Asia Foundation Appoints Sofia Shakil as Director of Economic Programs

The Asia Foundation announces the appointment of Sofia Shakil as director of Economic Programs. She will oversee updates to the strategic focus of the Foundation’s support for inclusive economic growth in the Asia and Pacific regions, including policy and other support for advanced middle-income countries, Future of Work, women’s economic empowerment, green growth, digital literacy, STEM and other education reforms. Her portfolio will include expanding the capacity of micro, small, and medium enterprises to grow their business and contribute to equitable job growth and securing the broader conditions needed for the private sector to thrive in the new global economy while ensuring that women and vulnerable groups are not left behind.

Shakil brings an academic background in economic and development policy and more than 25 years of diverse experience with international development organizations. She has twice served as Asia Foundation country representative in Pakistan. During her most recent assignment, she concurrently served in the part-time role of senior advisor for Economic Programs. In this capacity, she led a strategic review of the Foundation’s economic program. Shakil was closely involved in several regional program initiatives, including the DFAT-funded, EY-led Southeast Asian Partnership for Infrastructure (P4I) project, a European Union-funded, five-country South Asia Regional Project to Strengthen Community Resilience to Covid-19, and leadership of multicountry research on the economic and broader implications of Covid for vulnerable populations and a working group on the impacts of the pandemic for migrant workers.

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