Nandita Baruah

Nandita Baruah is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in India, and formerly served as deputy country representative in Nepal. She has over 25 years of professional experience working on gender, human rights, labor migration and human trafficking issues in South and Southeast Asia. She has headed South Asia regional programs on gender-based violence, human trafficking and migration and rural development. She worked as the Gender Advisor to the CIDA in India and also as the South Asia Regional Gender Fund Manager. She was the Regional Coordinator for the UN Women anti-trafficking program and the UNODC UN-GIFT program. She has served with USAID India as the regional anti-trafficking and gender specialist. In these roles Nandita Baruah worked to support national governments and civil society partners to design and deliver programs that effectively address the core socio-economic and political dimension of development through a rights-based and gender-equitable framework. She has worked in India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal.

Nandita Baruah joined The Asia Foundation in 2008 as chief of party for a USAID funded Counter-trafficking in Persons (CTIP) project in Cambodia, and after successful completion of the program in Cambodia she moved to the Foundation’s Nepal office in 2011 as chief of party for the CTIP program in Nepal. Baruah was awarded the Prime Minister’s Gold Medal by the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) in recognition for the technical support provided by her for creation of victim protection policies and practices.

Nandita Baruah has extensive experience as a gender trainer and has provided regional and national-level training on gender issues to wide variety of stakeholders such as judges, police officers, agriculturalist, government officials, and corporate sector representatives. In addition to her extensive experience in the development sector, Baruah has also worked with public sector and private sector companies. She was the gender advisor and trainer for the India Farmer Fertilizers Cooperative Limited; and Vice President- Rehabilitation and Resettlement for Reliance Industries Limited, India