Alisha Graves
Alisha Graves leads strategy, development and advocacy efforts for The OASIS Initiative and is the President of Venture Strategies for Health and Development, a non-profit organization aiming to help stabilize global population by securing women’s freedom to choose their family size. Alisha lectures internationally on population and food security in the Sahel. She is a research fellow for Project Drawdown, analyzing the potential contribution of family planning for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Previously, she worked to improve women's access to misoprostol, a generic, essential medicine. In this role, she worked on drug registration, operations research, and advocating for evidence-based maternal health policies across seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. She completed her MPH in International Maternal and Child Health at UC Berkeley in 2006.
Ethnographic Research for the Sahel Women's Empowerment and Demographic Dividend Project (SWEDD)
The study, conducted in a region of Niger with some of the highest rates of maternal mortality, child marriage, and infant mortality, found that the main cause for early marriage was a combined result of poor educational opportunities and a concern for girls' safety.
Hilin Mu Program: Safe Spaces for Adolescent Girls
We provide safe space clubs to girls at risk for early marriage as well as mobilize families and influencers to change norms around girls education and early marriage.
Sahel Resilience Learning
The purpose of this study is to help inform USAID capacity building activities for adolescent girls and their communities. USAID's resilience efforts in Niger aim to respond to the food security needs of people in Maradi and Zinder, two of the most malnourished regions of Niger.
