Dr. Nandini Azad

Dr. Azad has 25 years of grassroots, international and national experience with civil society, government and UN agencies on gender issues at senior levels.

She has a proven track record on gender issues; has U.N/ multi lateral experience both in India and abroad (IFAD, ILO, ADB etc., and been a former UN Staffer); has worked at senior levels in Women / Child/ Youth/ Planning and represented in Finance Ministries in the Govt. of India (including preparing the National Policy on Women in India in 1998 – NPPW); has both International and National Civil Society credentials including being a Board member of WWF and wide attendance of UN and International Summits; European Commission and Parliament linkages; known in the SAARC/ Asian Countries apart from having worked with N. American International Women NGOs/ academic institutions / Universities. Several of her works on gender have been published by UNICEF, ILO, IFAD, UNCHS and other UN agencies. She was commended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for her “Outlay-Outcome” report (wherein she as a civil society activist was invited to the Planning Commission to assess the outcomes of the monies expended on Ministries in Govt. of India. (2005)

She is also Member-Secretary of the Independent Commission for People’s Rights and Development, and a well-known International gender expert, trainer, researcher and pro-poor advocate. She has been committed to building larger platforms for the voices of vulnerable constituencies in the period of economic reform, especially poor marginalized and indigenous women.

In India, she pioneered the concept of pro-poor advocacy (PPA) training in 1999 and trained 550 trainers/advocates from over 430 NGOs in 55 districts in 5 of the poorest states of India (wherein development denial has led to minimal development security in these areas) (with a special emphasis on gender). These pro-poor/pro-gender workshops have been evolved to minimize development denial and enhance security. Essentially concerned about grassroots and people’s movements, she was one of the first to reach the Tsunami hit areas in December 2004 to get an eye witness account of the affected region to the central govt.

In remote areas in parts of Central India (Jharkhand, Bihar, MP, Orissa and other areas) where potholes substitute roads, where female literacy rates in indigenous belts can be as low as 6% or death from maternal and infant mortality is as commonplace as a morning cup of tea for the privileged, where banks and funders fear to go in this ‘fragile high risk area’ (in their parlance), where even low paid and day wage earning artisan, agriculture labour, construction work, or informal sector activity is slowly but steadily being disrupted by global forces – in these areas of development denial, Dr. Azad has succeeded in establishing micro-finance networks for poor, indigenous women, creating social entrepreneurs and micro finance advocates at the local levels.