Isabelle Tschan Harada

Resident Representative a.i. 

Isabelle Tschan Harada (Switzerland) has worked for 20 years in international development at the country, regional and headquarters levels in different regions in conflict, post-conflict, low and middle-income country contexts. Prior to taking up her assignment in India, she served as Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP Burkina Faso and as Governance and Peacebuilding Team Leader at UNDP Regional Hub for Europe and Central Asia in Istanbul (Turkey).

Isabelle also worked as Policy and Programme specialist with UNDP Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery in New York and at the Regional Center for West and Central Africa in Dakar (Senegal). She has programmatic and policy experience in a number of thematic areas, including gender equality, socio-economic development, resilience and livelihoods, energy and environment, governance, peacebuilding and rule of law. Before joining UNDP in 2009, Isabelle served as Assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, as Human Rights Officer for the UN Peacekeeping Operation in Burundi (ONUB), and as Regional Coordinator for Sub-Saharan Africa with the Swiss Federal Office for Migration.

Isabelle Tschan holds Master's degrees in Human Rights and Democratization (E.MA, Venice, Italy and Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund, Sweden) and in International Relations (Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland) and speaks German, English, French and Spanish. She likes arts, travelling, discovering and learning about various cultures, swimming and hiking.