Jessica Horn

Moleskine Foundation

Senior Research Fellow

Biography

Jessica Horn is feminist practitioner and philanthropy leader with over two decades of experience around body politics, futures, and cultivating just social imaginations. An innovator by inclination, Jessica pioneered the Futures initiative at the African Women’s Development Fund, and in 2021 became the first African woman to lead the Ford Foundation’s East Africa office. She also supported co-design of early models of participatory philanthropy (UHAI-EASHRI and FRIDA), and co-founded Our Africa, a platform for African women’s voices on openDemocracy. Trained in women’s health rights, Jessica served as Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health and was the first coordinator of Amanitare, the African partnership for sexual and reproductive health and rights. Her analysis has been published broadly, including The Lancet, Feminist Africa, Al Jazeera and The Guardian. Her book African Feminist Praxis: Cartographies of Liberatory Worldmaking (Sage, 2025) offers insight into the thinking and practices of decades of Africa’s feminist movements. Jessica is a founder member of the African Feminist Forum and has served on several governance boards. She is currently Senior Research Fellow at Moleskine Foundation. She is a graduate of Smith College, the London School of Economics, and the Scenarios Programme at Oxford University’s Said Business School.