Sukhwinder Arora

Biography

Over the past 25 years Sukhwinder Arora has worked for a range of development organisations at micro, meso and macro level. Sukhwinder’s core work has been on policies and programmes designed to enable poor people to participate in and benefit from financial and other markets. He worked with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) at its Dhaka, London and Delhi offices in various positions for 11 years. Between 1996 and 2003 he held key positions with DFID India for private-sector development and its linkages to economic growth and poverty reduction. During 2003-06 he worked at DFID Headquarters in London as a member of the Financial Sector Team that advocated increased access to financial services and policy linkages between financial sector development, economic growth and poverty reduction. During 2006-07 Sukhwinder provided private sector development advisory support to the DFID Bangladesh office. More recently Sukhwinder has advised DFID South Africa (opportunity for a financial access programme); DFID Rwanda (design Access to Finance programme); and DFID/the World Bank (scoping study for a microfinance capacity building facility in Africa). Sukhwinder has contributed to two influential books 'Small Customer, Big Market: Commercial Banks in Microfinance' (with Malcolm Harper) and The Poor and their Money (with Stuart Rutherford). Sukhwinder has undertaken assignments in Australia, Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Moldova, Nepal, South Africa, Switzerland, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, USA, Vietnam and Zambia.