Ms. Gita Sabharwal was appointed as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Thailand on 15 March 2020. As the UN Resident Coordinator, she leads 21 UN agencies under the UN Country Team to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) to advance the Sustainable Development Goals in coordination with the government, private sector, civil society and young people.

Ms. Sabharwal has close to three decades of development experience working across multiple country contexts in Asia. Her work has focused specifically on peacebuilding, governance and social policy, while generating and applying empirical and big data analysis to deal with emerging development challenges. Preceding her appointment to Thailand, Ms. Sabharwal was the Peacebuilding and Development Advisor at the United Nations in Sri Lanka, for nearly seven years.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Sabharwal was The Asia Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative for Maldives and Sri Lanka and has held positions as the Poverty and Policy Advisor for the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) in India and Viet Nam.

Ms. Sabharwal holds a Master’s Degree in Development Management from the University of Wales, UK