, a Moroccan social activist, started fighting for women’s economic justice since her bachelor studies on business administration.  At her MBA commencement ceremony, she was decorated by her university as a youth social justice activist.  She spent 20% of her studies supporting youth women to become entrepreneurs, to generate income in order to invest on their wellbeing.  Today, her PHD thesis focuses on  the positive correlation between the woman’s economic empowerment and the wellbeing (health and social recognition).

She started working for an international corporation based in Morocco, where she recognized that social responsibility of companies in Morocco was a major issue that needed to be redressed.  She decided to join a national NGO focused on promoting female led enterprises and went on to join OXFAM Morocco to lead an economic social justice program with international stakeholders.

She was previously the Executive Director of the Moroccan family planning association in Morocco (AMPF).  After eight years of work, she’s been able to triple the MA income, build cultural change initiatives and many new partnerships.  She took part in IPPF reform as a member of the resource allocation commission.  She has written on abortion and is a lecturer at the faculty of economics in Rabat, where she teaches health project management and public health systems empowerment.

Fadoua was chosen by UNAIDS as a champion that fights for rights of women living with HIV and access to SRH care in Morocco.  

Eugenia López Uribe – Americans and the Carribbean Regional Director

Eugenia is an experienced advocate for gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights, promoting innovation in the delivery of health services from a human rights perspective. She began her professional career as a volunteer with the Gente Joven (Young people) Programme of MEXFAM, IPPF's Mexican member association. 

She has worked with rural and indigenous people, adolescents, youth, LGBTQI+ populations, sex workers and women with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean. For more than a decade she was the executive director of Balance, a sexual and reproductive rights NGO working on regional advocacy in favour of sexual rights. Internationally, Eugenia has engaged on the follow-up of the commitments of International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD), the Beijing Conference on Women’s rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women - CEDAW and UN General Assembly on AIDS.  She co-founded the Abortion Fund for Social Justice: MARIA, the first initiative of its kind in Latin America. Her experience includes ten years as part of the management team of the Integrated Model of Health Care for Rural Adolescents of the Mexican Social Security Institute - IMMS Oportunidades. Eugenia will be based in Bogotá - Colombia. 

Dona Da Costa Martinez – Americas and the Carribbean Deputy Regional Director

Dona began her work in sexual and reproductive health, thirty-five years ago, when she joined the Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago – FPATT in 1985.  

In her formative years in the Association, she was responsible for research, planning and evaluation and the development of programmes to ensure the achievement of the Association’s mission.  From 1990 she served as the Deputy Executive Director of the Association before taking on the mantle of Executive Director in 1999.  

Under her stewardship, the Association expanded its work in many other areas with a focus on integrating sexual rights in all of its programmes.  This included expansion of its advocacy work in abortion and LGBTQI rights, comprehensive sexuality education, gender-based violence, HIV prevention and ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health services to most at risk populations including sex workers and adolescents.  

She serves as Co-Chair of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC), is the Chairperson of the Trinidad and Tobago Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance and serves on several other committees at the national, regional and international levels.  

Dona is the holder of an Executive Master’s in Business Administration from the Institute of Business, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. Dona will be based in Port of Spain. 

 

 

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