Chi-Chi Undie

Chi-Chi Undie is a Senior Associate with the Population Council’s International Programs Division in Nairobi, Kenya, where she provides intellectual leadership, strategic direction, management oversight, and technical support for the implementation of complex, regional research and intervention programs, involving multiple partners and countries, and a range of technical assistance needs. She serves as a member of the Council’s International Programs Management Team (which covers 12 country offices across Africa, Asia, and Latin America), heading the Research, Ethics, and Quality Assurance docket.

Her research focuses primarily on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and girls’ education. For over a decade, she has directed the Population Council-led ‘Africa Regional SGBV Network’—a multi-country, multi-partner SGBV response and research initiative in the East, Horn, Great Lakes, and Southern regions of Africa. Her work on SGBV has had a wide influence on policy and practice, leading to the passage of regional resolutions and to the regional uptake of evidence-based interventions developed under the Network.

She is the inaugural Board Chair of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative - the world’s largest network on research around violence against women and violence against children. She currently directs two five-year, regional, FCDO-funded research consortia - one on sexual and reproductive health and rights in refugee settings, and the other on female genital mutilation/cutting.

Before joining the Council, Chi-Chi was a Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow and, later, an Associate Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center. There she led the Center’s sexuality program and implemented a variety of sexual and reproductive health research projects.

She holds a BA in French from the University of Calabar and graduate degrees in Intercultural Communication (MA) and Language, Literacy, and Culture (PhD) from the University of Maryland.