Ms Usha Jha, a member of National Planning Commission, Government of Nepal, holds Ph.D in Chemistry and hails from the village of Madhawa of  Mahottari district in Province 2. She started her career after completing Bachelors of Science as a teacher.  She taught English and Science to lower secondary and secondary students, and took care of kindergarten children. After completing Master’s degree, she joined Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS) in Rampur, Chitwan as a Lecturer.  She became the Campus Chief of Lamjung Campus under IAAS in 1995. After completing her term of four years, she changed her career and moved to development field committing herself to work for women’s economic empowerment. She, then worked with NGOs, INGOs and UN agencies where she could gain experience of working with women and the type of affirmative action needed to bring change in their lives. She believes ” Dependency is not empowering ” and she has always worked with the savings led approach with rural women while working for economic empowerment linking it to entrepreneurships and access to finance.

During this journey, she also worked as the member of  Civil Society Advisory Group to UN Women, Think Tank member to Ministry of Women Children and Social Welfare, President of National NGOs Network Against Aids in Nepal, member of the Country Coordinating Mechanism for The Global Fund, Grant Management Committee, member of Program for Accountability in Nepal through CECI funded by World Bank and Proposal Evaluation Committee member for SNV etc.

She led the development of several action-oriented modules for illiterates, semi literates and literates and related training packages. She also prepared Master Trainers in the areas of education, health, gender, WASH, savings led economic empowerment and other development related agendas.