Develop Asia, a non-profit that works to enhance the sustainability of meals techniques in Asia, has appointed a brand new director of programmes following the departure of Erin Sweeney for the USA.
Sweeney joined Develop Asia in 2019, and labored in a variety of roles earlier than her promotion to director of programmes in the beginning of this 12 months. She led the group that lately developed GrowBeyond, a blended finance facility for farmers and small enterprise homeowners on the forefront of the local weather disaster.
“I’ve made the tough determination to repatriate to the USA with my partner Mrigaa Sethi, as we glance to construct our household with a LGBTQ+ authorized security internet that was not afforded to us in Singapore,” she mentioned in a put up on LinkedIn.
Sethi, a journalist, mentioned on LinkedIn that regardless of the repeal of 377A, Singapore’s decades-old regulation that criminalises homosexual intercourse, the couple can’t sponsor one another for dependent passes, apply for everlasting residency as a household, entry fertility companies resembling in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or “have our future little one be recognised as ours”.
“As a queer, binational, expat couple, we’ve come to the tip of the street,” she mentioned, noting that in New York she has a path to citizenship and may construct a household.
Sweeney mentioned she was leaving the area at a time when meals and agriculture in Southeast Asia is “exploding with alternatives and (a) want for extra accountable, climate-resilient practices and funding”.
Develop Asia has appointed Megan Sullivan to exchange Sweeney within the position of head of programmes, primarily based in Bangkok.
Sullivan was beforehand deputy chief of social gathering for USAID Inexperienced Make investments Asia, an initiative by the USA improvement company involving banks, companies, and communities in Southeast Asia to shift finance in the direction of sustainable land use.
Additionally becoming a member of Develop Asia are Sanjiv Louis, beforehand with funding firm former Sail Ventures, as senior advisor and Pranav Rastogi, previously with public relations agency Redhill, as head of communications. They are going to be primarily based in Singapore.
