Indra Raj Panta

A development sector professional with 15 years of experience with significant progressive achievements in program planning in regular and humanitarian context. Demonstrated expertise in building and leading teams, strengths in results-based planning and monitoring, evaluation, gender empowerment and social inclusion, local governance, advocacy, and coordination. High drive for results and an agile team player, fluent English speaker. A local resident of Far West Nepal with excellent understanding of language, religion, culture and social issues in the province and Nepal.

• Provided leadership for implementation of 1.2 million USD programme in the field office under different programme sectors leading to a programmatic shift to system building works by engaging teams and providing leadership for policy works.
• Led coordination and technical support for 46 local and two provincial governments in education planning and policy implementation in Karnali and Sudur Pashchim provinces.
• Successfully formulated provincial and local government education strategic plans, aligning with School Education Sector Plan (SESP).
• Facilitated COVID-19 and monsoon preparedness plans for education sector in 40 local and two provincial governments.
• Strengthened coordination and collaboration among government and development partners in education sector.
• Promoted child-friendly local governance in Jumla, Kalikot, and Mugu districts, ensuring 100% adoption of CFLG guidelines.
• Supported capacity building of government and NGO partners on CFLG, child participation, and results based planning.
• Monitored implementation of emergency cash transfer program, ensuring timely distribution and coordination among stakeholders during earthquake response.

• Manager Support Programme, mandatory course for managers by UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia, 2025- Strengthened skills and knowledge to provide people and programme management support to the field office team. Improved skills on people management, adapting to change and addressing ambiguities, fostering a culture of positive work culture and addressing workplace issues.
• Emergency Preparedness for Response Training organized by UNICEF Country Office and Facilitated by UNICEF Regional Officer for South Asia (ROSA), Nepalgunj, February, 2024- Enhanced knowledge and skills to understand the principles and apply key tools, functions, roles and responsibilities to prepare and respond to emergencies to contribute to the existing UNICEF and government frameworks for disaster response.
• Learning Recovery, Remediation and Catch-up Workshop organized by UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA), Colombo, Sri Lanka, June, 2023- Participated in this workshop with the overall goal of supporting UNICEF country offices (CO) in creating, developing, implementing and evaluating education plans for learning recovery, remediation, and catch-up at the national level where 30 UNICEF staff members from eight Country Offices discussed strategies, priorities, and best practices to determine how to best utilize resources and funding to address the learning needs of children.
• Education in Emergencies (EiE) Fundamental Course jointly organized by Save the Children Asia Regional Office and Humanitarian Leadership Academy, 22-26 May, 2023- Enhanced skills and knowledge on child safeguarding strategies for promoting meaningful child participation in EiE programming, cross-cutting issues of gender, ability and conflict dynamics during education in emergencies and strategies to overcome issues of access to quality education, understanding of causality analysis, problem tree analysis for better EiE programme design, well-being of children's learning during emergencies, curriculum adjustment during emergencies, parental awareness to support learning and institutional capacity building to support learning during crisis.
• Fundamentals of Knowledge Management (online course) jointly organized by UNICEF ROSA and UNSSC, 2021- Enhanced my understanding and skills about basic and fundamental understanding of knowledge management, existing knowledge sharing platforms and how these forums can be utilized to strengthen the knowledge management system of the office, basic elements of knowledge management and how a community of practice can be initiated in office and how we can prepare influential and effective case studies.
• Child Centered Disaster Risk Reduction (CCDRR) virtual training organized by Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA), India, 2020- Participated in this virtual training that focused on child centered disaster risk reduction, why children need to be focused and prioritized during the disasters, ensuring fulfilment of child rights during disasters, and investing on children and disaster response.
• Public finance for Children (PF4C) training organized by UNICEF Nepal, 2018- Participated in the PF4C training and have acquired knowledge and skills on methods and tools for advocacy with the public sector for increased allocation and expenditure on the children to ensure quality basic education and early childhood development. Learnt tools and techniques for data analysis and its use for influencing the public sector.
• Results based management (RBM) training (UNICEF ROSA/UNICEF NCO, 2016)- Participated in the RBM training and have acquired knowledge and skills on different tools, methods, and prerequisites of results-based management to planning.
• Training/exposure visit on local governance, decentralization, and child friendly governance, (UNICEF/KILA, Kerala, India, 2014) - The training was of high importance to learn about how local bodies have been practicing the formulation of child centered planning, governance and how decentralization has been fully functional for making child friendly local units. It was also good opportunity to learn about the local initiatives taken for making the local government's child friendly including role of sectors.
• Program, planning and procedures training (UNICEF ROSA)-2014- This training has helped me to understand better about the program, policies, and procedures of UNICEF regarding programming and planning for children.
• Training on local governance, (NASC/MLD/UNICEF)-2012 - The training has its strength in that it dealt with all the aspects of governance, child friendly governance, good governance, and many other related topics. It has helped me gain skills and knowledge on these topics for smooth implementation of the program in the district.
• Regional training on Cash Transfer Systems, (UNICEF/MLD), 2009 - The ongoing systems of social security system and cash transfer system was well described; the newly introduced Child grant system was explained with all its parts and roles. The role of the local bodies, central government, donor agencies, and community people was well explained in the training, and I was able to learn about all the aspects of the cash transfer systems which helped me in monitoring the child grant program in the district.