Jayshree Pather is the Projects Director of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), an independent statutory body established to promote and strengthen diversity in the media in South Africa. She is responsible of the overall management of the Grants Unit at the MDDA and was appointed in June 2006. Prior to joining the MDDA, Jayshree worked for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to manage Canadian ODA in the HIV/AIDS sector in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. She was responsible for setting up CIDA’s Rapid Response Fund which fast-tracked funding to NGO’s and CBO’s;  as well as managing bilateral HIV/AIDS programmes with the Department of Health’s NGO Unit, Engender Health, the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of South Africa and the Democratic Nurses’ Organisation in South Africa (DENOSA). She has extensive experience in project and programme management gained from her work in the development / NGO sector in South Africa in range of different sectors: the Environmental and Development Agency Trust (EDA Trust) in the areas of rural development and natural resource management, the World Summit on Sustainable Development Civil Society Secretariat, and IDASA in the area of local government.  She also worked as a researcher for the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) for a brief period. She has published two case studies through Ford Foundation funding: Women, Land and Development; and “Supporting Small-Scale Farmers: the Herschel Case Study” and collaborated on a research study that tracked women’s participation in the first local government elections. She has a Masters in Development Planning and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand.