Institute of Development Studies

Deepta is the Principal Investigator for SuPWR. She is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and is a feminist social scientist with a focus on women’s empowerment and politics of policy processes. Her research interests primarily focus on the empowerment of women and girls, and its core links with their paid work and unpaid care work. She is a dynamic project leader who has developed, fund-raised for, and implemented several research projects on social protection and gendered political economy analysis of women’s economic empowerment programmes and policies. Deepta is an expert on mixed methods research design and qualitative methodologies, and aligns herself closely with issues of power and participation, citizen engagement and governance.

Shandana is a Co-Investigator for SuPWR, leading on the four Pakistan case studies. She is a Research Fellow and the leader of the Governance Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies (UK). Her research is interdisciplinary and comparative,  and has increasingly focused on the relationship between political participation, inequality and accountability, and her research interests include democratisation, local politics, informal institutions, and the political economy of public policy and service delivery.

Sohela is a Co-Investigator for SuPWR, leading the political economy analysis and four Bangladesh case studies. She is a Fellow at IDS and leads the institutes’ work on gender and politics. She has over 17 years of experience researching feminist movement, gender in policy process, women’s empowerment and violence against women in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Sohela has published widely including in World Development, Contemporary South Asia. Her recent book is Negotiating Gender Equity in the Global South: The Politics of Domestic Violence Policy (Routledge, 2019). She co-convenes IDS’ MA programme on Gender and Development.

Leah is a Communications Officer for SuPWR, based at the Institute of Development Studies. She is an international development professional with over 18 years' experience in knowledge management and research communication.

Debbie is the Project Manager for SuPWR, responsible for the financial and contractual administration, risk management, event and travel management, and project reporting. She also provides support to the data management and communications activities. Based at the Institute of Development Studies (UK), she has over eight years’ experience supporting a variety of projects focusing on conflict, governance, gender-based violence, and improving access to education in conflict settings.