About Us

© Ipas Bolivia

Ipas Europe is a nonprofit organization registered as “Stichting Ipas Europe” in the Netherlands. Ipas Europe is a member of the global Ipas network, which is committed to a shared vision and mission.

Our vision:

A world where all people have the right and ability to determine their own sexuality and reproductive health.

Our mission:

Ipas Europe builds resilient abortion and contraceptive ecosystems using a comprehensive approach across sectors, institutions, and communities.

We center our work on the needs and perspectives of individuals who seek abortion care, and we strive to better center the needs and perspectives of all people who can become pregnant. Our approach addresses all the factors that impact a person’s ability to access abortion.

We are working toward a sustainable abortion ecosystem, a dynamic condition in which resilient local stakeholders and systems are actively accountable and committed to abortion rights and responsive to everyone’s abortion needs. We know that to achieve this, we must work through effective, equitable and intersectional partnerships, integrating abortion into the broader health, gender equality, and social justice movements.

Ipas Sustainable Abortion Care

Contact:

Nicolette van Duursen, Board member and Director Ipas Europe

Sloterdijk Teleport Towers, Kingsfordweg 151, 1043 GR,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Our Leadership

Ipas Europe is governed by a Board of Directors. The Board oversees the Director of Ipas Europe, who leads and manages the operations of the organization. The Board has the following members:

Annika Malmborg, Sweden

Treasurer

Annika Malmborg is currently director of the International Department at RFSU – Sexual and Reproductive Rights for All (the Swedish member association of IPPF). Annika has over 30 years experience of working with human rights within the civil society sector, with 15 years in management positions at Save the Children, Plan International and now RFSU. Her experience ranges from heading work on global policy and civil society engagement to resource mobilisation and grant management. Annika has been president of the board of the Swedish NGO platform Concord, as well as represented as an independent expert on the advisory board of AmplifyChange.

Annika Malmborg

Anna Frellsen, Denmark

Chair

Anna Frellsen has been the CEO of Maternity Foundation since 2013. During her leadership, Maternity Foundation has established itself as a well-respected player on the global maternal health scene. Among her responsibilities, Anna has led the scale-up of Maternity Foundation’s mobile health solutions, including the Safe Delivery App, which is now used in more than 40 countries.

Anna holds an MBA from IESE and has more than 15 years of business experience within strategy, marketing and general management. She has worked as the CEO for a small start-up, as a partner with KPMG Strategy, and she spent more than seven years with McKinsey & Company. She started her career working in the pharmaceutical industry in the US and the UK. In addition to being a board member of Ipas Europe, she sits on the boards of Ovacure, the William Demant Foundation, William Demant Invest and CfL (Danish Management Center).

Anna Frellsen

Kathryn Andersen, USA

Dr. Andersen sets Ipas’s strategic technical direction and research agenda in support of the organizational strategic plan and mission. She leads Ipas’s work to understand and advance key issues in abortion and contraception care; such as increasing evidence for women’s self-use of medical abortion, measuring abortion quality, as well as abortion care for women experiencing gender-based violence and women in humanitarian settings. Her teams develop and implement strategies that build evidence to strengthen Ipas’s impact and ultimately, to increase women’s and girls’ access to safe abortion.

During her 14-year tenure at Ipas, Dr. Andersen previously managed significant research activities at Ipas and provided technical support and guidance to researchers across the organization. She has extensive experience in research, monitoring and evaluation with Ipas programs across south Asia and Africa. She also serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and as Consulting Editor for Research Methods for the Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health.

Matthew Hart, France

Secretary

Matthew “Matty” Hart joined as Director of the Global Philanthropy Project in 2015, leading the efforts of an organization internationally recognized as the primary thought leader and go-to partner for donor coordination around global LGBTI work.

Founder and principal of the Paris-based Lafayette Practice, Hart has previously served as Senior Strategist for Europe for Funders Concerned about AIDS, and National Director for Public Engagement at Solutions for Progress.

Hart also serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Calamus Foundation (DE), and has previously served as a member of The Civil Marriage Collaborative, a board member of Funders for LGBTQ Issues, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Philadelphia’s Sustainable Business Network, and The Leeway Foundation, and the community funding board of Bread & Roses Fund. A Jonathan Lax Academic Fellow, Hart received degrees in Urban Studies and Cultural Anthropology from Temple University.

Hart lives in Paris, France.

Matty Hart

Nicolette van Duursen, The Netherlands

Board member and Director Ipas Europe

Nicolette van Duursen  has 25 years’ experience as a Technical Advisor and Country and Regional Director in Africa and South Asia, in particular in Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, DRC, India, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe.

She has built and led regional and country teams to develop, plan and implement programs, oversaw the development and implementation of region-specific SRHR strategic plans in Southern Africa, Francophone Africa and the Sahel and generated new funding to secure programme expansion, in particular for innovative family planning and safe abortion programmes. For Ipas, she built the Francophone Africa program and has been leading the establishment of Ipas in Europe since 2019.

She has developed an in-depth understanding of the complex environment in which people make health and livelihoods decisions and how to focus resources where they will have the greatest impact. She has also built strong partnerships with local governments, international donors, and implementing partners and works closely with UN agencies, and government donors as well as foundations and various philanthropists.

Nicolette van Duursen

Read Stichting Ipas Europe’s Policy Plan