JOINT CENTER News Room
Joint Center Appoints New Head of South Africa Office
June 7, 2000
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Eddie N. Williams, president of the Joint Center, today announced the appointment of Gayla Cook as director of its office in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cook will be responsible for the Joint Center's programs in South Africa. The South Africa office is part of the Joint Center's office of international affairs which is headed by Carole Henderson Tyson.
"Gayla Cook brings to the Joint Center 25 years of extensive experience in international development, project implementation, human resource development and communications throughout the African continent. Her international experience will undoubtedly strengthen the work we have been doing in South Africa since 1993 and in sub-Saharan Africa since 1988," said Williams.
Cook was previously executive director of Philelana Holdings, a South Africa-based consulting firm involved in human resource and economic development projects in Southern Africa. Other past positions include vice president of Aurora Associates International, a U.S.-based management consulting firm; associate producer and assistant director of The Return, a documentary on returning South African exiles; consultant to the Zimbabwe Ministry of Community Development and Women's Affairs; and executive vice president of the National Council of Negro Women, responsible for the International Division.
Ms. Cook holds a bachelor of arts in English Literature and Africana Studies from Cornell University and a master of science in television and radio from Syracuse University.
The Joint Center has undertaken various projects in Africa since the 1980s, including work in Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Uganda, as well as South Africa. It has been fully engaged in the African democratization process since 1993, beginning in South Africa, on the eve of that country's first democratic elections, and then expanding to include Benin in 1994. Presently, the Joint Center has a democracy and governance program and an economic policy support program in South Africa, and supports elections and political processes throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
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