Founder & Board Member, Sampark, Bangalore 

Smita Premchander is a development practitioner and consultant of international repute, and has done extensive work on microfinance, poverty reduction, gender equality and women’s empowerment, elimination of child labour and bonded labour, crafts development, social inclusion, and sustainable development. She trained as an economist and banker and a PhD from UK and Switzerland.

Smita established Sampark in 1991, a highly accredited NGO with operations in India and Nepal, reaching over 50,000 women, children, and migrant workers. Sampark promotes empowering models of microfinance, rights-based access to official social protection and workers’ organisations.

Smita has worked on issues at the grassroots level, institutions and capacity building, design of large donor-funded programme, and policy and governance issues. She is invited to be a trainer, evaluator and advisor on projects of several international donor organizations, the World Bank, and UN organizations. She has worked in several countries including India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Myanmar, Thailand, Germany, France, Switzerland, UK, and USA.

Smita has been a member, and since 2019, the Chairperson of the International Advisory Committee (the Board) of the United Nations University’s Institute of Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn. She is also a Visiting Faculty at IIMA, where she teaches courses on Microfinance and Gender and Development Policies and Programmes. She serves on the board of several non-profit organizations, academic committees, and editorial committees of international peer-reviewed journals. She has been a member of task forces set up for policy and programme advice by state governments in India.