A brief profile of Dr. Meena Acharya

Vice Chairperson, Friends for Peace

Resource Person,Women's Studies in Padma Kanya College in Nepal,

Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation, Nepal

Independent Researcher

Meena Acharya is currently General Secretary of a Research/Advocacy NGO, Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation, a voluntary position. She is also a senior advisor and Trustee of another action oriented NGO, SAHAVAGI, which she helped to establish and from where she does her consulting work.

Her research interests focus on poverty, gender, macro economy, political structures and policies for equitable development. She was involved in engendering the Tenth Plan of Nepal, Gender Auditing the Budgetary Processes in Nepal, and Engendering the Population Census of Nepal, 2001. Currently she is involved in a World Bank/DFID project to reprocess the Census data in a poverty perspective, particularly in an ethnicity/caste and gender perspective. Dr Acharya is also involved as a peer reviewer in the ongoing Development Policy Review by the World Bank for Nepal. Concurrently, she is involved as a team leader in Gender Mainstreaming in Education, a UNICEF funded project being implemented by SAHAVAGI.

Dr. Acharya has a Ph.D. in Development Studies from, The University of Wisconsin (1987), M.S. with Distinction in Economic Cybernetics, from Moscow State University (1966) and B.A. (Honors) in Economics from Delhi University (1960). She has occupied important positions in several NGOs (Chair person, SAHAVAGI, 1993-2002, and Executive Director of Institute for Integrated Development Studies, 1990-1994). She has worked for many years (1966-1990) in the Central Bank of the country, Nepal Rastra Bank, occupying various positions including of Chiefs of Research and Development Finance Departments. In the meantime, on leave from the Central Bank, she also worked as an economist, in the Development Economics Department of the World Bank (1980-1982) in Washington, DC.

Her other professional activities include helping the establishment (1997) and providing services continuously as a Resource Person to the first ever regular Women's Studies in Nepal, in Padma Kanya College and Regent's Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley (1993). Dr. Acharya has been providing consultancy services to various UN organizations, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank since 1978. Her most recent consultancies include with DESA/UN Head Quarters (2000, on Evaluation of UN System's Impact on Capacity Building for Poverty Eradication in Nepal, 1985-2000, as an input to the Tri-Annual Policy Review Session of the UN ) with UNIFEAM (2002,on Gender Budget in Nepal), with the Central Bureau of Statistics\UNDP ( Gender Mainstreaming in Nepal Census, 2001 ), with INSTRW/UN (1993 - 1997) on the project for " Preparation of an International Manual on Collection and Valuation of Time Use Data and Measurement of Paid and Unpaid Work", with ADB/ Manila on a regional study "Review of Performance of WID and Poverty Reduction Efforts in Bank Financed Projects" 1995.

Dr. Acharya is a committee member of South Asians for Peace (SAHR), executive member of Transparency/Nepal, a member of the Alliance for Peace ( in Nepal), Board member in Institute of Integrated Development Studies, a policy oriented research institution, and advisor to several institutions working for women.

Selected Publications (English Only):

Efforts at Promotion of Women in Nepal, TPAMF/FES, Kathmandu (2003)

Engendering the Budgetary System in Nepal. UNIFEM, New Delhi (2003)

Structural Adjustment and Poverty Eradication in Nepal, IIDS, Kathmandu (2003)

"Towards Conflict Transformation in Nepal: Recent Trends in Government -Maoist Dialogue" in Conflict Resolution and Governance in Nepal, NEFAS/FES , Kathmandu (2003)

Labor Market Development and Poverty: with focus on opportunities for women in Nepal, Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation, Kathmandu. (2000)