Kanni Wignaraja
Kanni Wignaraja took up her new assignment as Director of the UN Development Operations Coordination Office (UN DOCO) in December 2013. DOCO supports the UN Development System to work in a more coordinated manner on advocacy, policy, program, partnerships and operations, to deliver together for development at country level.
Ms Wignaraja has significant experience in leading and managing global, regional and country development portfolios. She served as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Zambia from 2010 to 2013. Prior to this, she served as Director of the Capacity Development Group of UNDP, in New York. She has also served as UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Viet Nam, Chief of Regional Programmes in the Bureau for Asia-Pacific, and UNDP Deputy Representative (ad interim) in Indonesia. She began her UN career as the Policy and Evaluation Officer at the UN Volunteers headquarters in Geneva.
Prior to joining the UN/UNDP, Ms Wignaraja worked as a consultant with the Ford Foundation in New York and with the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has contributed to numerous papers, articles and conferences in the areas of institutional reform, capacity development, leadership development, HIV/AIDS and human rights.
Ms Wignaraja holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration, from Princeton University (NJ, USA), and a Bachelor of Arts (Economics), from Bryn Mawr College (Pennsylvania, USA). She is married with two daughters.
