This page reflects work that The Jo Cox Foundation carried out prior to 2022, but which we no longer deliver.
We want responses to the world’s complex problems to be informed by humanitarian approaches.
Jo Cox was a life-long humanitarian. She dedicated her career to helping those less fortunate than herself, whether in Batley and Spen or around the world. She was a staunch advocate of an ethical foreign policy, and committed to the protection of civilians in conflict.
Every decade or so, the world is tested by a crisis so grave that it breaks the mould: one so horrific and inhumane that the response of politicians to it becomes emblematic of their generation — their moral leadership or cowardice, their resolution or incompetence. It is how history judges us. We have been tested by the Second World War, the genocide in Rwanda and the slaughter in Bosnia, and I believe that Syria is our generation’s test.
— Jo Cox
The Jo Cox Memorial Grants
We have worked with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office since 2017 on the development of the Jo Cox Memorial Grants. Through the grants, £10 million of funding has been provided to projects focusing on two areas that Jo was passionate about: women’s empowerment and building resilient communities to combat identity-based violence, including mass atrocities. The original series of grants has now ended, but we are committed to advocating for their renewal.
50,000+
women and girls across 17 countries have benefitted from these grants
1,223+
women have been helped into politics
558+
women in leadership positions have received assistance and training
Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), Uganda
88 women from the communities FOWODE works in ran for a leadership position in the 2021 general elections and 66 were successful in securing a position of power and influence.
Internews, the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Internews supported women’s networks to take a leading role in conflict prevention in the country. Women’s roles are typically overlooked in such processes, but the predominantly female Nyunzu Early Warning Group sensitively and actively contributed to the diffusion of a conflict.
