Ashish Bajracharya

Ashish Bajracharya is the Deputy Director of Country Strategy at the Population Council. He provides leadership and support across the Population Council’s country offices in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, and its affiliated organizations, with the aim of maximizing the Council’s positive impact and ensuring that the organization’s research and knowledge is effectively influencing national policy and programs. He supports, and works closely with, the Director of Country Strategy in the initiation, development, and monitoring of Council country strategies and provides technical and managerial guidance related to program priorities in Reproductive Health; Poverty, Gender, and Youth; HIV/AIDS; and Biomedical Research in countries with Council presence.

Bajracharya also serves as the Population Council’s Regional Representative for South and East Asia and as an Associate with its Reproductive Health program. Bajracharya is a social demographer and behavioral scientist who specializes in issues related to gender, transitions to adulthood, maternal, sexual and reproductive health, family planning and HIV & AIDS outcomes of vulnerable populations, and rigorous evaluations of health financing and health systems strengthening interventions in low- and middle-income countries. As Regional Representative, he is responsible for the Council's research and engagements in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Vietnam, and is based in the Council's office in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He also co-leads the Population Council’s Research in Humanitarian Settings Task Force, which coordinates the Council’s efforts to produce timely and relevant evidence to inform and support national health ministries, government agencies, and international and national non-governmental organizations in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the local, national and global levels.

Between 2015 and 2019, he established and served as the Country Representative of the Population Council's office in Cambodia, and co-led WorkerHealth, a $3.8 million USAID initiative aimed at improving access to reproductive health and family planning services among female garment factory workers in Cambodia. Prior to his appointment in Phnom Penh, he was based at the Council’s offices in Dhaka, Bangladesh (2012-2015), Hanoi, Vietnam (2011-2012), and as a Bixby Postdoctoral Fellow in its New York headquarters (2008-2010).

Bajracharya has authored or co-authored more than 40 peer reviewed journal articles, research papers, policy reports, and issue briefs, and has published his research in journals such as Demography, The Lancet, Studies in Family Planning, Journal of Adolescent Health and Developmental Psychology. He also serves on expert panels and advisory committees, as a referee for leading peer-reviewed journals in his field, and has presented his research at scientific fora and international conferences around the world. In 2017, he was named one of the ‘120 under 40: The New Generation of Family Planning Leaders’ by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute of Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, recognizing him as a young leader under the age of 40 in the field of family planning and reproductive health.

Bajracharya received his Ph.D. in Policy Analysis and Management from Cornell University in 2008 where he specialized in social demography and human development. He is a native of Nepal.