Snigdha Ali

Snigdha Ali, program officer for Bangladesh at the Gates Foundation, manages initiatives for advancing financial inclusion in Bangladesh, with a special focus on increasing women’s access to financial products and services. Prior to joining the Gates Foundation, she worked as a researcher and development practitioner and has more than 12 years of experience in gender, research and management. She has worked on cross-cutting issues impacting women like financial exclusion, nutrition, climate change, infrastructure, economic engagement, and social norms. She worked as the senior gender and research consultant at the World Bank and co-authored the book titled “Voices to Choices: Bangladesh’s Journey in Women’s Economic Empowerment,” published in 2019.

Snigdha also worked at BRAC in Bangladesh as the program head for two departments and managed two teams and six projects. She has also worked for IFPRI. She has experience in evaluating gender inclusion in the World Bank operations, organizational gender mainstreaming at BRAC, advocacy at the grassroots level, project operations, stakeholder engagement and policy advocacy at the national level. Snigdha has a master's of social science in economics from the University of Dhaka and a masters of social science in development sociology from Cornell University.