Sumeeta Banerji
Policy Specialist
Thematic Expertise Focus area: South-South Cooperation, Poverty reduction, Democratic Governance, Inequality SDGs that impact children and young people
Sumeeta is a social development professional and strategist currently working as Policy Specialist at the UN Office for South-South Cooperation in New York. She provides substantive support on South-South & Triangular Cooperation including to inter-governmental processes, Reports of Secretary General and UNDP Administrator and policy advice for UN Coordination.
She is focal point for India-UN Partnership Fund which supports LDCs, SIDS to achieve SDGs. In 2018, she worked in Bangladesh, to support the UN’s response to the Rohingya refugee crisis and developed UNDP’s Governance Strategy. From 2007-2018 she was leading the Democratic Governance portfolio in UNDP India incl. programmes on public administration, digital governance, access to justice, election management, capacity development for local governance, decentralization, human development, and rights based social security interventions. She designed, managed policy and technical initiatives to reduce poverty and improve local service delivery across several states.
She advised national administrations on leveraging technology to achieve development goals. She 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’ on Poverty Reduction for UN in India. From 1994-2005, she worked with the Canadian International Development Agency leading projects on governance, human rights, child rights, inclusive education, livelihoods and HIV/AIDS.