Sonali Dayaratne, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Bangladesh

Sonali Dayaratne joined UNDP Bangladesh as the Deputy Resident Representative in August 2023. She is a seasoned development and governance practitioner, with nearly 20 years of experience in public law and policy, human rights and governance, as well as cross-cutting issues such as inclusive growth, and youth empowerment. Sonali is a Fulbright Scholar, and holds a Master's Degree in Law from the Harvard Law School.

As the former Deputy Resident Representative at UNDP Cambodia, Sonali led teams to provide integrated solutions for inclusive growth, climate action, gender equality, and good governance. She also jointly led or contributed to systems design, portfolio development, adaptive programming, as well as monitoring, evaluation and learning processes for UNDP Cambodia’s Country Programme.

Before UNDP Cambodia, Sonali was a Policy and Design Specialist at UNDP Sri Lanka, where she led UNDP’s support to constitutional and parliamentary reforms; strengthening of the independence of commissions; the enactment and implementation of the right to information law; and SDG localization.

Sonali practiced law for a brief period in Sri Lanka, as well as worked with non-government organizations on public law reforms.