Abhik is the Head of Innovation and Partnerships at Commonwealth Secretariat. At the inter-governmental organisation for the Commonwealth of Nations, Abhik leads on fostering innovation and developing partnerships with governments, international development organisations and other stakeholders to accelerate sustainable development in Commonwealth countries across the world and build collective resilience to tackle shared challenges such as climate change, inequality and digital disruption. He heads the Commonwealth innovation hub, a peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and data analysis platform, and provides policy advice and capacity building assistance to the governments of Commonwealth countries with the objective of strengthening regional and national innovation ecosystems.
Previously, as Head of Policy and Research with a particular focus on young people who comprise more than 60 per cent of the Commonwealth’s population of 2.6 billion people, Abhik helped the governments of Commonwealth countries develop, implement and monitor evidence-based public policies and programmes targeted at improving the enabling environment and outcomes for gender-sensitive youth development and entrepreneurship. He also steered advocacy initiatives to empower young people and strengthen their participation in policymaking processes. Abhik led the development of the inaugural Global Youth Development Index and Report, a ground-breaking study published in 2016 that the United Nations Human Development Report Office said was “an admirable and timely contribution to fill a critical gap in the global development landscape.”
Abhik has been a Managing Editor at The Economist Group as well as a newspaper editor in India. His analysis and commentary have been featured in The Economist, BBC, Guardian, The Times and Bloomberg, among others. He has been a trustee at Apples & Snakes, the leading national organisation for poetry and spoken word artists in the UK. Abhik was educated in India and the UK and is a World Fellow at Yale University.