Kamal Malhotra

Kamal Malhotra is a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Global Economic Governance Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. He has had a rich 45-year career as a management consultant, in senior positions in international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as co-founder of a think-tank named FOCUS on the Global South, in the United Nations (UN) and now as a part-time international development consultant, professor, senior fellow and writer.

After retiring from the UN, effective September 2021, he continues to provide high level development policy advice in India and internationally. Since June 2022, Mr. Malhotra has also been a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Global Economic Governance Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. He recently gave the valedictory address on International Trade and Investment Law at the prestigious NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad and has been a Guest Lecturer at the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS) at Krea University, both in India.

Prior to his retirement, Mr. Malhotra was UN Head (full-time Representative of the Secretary-General) for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam between January 2019 and August 2021. Earlier, he was UN Head and UNDP Representative in Malaysia (also covering Singapore and Brunei Darussalam), Turkey and Vietnam (2008-2018) as well as UNDP Senior Adviser on Inclusive Globalization in New York.

Before joining UNDP, Mr. Malhotra was Co-Founder and Co-Director of FOCUS on the Global South, (1995-1999), a global policy research think-tank based at Chulalongkorn University’s Social Research Institute in Bangkok, Thailand. FOCUS was established both to critically analyze the interface between globalization, neo-liberalism and the real Global South and to influence paradigmatic and macro policy issues through its policy research, publications and by linking social movements around the world and bringing their experiences and issues to the macro policy level. The Global South was defined as encompassing all marginalized and disempowered peoples around the world, from Aboriginal Australians, the untouchables and Dalits of India to the African American and native populations of the Americas.

Immediately before establishing FOCUS, Mr. Malhotra served as Director of the Overseas and Aboriginal Program of Oxfam Australia (1988-1995) and was the only founder member of Oxfam International from the geographic Global South.

Mr. Malhotra holds an MIPA from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University, USA (1982), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management (1978), and a BA in Economics from the University of Delhi (1976). Mr. Malhotra also completed an Executive Education Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA on “Leadership for the 21st Century: Chaos, Conflict and Courage” (2013).

He has received many prestigious awards over five decades, including the President of Vietnam’s Order of Friendship in 2021. In recognition of his lifetime commitment to making a better world, the United Nations International School, Vietnam dedicated its Sustainability Center in his name in May 2022. Mr. Malhotra was also recognized in Marques’ Who’s Who in the World in 2000.

Mr. Malhotra is widely published. He has been the initiator, lead, or co-author of 6 books including lead author of UNDP’s “Making Global Trade Work for People” (Earthscan, 2003) and “Globalization and the Least Developed Countries” (UNDP, in cooperation with the UN-OHRLLS and the Government of Turkey, 2008). He also initiated and led “Virtuous Cycles: The Singapore Public Service and National Development” (UNDP, 2011).

Mr. Malhotra has also contributed to more than 10 additional books and more than 100 journal and other publications on global and regional geo-political and geo-economic issues, the United Nations, G-20, global trade, debt and finance, the multilateral system and development cooperation. Since his retirement Mr. Malhotra has written for India’s Observer Research Foundation, the India International Center Quarterly Journal, Gateway House Indian Council on Global Relations, Monash University, Australia’s 360info as well as for magazines, newspapers and online publications both in India and internationally.