Salil Shetty appointed as Director of Millennium Development Goals Campaign
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Mark Malloch Brown has announced the appointment of Salil Shetty (India) as Director of the Millennium Development Goals Campaign. Mr. Shetty and his team will be working very closely with UNDP and the broader United Nations system to promote the Goals globally and secure increased buy-in, not just from governments, but civil society stakeholders. The networking and partnership building at the heart of his functions are critical to transforming the Goals into a global movement.
Mr. Shetty joins the Millennium Campaign from Action Aid —- an international development non-governmental organization firmly committed to working with poor and marginalized people to eradicate poverty -— where he was most recently Chief Executive and played a leading role in more than 30 programmes in Africa, Asia and across other regions. Mr. Shetty made an exceptional contribution to the growth and development of Action Aid -— now the third largest international development non-governmental organization in the United Kingdom —- and played a key role in reorienting Action Aid’s focus on advocacy at the grass-roots and policy-making levels. In 2002, Action Aid reached 9 million of the world’s poor, with support from 2,000 civil society partners worldwide. Mr. Shetty joined Action Aid in 1985; he worked in Africa and Indian chapters of Action Aid. Prior to his work there, Mr. Shetty worked in the private sector.
Mr. Shetty will work closely with and report to Eveline Herfkens, the Secretary-General’s Executive Coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals Campaign, who has been spearheading the Campaign’s efforts in the North to persuade donors to meet their commitments under Goal 8 in terms of aid, trade, debt relief and technology transfer to developing countries. He will focus particularly on helping the Campaign unit galvanize campaigns in the South by stimulating national political debate and harnessing existing national and regional networks and social movements in support of the Goals.
Mr. Shetty earned a distinction in a Master of Science in social policy and planning from the London School of Economics and a Master’s in business administration from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. He commenced his studies in advanced accounting and cost accounting at Bangalore University. He is President of the Board of an Italian-based international non-governmental organization (Azione Aiuto), Council Member of the United Kingdom-based Overseas Development Institute, and Governor of the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex. Mr. Shetty was also a representative for the Joint Facilitation Committee for Civil Society and the World Bank.
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