Sibi Lawson-Marriott is the Director of Girl Capital/Child Protection for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). Sibi manages the Foundation’s investment portfolio dedicated to ending all forms of violence against children on the African sub-continent, with a special focus on eliminating forced and child marriage.
Sibi is a veteran international development practitioner who has served in several leadership roles across the African sub-continent and in the multilateral system.
In this capacity, she has spent decades overseeing efforts to tackle the region’s most complex challenges in the most fragile settings. This experience generated a fluency in the different languages of governments, multilateral institutions, academia, private sector and civil society groups – as well as an expertise in identifying the catalytic gaps that prevent even the most sizable investments from reaching their full potential.
Sibi is a provocative thought leader in her field, and a vocal advocate for the most vulnerable and marginalized. She has brokered flagship partnerships, driven numerous innovations and consistently mobilized resources at scale. She believes strongly in the universality of human rights and the importance of harnessing global partners and resources across a broad spectrum of sectors to deliver change where it is most needed.
Before her current role, Sibi served as Country Director for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Burundi and Djibouti, where she worked with government and partners to strengthen humanitarian action, expand home-grown school feeding programs, and strengthen local food systems. She provided strategic, partnership and programme support as the Senior Advisor and Team Lead for Climate Action, Resilient Livelihoods and the Economic Empowerment of Women for the WFP Regional Bureau for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Previous assignments included senior roles in country offices in Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia, as well as critical posts for both WFP and UNICEF in New York at the UN Headquarters. She is a formally trained humanitarian policy specialist and an experienced diplomat and policy influencer who has contributed to numerous national and international policy forums and specialist panels.
Sibi is a citizen of Benin and holds a BA in Political Science from Oberlin College and a Master of African Area Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has two sons and lives in Nairobi.
“Kofi Annan’s legacy of bringing people and institutions together with a determined spirit of collaboration to address complex challenges remains deeply relevant today. I look forward to contributing my experience and to working with the Foundation to advance our shared belief in a peaceful, prosperous and equitable future, particularly for the young people across Africa, for whom so much is at stake.”
Sibi Lawson-Marriott
