UN Advisor

Malini has worked with the United Nations system for 25+ years, including serving as adviser to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on UN-civil society reform (2004-06), as a member of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil Society Reform, chaired by President Cardoso of Brazil. For several years, she followed international negotiations at bodies such as the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the UN Environment Programme for the campaigning organisation, Friends of the Earth International.

In the early-2000s she served as an advisor and author on the UN’s influential Human Development Reports, working alongside renowned development thinkers such as Noble prize winner, Professor Amartya Sen, and political scientist Dr Ngaire Woods.

She has advised UN bodies including UNICEF and UNCTAD on business engagement and worked with the International Labour Organisation. Since 2017 she has served as an adviser to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), supporting the production and dissemination of the UN system’s flagship report on global risk, the Global Assessment Report on DRR (GAR).

She also lectures regularly at the UN’s Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development in Bonn, Germany.