Tracy Jooste has spent over fifteen years working to make essential services like healthcare, water, sanitation, and housing more accessible and fairer. Her work centers on bringing citizens into decision-making processes, building partnerships, and using community insights to shape public policy and budgeting decisions.
At Results for Development (R4D), Tracy serves as Associate Director of the Governance Action Hub, which supports a global community of change-makers to develop practical solutions to governance challenges. She works with local partners to design and test these solutions, connects them with the global governance and anti-corruption community, and helps turn good ideas into meaningful change.
Throughout her career across academia, government, business, and nonprofits, Tracy has led teams and built partnerships to strengthen public services and accountability. In South Africa, she developed a gender-responsive budgeting program that improved water and sanitation services for women and girls and influenced government policy. She was part the leadership team that established the national Asivikelane campaign, which improved water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services for more than 5 million people living in informal settlements. She also led a health advocacy campaign that strengthened services at 45 public clinics serving over 650,000 people and helped restore critical health services for young people and women. Prior to that role, she served as Director of Policy and Research for Human Settlements in the Western Cape Government, where she established public sector partnerships with civil society, academia, and philanthropy.
Tracy is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics, an inaugural Leader in Residence for Policy Change at the Atlantic Institute, and an alumna of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. For several years she led the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) online program in public management and governance, teaching young professionals from 14 African countries.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in politics, philosophy, and economics and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Cape Town, and a postgraduate diploma in housing and urban finance from Erasmus University Rotterdam.
