Victor Prasad Karunan has worked over 16 years with UNICEF, as Regional Advisor on Participation and Partnerships at UNICEF Regional Office in Bangkok; Chief of Adolescent Development and Participation in UNICEF Headquarters in New York; and as Representative/Deputy Representative and Senior Social Policy Specialist in UNICEF Malaysia. He was the Regional Development Advisor for Save the Children-UK at the Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. He has over 35 years of professional experience in over 40 countries in both the Global North and Global South, with special focus on countries in the South, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. His work relates to supporting Governments, United Nations agencies, International Development organisations, NGOs and Civil society and Private/Corporate sector in Child Rights and Child Development, Results-based Management, Social Policy, Public Finance Management, Adolescent Participation and Development, Policy Advocacy, Participatory Research, Training and Capacity Development. He has worked as a Development Evaluation Consultant for European donor agencies and has conducted research, evaluations and training programmes among community organizations and NGOs in over 15 countries in South and Southeast Asia. He holds a M.A. in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Ph.D. in the Social Sciences from the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS:  

• Lecturer/Foreign Expert, Social Policy and Development, Faculty of Social Administration, Thammasat University, Bangkok – teaching courses on “Globalisation and Child Rights”, “Social Protection” and “Human Rights and International Organisations, “Evidence-based Social Policy”; “Social Welfare in ASEAN”, –  https://www.spdtu.com
• Visiting Lecturer, Master of Arts in International Development Studies (MAIDS), Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok – teaching courses on “Politics of Public Policy”; “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”, “De-colonising Development Studies”; “Critical Issues in Development Studies”, Human Rights in Southeast Asia”: https://www.maids-chula.org
• D. Faculty, Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University – Bangkok – teaching M.A. and Ph.D. in child rights/human rights and supervising Ph.D. candidates – https://ihrp.mahidol.ac.th

Previously lectured at: the Asian Social Institute in Manila, the Philippines; Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands; SIPA-Colombia University; New York City University Brooklyn College; Nottingham University and HELP University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANCY & ADVISORY AFFILIATIONS:

• Senior Associate, Social Policy and Social Protection at the Social Policy Research Institute (SPRI) Belgium spriglobal.org;
• Associate, Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD) Canada – iicrd.org
• Associate, DUNDEX – Deployable UN-experienced Development Experts (Norway/Canada) dundex.net.
• Inter-Generational Advisory Committee member, International and Canadian Child Rights Partnership (ICCRP), Toronto Metropolitan University (Canada) – https://www.ryerson.ca/international-canadian-child-rights-partnership/
• International Expert & Advisor – Child Participation, Global Campus on Human Rights (Venice, Italy) – https://gchumanrights.org/research/projects/childrens-rights/team.html
• International Advisory Council Member – Right Livelihood College (RLC) (Sweden) Link: https://rightlivelihood.org/what-we-do/education/the-right-livelihood-college/

Victor Karunan is based in Bangkok, Thailand. Email: vkarunan2016@gmail.com.