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Meena Acharya is currently General Secretary of a Research/Advocacy
NGO, Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation, a voluntary
position. She is also a senior advisor and Trustee of another
action oriented NGO, SAHAVAGI, which she helped to establish
and from where she does her consulting work.
Her research interests focus on poverty, gender, macro
economy, political structures and policies for equitable
development. She was involved in engendering the Tenth Plan
of Nepal, Gender Auditing the Budgetary Processes in Nepal,
and Engendering the Population Census of Nepal, 2001. Currently
she is involved in a World Bank/DFID project to reprocess
the Census data in a poverty perspective, particularly in
an ethnicity/caste and gender perspective. Dr Acharya is
also involved as a peer reviewer in the ongoing Development
Policy Review by the World Bank for Nepal. Concurrently,
she is involved as a team leader in Gender Mainstreaming
in Education, a UNICEF funded project being implemented
by SAHAVAGI.
Dr. Acharya has a Ph.D. in Development Studies from, The
University of Wisconsin (1987), M.S. with Distinction in
Economic Cybernetics, from Moscow State University (1966)
and B.A. (Honors) in Economics from Delhi University (1960).
She has occupied important positions in several NGOs (Chair
person, SAHAVAGI, 1993-2002, and Executive Director of Institute
for Integrated Development Studies, 1990-1994). She has
worked for many years (1966-1990) in the Central Bank of
the country, Nepal Rastra Bank, occupying various positions
including of Chiefs of Research and Development Finance
Departments. In the meantime, on leave from the Central
Bank, she also worked as an economist, in the Development
Economics Department of the World Bank (1980-1982) in Washington,
DC.
Her other professional activities include helping the establishment
(1997) and providing services continuously as a Resource
Person to the first ever regular Women's Studies in Nepal,
in Padma Kanya College and Regent's Lecturer, University
of California, Berkeley (1993). Dr. Acharya has been providing
consultancy services to various UN organizations, the World
Bank and the Asian Development Bank since 1978. Her most
recent consultancies include with DESA/UN Head Quarters
(2000, on Evaluation of UN System's Impact on Capacity Building
for Poverty Eradication in Nepal, 1985-2000, as an input
to the Tri-Annual Policy Review Session of the UN ) with
UNIFEAM (2002,on Gender Budget in Nepal), with the Central
Bureau of Statistics\UNDP ( Gender Mainstreaming in Nepal
Census, 2001 ), with INSTRW/UN (1993 - 1997) on the project
for " Preparation of an International Manual on Collection
and Valuation of Time Use Data and Measurement of Paid and
Unpaid Work", with ADB/ Manila on a regional study
"Review of Performance of WID and Poverty Reduction
Efforts in Bank Financed Projects" 1995.
Dr. Acharya is a committee member of South Asians for Peace
(SAHR), executive member of Transparency/Nepal, a member
of the Alliance for Peace ( in Nepal), Board member in Institute
of Integrated Development Studies, a policy oriented research
institution, and advisor to several institutions working
for women.
Selected Publications (English Only):
Efforts at Promotion of Women in Nepal, TPAMF/FES, Kathmandu
(2003)
Engendering the Budgetary System in Nepal. UNIFEM, New Delhi
(2003)
Structural Adjustment and Poverty Eradication in Nepal,
IIDS, Kathmandu (2003)
"Towards Conflict Transformation in Nepal: Recent Trends
in Government -Maoist Dialogue" in Conflict Resolution
and Governance in Nepal, NEFAS/FES , Kathmandu (2003)
Labor Market Development and Poverty: with focus on opportunities
for women in Nepal, Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation,
Kathmandu. (2000)
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Making Markets Work for Women
The proposed research will investigate the impact of economic
processes triggered by increasing market penetration and
globalization on the empowerment of women in economies (like
that of Nepal) that have until fairly recently been largely
based on subsistence production. Empowerment is conceptualized
as a multidimensional process of "gaining control over
the self, over ideology and the resources which determine
power" including political, economic and social aspects.
Key questions include: How are changing product and labor
markets related to various dimensions of women's (and poor
people's) empowerment in the specific context of subsistence
economies like that of Nepal? What implications does the
progressive marketization of the productive sphere and dichotomization
of the productive and reproductive roles of the individuals
have for gender relations and for women's reproductive roles?
These questions will be examined using a model that views
economic processes in terms of closely inter-related five/six
sphere model. At the center of this model is the process
of household maintenance and human reproduction. In successive
spheres beyond that core are household subsistence production,
local wage and income producing work, and the migration,
locally, nationally and internationally for employment.
The relationships between economic processes in these successive
spheres and in particular the impact of these relationships
on women's power in the domestic and wider social and political
domains will be explored using a statistical data base from
ongoing and existing studies, a small field survey in Nepal
and an in-depth review of existing literature for South
Asia and other countries.
This exercise is expected to generate important policy
conclusions for the development community and for women's
advocacy groups seeking to promote positive trends generated
by the market penetration process in the context of globalization
while counteracting the negative ones. The adverse impact
of globalization on the women and the poor has been an issue
of much concern in recent years among the Feminists as well
as the development community including the World Bank. But
most of this literature does not focus on the links between
the micro and macro processes involved and many of them
are more concerned about the withdrawal of the state than
about the effects of deeper market penetration in the hinter
lands itself. Yet, for the economies just emerging from
the subsistence stage, the later may be more important than
withdrawal of the State which was never there as a service
provider in the first place. My research will thus focus
on so far unexplored areas and thus "add new approaches
or perspectives" to the issues under investigation
by other NSC scholars and will have much relevance for the
research under progress in the host institution on similar
issue.
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Resource
Person to Women's Studies in Padma Kanya College in Nepal, 
