Joke Manders is a gender advisor with more than 12 years experience in the field of gender integration, gender equality and women’s rights in international development. She has a keen interest in gender justice and power relations. 

Joke has worked for a wide range of international (EC, Council of Europe) and bilateral development organizations (DGIS, SDC) as well as (I)NGOs and women’s rights organizations, addressing thematic areas such as (sexual) gender-based violence, women’s and girls’ empowerment, women’s public/political participation and leadership, women’s economic participation and self-reliance, socio-economic development, food security, poverty reduction, and sustainable development. 

Before joining KIT, Joke held a long-term position at Femconsult. While at Femconsult she collaborated closely with KIT during the implementation of the Gender Resource Facility (2014-2018), a support facility on gender equality and gender integration for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its Embassies, and partners. Prior to that, Joke was responsible for monitoring the grantees of the Dutch MoFA funded MDG3 (2008-2012) and Funding Leadership and Opportunities for Women (FLOW 2012-2015) programme. For the EU Gender Analysis Support project she provided advice on gender integration in the project design of EU financed projects across several development cooperation sectors.

Joke holds a master’s degree in Development Studies from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, and conducted her thesis research on the role of smallholder farmers in Costa Rican forest conservation.