Sandhya Venkateswaran

As Deputy Director, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Sandhya leads on policy and the development of strategic partnerships across the India Country Office(ICO), with a particular focus on strategic oversight for the health and nutrition policy agenda. . She is involved in leading, sharpening and advancing the policy agenda for the ICO. Prior to joining the Foundation, she has led policy work across different organizations. At CARE India she was responsible to set up and lead an organizational initiative of advocacy to address root causes of poverty and human rights violations in India. She also led the policy and advocacy work at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. With two and a half decades of work in the social sector, she has engaged across a continuum of functions ranging from programming, to policy analysis and advocacy for various programs, including engaging with grassroot level campaigns, in varied organisations such as UNICEF, CIDA, UNDP, Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (one of the largest civil society coalitions on governance accountability). She is a Graduate from St Stephen’s college and Post Graduate from the University of California, Berkeley. She has several publications to her account on a range of development issues