Esther joined Club de Madrid in 2022, she is the Senior Advisor to CdM’s Shared Societies Project (SSP). Now in its fifteenth year, the SSP supports a holistic approach to sustainable development, integrating social, economic and environmental dimensions, with social inclusion at its core, as it understands that all aspects of development are interrelated and interdependent.
Esther is a Governance and Inclusive Development specialist with nineteen years of experience managing the implementation of governance and inclusive development programs in the Caribbean, South and Central Asia, Eastern Africa and the Pacific. Previously she served as the Director of the Decentralization and Citizen Participation Partnership (DCPP), under the AUD 400 million Papua New Guinea-Australia Governance Partnership (PAGP). She had worked on policy reform and change processes at multiple levels, including under the National Solidarity Program and National Area Based Development Program in Afghanistan, the IRC’s Community Development and Civil Society program in South Sudan and indigenous community engagement in Guyana linked to the country’s National Protected Areas System and Low Carbon Development Strategy. In 2019 she was appointed to the Board Trustee of the Institute of Development Studies, at the University of Sussex (UK).
Esther holds degrees in Political Science and History (Bachelor of Arts, University of York, UK) and in Governance and Development (Master of Arts, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex). She also has a diploma in Rural Development Planning from the University of Pune, India. She is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Leiden, researching minority political inclusion in post-war Sri Lanka.