Unlocking Progress through Focusing on Adolescent Girls

Dr. Yvette Efevbera is a global health, gender equality, and equity leader working to create a world where young people and women are healthy, happy, unafraid, and unapologetic. She has nearly 15 years of experience across academic, non-profit, and philanthropic spaces at the intersection of research, programs, policy, and advocacy, with focus on sub-Saharan Africa and the Diaspora. Yvette is currently Advisor, Gender-Based Violence and Child Marriage and Lead of Adolescents and Social Norms Evidence and Insights in the Gender Equality Division at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; in these roles, she develops new strategies, builds partnerships, and leads multi-million-dollar investment portfolios to address barriers girls and women face. Yvette has held numerous board and advisory positions including with the Global Health Corps, Adolescent Girls Investment Plan (AGIP); Gates Foundation Bold Conversations in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Advisory Group; and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. She holds a Bachelor of Arts, with High Honors from Michigan State University, and a Master of Science and Doctor of Science from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.