Communications, research, advocacy, grantmaking.
Jo Baker is a British writer and social justice strategist with expertise in human rights, gender and contemporary forms of slavery. She has worked largely in grant-making, policy advocacy and communications, but also impact assessment and training - all following a journalism career that she occasionally dips back into. Her clients and employers have included various UN agencies, NGOs and funders, ranging from Oxfam and Plan International to the Sigrid Rausing Trust; she's widely published and has worked in most regions of the world. Jo is driven by the pursuit of a fairer world and she's open to projects of all sizes that lean into this goal.
Please drop her a line about -
Research & writing
Copywriting & editing
Strategic advocacy
Ethical communications
Strategic grant making
Impact assessment
Gender analysis
Training
You'll find a selection of her published work under the Home tab and more about her on the next page.
Consultancy examples
Oxfam. To guide the campaigning of Oxfam GB and a UK INGO climate justice network Jo developed an internal scoping paper and workshop on evidence, themes and linkages around women’s rights and climate justice, with recommendations for campaigning, focused on perspectives of feminist organizations in the global south.
UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. Since 2018 Jo has annually reviewed and shortlisted applications to the fund from women-led civil society organizations across the world and fed into the grant-making process.
Landell Mills for the European Union. As a senior results-oriented monitor Jo visited grantees and stakeholders on intensive mid-term monitoring missions across Asia to evaluate and advise on the progress of EU-funded human rights and development projects, and advise grantees on impact monitoring and reporting. Themes included livelihoods, labour rights, torture and racism, in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
UN Women HQ, China, Asia-Pacific: As an in-house and consultant communications consultant in three regions she has advised on strategic communication, produced high spec content for policy and programme use and reported on advocacy negotiations and events, including the ASEAN peoples’ forum, to support public awareness and resource mobilization goals.
DIGNITY – The Danish Institute against Torture, the Thailand Institute of Justice, Penal Reform International, the OSCE ODIHR, the Cyrus R. Vance Centre for International Justice, Women Beyond Walls. Jo designed and led a five-country research study on women’s human rights in prisons for DIGNITY via qualitative research in prisons and prison communities, legal review and human rights monitoring, and by training country-based researchers. She has since developed and advocacy content, curricula and guidelines for penal officers, led regional trainings for penal officers and researchers in Asia, the FSU and the UK, and presented at international fora for a range of organizations. She belongs to the international Women in Prison network.
Plan International. She developed an internal position paper to advise the Because I Am a Girl campaign on messaging around the evidential links between violence against girls with gender norms and constructs. She has taken on similar roles for the IPPF to inform its advocacy on social development.
Social Development Direct for DFID. She mapped and analysed international policymaking on violence against women and girls (VAWG) to inform and recommend interventions and opportunities for influence for the UK Department for Intl Development in the international arena, via expert interviews with range of UK and international practitioners.
"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." Arundhati Roy