Sheila Wetugi

 Sheila Wetugi is a Social Scientist with over twelve years of professional experience in international development. The gist of her experience has been program development, implementation, and grants management. Sheila has served in various roles with several International NGOs. These include Christian Aid, Amref Health Africa, Build Africa – Kenya, Population Service International – Kenya, and Adventist Development and Relief Agency – Kenya. Sheila has implemented programmes funded by different donors including USAID, DFID, World Bank, SIDA and EU from which she has acquired a unique blend of knowledge on donor requirements and operations. She is therefore well versed with establishing and managing donor relations. 

Before joining the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) in November 2021, Sheila had mainly worked within the Kenyan Country Context. However, through her current role as grants officer for AAS; she has broadened this to include working in Pan African Context with partnerships with the US National Institute of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Sheila possesses a vast set of skills and competencies, which she currently applies to contribute to enabling AAS, achieve the set objectives. She is precise, dynamic, has a high level of integrity, she is transparent and accountable. She is abler to multi-task, flexible and adaptive. She also possesses excellent people management skills. In addition, she is strong in community mobilization and working with grassroot organizations to bring positive change to social problems. She successfully implemented programs that benefited 39,950 Orphaned and Vulnerable Children and 8,000 HIV-positive households, strengthening them economically for sustainability and leaving them more resilient. One of her outstanding achievements was when she was assigned a local implementing partner that had been put on a performance improvement plan. She supported them to improve from 60% performance to 95% within 3 Months. 

Sheila has a Bachelor of Arts degree in social sciences, having majored in sociology. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in development studies. Sheila is zealous about utilizing her knowledge, experience, skills and competencies to advance the agenda of AAS on the African continent. Her vision for AAS is that AAS will grow and become a renowned Academy celebrated worldwide for transforming lives in Africa through science. This will only be possible by supporting research, propelling the research findings to be translated into relevant policies and supporting the successful implementation of such policies across the African continent.