Suneeta is a Gender and Development Specialist with over four decades of experience on advancing women’s human rights. She has worked with community based civil society organisations as well as with international organisations. She coordinated the India Unit for the historic preparatory process for Beijing ’95 Conference, mobilising grassroots women leaders across diverse sectors, locations and social identities. She later worked with erstwhile UNIFEM South Asia in Delhi (1998-2006) and later at the New York office, managing the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (2006-2008). Suneeta was on the Board of Jagori – a feminist group in Delhi, and was Director (2008-2015) and currently a Senior Advisor with them. She currently advises 2 national organisations working on engendering women’s livelihoods, social and political empowerment.
She has designed multi-stakeholder programmes, engendering rural women’s livelihoods, ending violence against women, and building safer spaces for women/girls. As a feminist activist, she supports grassroots movement building, amplifying voices of women in their full diversity, especially from marginalised communities. As an educator, she facilitates capacity-building programmes for policy-makers, functionaries, and practitioners.
At a policy level, Suneeta has served on Expert Committees of the National Commission for Women and the Supreme Court’s Committee on Widow’s Rehabilitation. She is a member of the Beijing+25 and Civil Society Advisory Group of UN Women (India). As a member of the Global Coalition on Inclusive and Safe Spaces for Women/Girls (a global feminist alliance), she contributes to the UN Women’s Generation Equality Action Coalition on Gender Based Violence. She has been a Co-Founder and a former Board member of the Women’s Fund Asia (earlier South Asia Women’s Fund, Colombo). She is currently Chair of the sister fund in India – South Asia Women Foundation – India, advocating for resources to advance rights of diverse women and trans persons. She is a Co-Founder of the Feminist Policy Collective in India and in a Co-Convener role with them. She also serves as a member of the National Human Rights Commission’s Core Group on Rights of Women. She is an external member of a few Internal Committees on Sexual Harassment of government and civil society organisations.
Suneeta holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and has been a recipient of the Fulbright and Advocacy Institute Fellowships for Development Practitioners. She has co-authored research studies, training manuals, and papers on women’s safety, gender and SDGs, transformative governance and women’s rights. Suneeta was recognised by Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy in 2021.