Meena Acharya

Meena Acharya
Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation
Kathmandu, Nepal

Dr. Meena Acharya is a well-known economist, feminist scholar, researcher and a prolific writer, both in Nepali and English. With a varied experience of working in various government and non-government positions, she is the general secretary of Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation. She is well known for her original contributions to highlighting issues of poverty, development policy and gender concerns in the Nepalese society, and she developed a methodology for measurement of women’s work and contributions to GDP. She worked for the World Bank and provided consultancy services to several UN organizations, including DESA/UN, UNDP and UNIFEM. I remember how pleased and encouraged I was when Feminist Economics first emerged as a journal. It deals with many of the theoretical and policy issues that have been my core concerns throughout my professional life. I believe IAFFE has contributed greatly to bring feminist issues to forefront of Development Economics and feel a special kinship with its board, its editors and those who contribute. Yet much of IAFFE’s theoretical work has yet to reach the practical economists working to shape policy or those in academics who are teaching the next generation of economists in developing countries. IAFFE as an institution has remained rather exclusive. As a Board member I hope to contribute to making the IAFFE more inclusive and contribute to broadening its perspectives. Another dimension that is not entirely missing, but that I would like to see more emphasized in IAFFE is cross disciplinary work between feminist economists and feminist scholars seeking to understand male/female power relations from other related fields like political science, anthropology and sociology. Certainly in my own work on Nepal and other countries in South Asia, some of my most satisfying work has been on the borders between economics and other fields. Economics, by its very nature, is embedded in social and political relations and I believe that many of the breakthroughs in our understanding will occur on these borders. In sum, whatever I might contribute to IAFFE will be much less than IAFFE has already contributed to my own intellectual life and professional work. I would be greatly honored to be a board member of this institution.