Rekha Mehra

Rekha Mehra
Director, Economic Development
Bio: 

Rekha Mehra is director of economic development at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).  As director, she leads ICRW’s research, program and policy work on agriculture, employment and enterprise development, and property rights. 

Mehra has more than 20 years of international development programmatic and research experience in 15 developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Prior to joining ICRW in 2008, she was a senior gender specialist in the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Group. Mehra also served as a program officer for economic development at the Ford Foundation in New Delhi, India, where she was responsible for the development finance portfolio. Her current post marks her return to ICRW; from 1989 to 2000, Mehra served in various positions at the organization, including four years as vice president.

Expertise: 

Agriculture and Food Security, Economic Empowerment, Employment and Enterprise Development, Assets and Property Rights

Languages Spoken: 

English (native), Hindi (native)

Education: 

Mehra holds doctorate degrees in food and resource economics and U.S. history, and a master's in history from the University of Florida. She earned her bachelor's in history from Calcutta University.
 

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Rekha Mehra writes about women farmers in the Huffington Post. Despite women being responsible for all the tasks related to producing a crop, women farmers do not get much in return. In her blog post...
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Agriculture programs risk failure when they don’t consider the social realities of gender – that is, the distinct roles and norms assigned to women and men in a society. However, organizations,...
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When done right, small investments can make a great difference in the lives of rural women, like those ICRW's Rekha Mehra met in Tanzania. Read the first installment in ICRW's Rural Impressions blog series.

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A recent trip to Nairobi to conduct a workshop for agriculture practitioners and researchers revealed to me just how much more work needs to be done to bolster women’s roles in agriculture, from the farm where food is cultivated to the homes and plants where it is packaged and processed. 

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Related News

Rekha Mehra writes about women farmers in the Huffington Post. Despite women being responsible for all the tasks related to producing a crop, women farmers do not get much in return. In her blog post...
More »

When done right, small investments can make a great difference in the lives of rural women, like those ICRW's Rekha Mehra met in Tanzania. Read the first installment in ICRW's Rural Impressions blog series.

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No single program can address every underlying influence in the process to economically advance women. Instead, those working in global economic development should choose an area within the process...
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