Sumeeta Banerji Policy Specialist, United Nations
She is currently working as a Policy Specialist at the UN Office of South-South Collaboration at UN Headquarters in New York. Earlier this year, she spent few months in Bangladesh, designing interventions as part of the UN’s response to the Rohingya refugee crisis and developing UNDP’s Democratic Governance Strategy for Bangladesh. Prior to this, Sumeeta was leading the Democratic Governance portfolio for UNDP in India from 2007-2017, designing and managing complementary policy and technical initiatives for Government which reduce poverty and improve local service delivery across several states. She handled a portfolio of programs advising national administrations on how to leverage technology and good practice to achieve development goals and deliver social value on a wide range of themes including sustainable development goals (SDGs), public administration, digital governance, access to justice, election management, capacity development for local governance and decentralization, human development, and rights based social security interventions. In the last two years, Sumeeta also advised sub-national governments in mainstreaming SDGs in plans and designed tools for monitoring and implementation, including innovation labs. From 2005-2007, she was leading a 'Community of Practice' (CoP) on Poverty Reduction for the United Nations in India, part of the UN's Knowledge Management Partnership Initiative ‘Solution Exchange’. Prior to joining the UN in India, Sumeeta spent several years, 1994-2005, with the Canadian International Development Agency leading projects in the areas of democratic governance, human rights, child rights, inclusive education, livelihoods and, HIV/AIDS. Sumeeta is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s India Leadership Initiative and BMW Foundation’s Global Responsible Fellow. She did her Undergraduate Degree in History from the Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi and her Masters in International Relations from the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. She is also a linguist and has a Masters degree in German and Diploma in French and Spanish.