Person

Narain, Nivedita

Dr. Nivedita Narain works as an Integrator for PRADAN, and Indian-based NGO that works at grassroot level to remove mass poverty and challenge inequalities at multiple levels. She is also Senior Fellow at the Centre for Development Practice in Ambedkar University Delhi. She is a pioneer in the Indian self-help group movement. Over the last 30 years she has held various leadership roles in the NGO PRADAN, which works towards livelihoods development and gender justice in India’s poorest regions. She has built HR and institution development systems. She has built programmes that mobilised young professionals to work with poor communities in rural India including a Masters programme in Development Practice with the Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD). She established the engagement with research partners from India, U.S.A., Australia, U.K. and the Netherlands to develop new pathways for socio-economic development and gender justice. Her doctoral work explored the roles and competencies of social change professionals. Nivedita is interested in exploring how group rights impinge on those of individuals, especially women in indigenous communities. She is researching the dynamics of collective action at the intersectionality of class, ethnicity, caste and gender. She aims to document the history of the SHG movement as a vehicle of social change. Dr. Narain was an Erasmus Mundus Fellow at the University of Gottingen. She was a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Development Practice at the Ambedkar University Delhi, and an Atlantic Visiting Fellow at the Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Nivedita has a PhD in Management from IIT Delhi, a Masters in International Development Policy from Cornell University, an MBA from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand; and a Bachelors in Mathematics from Delhi University.