Ms. Ashita Mittal is the Regional Representative, United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for Central Asia, based in Tashkent. She has been working with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) since 1995. She served as the Deputy Representative for the UNODC Country Office in Afghanistan, from 2009 to 2014 and prior to that served as the Deputy Representative, UNODC Regional Office for South Asia covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, where she joined in 1995. Prior to this, she served with the World Food Programme in India, engaging on food security. She worked extensively with civil society on drug use prevention, treatment and rehabilitation and was well recognized for her pioneering work in the field. Her work was nuanced with health, gender, sustainable development perspectives.
She brings with her over 28 years of development experience, especially her work on counter narcotics and crime. She has published articles and contributed to research and development of knowledge products in the sector. She brings a wealth of experience on Programme management of technical cooperation programmes on narcotics and other transnational organized crime, at both country and regional level on policy, advocacy, programming, quality assurance of technical assistance programmes, capacity development, with governments, international organizations and civil society.
With a Graduate degree in Psychology and a master’s degree in social work from Delhi University in India, Ms. Mittal was also a Fulbright Fellow (1989-90) in USA.
