Abhik Sen

Abhik is a senior adviser with the United Nations on innovation and partnerships that can help accelerate sustainable development at the national and international levels. Previously, he was the first Head of Innovation and Partnerships at the Commonwealth Secretariat, the inter-governmental organization for the Commonwealth of Nations. In this role, Abhik provided capacity building assistance to governments, facilitated system-wide innovation, mobilized resources and managed the Commonwealth’s partnerships with other international institutions. He also launched and led the Commonwealth Innovation Ecosystem Program to foster digital transformation and sustainability, scale public innovation, support grassroots innovators and ignite partnerships between the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

Prior to this, as Head of Policy and Research with a focus on equitable socio-economic development and youth empowerment, Abhik developed evidence-based national policies and implementation strategies in cooperation with the governments of countries in Africa, Asia, Americas and Oceania. He is the lead author of the Global Youth Development Index and Report (2016), a ground-breaking study that the United Nations Human Development Report Office called an “admirable and timely contribution to fill a critical gap in the global development landscape.”