Usha Devi K. Sabanayagam

Dynamic Director oversees every facet of production with strong project management and decision-making skills. Brings comprehensive knowledge of project experiences, production writing, planning and technical operations. Skilled at coordinating production plans and personnel resources to complete work under tight deadlines.

• Primary WFD in-country director in Malaysia since 2019 supporting democracy and the challenges they face drawing on local expertise and international networks and partnerships
• Have strong networks with Embassy representatives from the UK,US,Canada, Germany,EU, Sweden Australia & Denmark
• Meet with UK donor representatives from the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), Canadian donor from Global Affairs Canada and US donor representatives from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (US State Department-DRL) & United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
• Achieved recognition for WFD leaving footprints on gender and inclusion work with Parliament Malaysia and MPs notably on work done with Special select committees of Parliament , capacity building with researchers with accuracy and efficiency.
• Achieved momentum and buy in from ministries, government , Parliament , state level stakeholders , non-governmental organizations by effectively giving visibility, working together on projects gender responsive budgeting that led to increase in budget allocation for data management by Finance Ministry during Budget Parliamentary debate.
• Documented gender scrutiny on the yearly national budget to enable MPs to debate on allocations effectively.
• Supervised 2 staff members successfully providing guidance and mentorship on their performance and areas of improvement and mentorship on their performance.
• Collaborated with team of 8 in the development of Women Political Leadership (WPL)project 2023-2024

• WFD In-House Training Programme: Management Development Program
• IRI In-House Training Programme: Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E)
• NSTP In- House Training Programme: Self-Development Program
• Star Publications In-House Training Programme: Introduction to Journalism, Introduction to Social Etiquette, Introduction to Business Writing, Introduction to Basic Sub-Editing, 2-month training at Multi-media and Video section

• 7th College Committee Member, Pahang Arts Week, 1993
• 7th College Committee Member, Tamil Language Association, 1993

• Age: 51 years
• Date of Birth: 03/12/72
• Gender: Female
• Nationality: Malaysian
• Marital Status: Single

As Chairman Amnesty International Malaysia (2012-2015) lead an accountability project on organisational accountability, performance and learning, including incentives, compliance measures, knowledge creation, and capacity building, and their role and application in the Amnesty context. Review existing good practice and theory on organizational performance, accountability, and learning, including practices and forward thinking in peer organisations to inform the review. Propose a new, simpler and more coherent framework for organisational performance, accountability and learning for the AI movement. Map existing performance, accountability and learning related tools, their purpose, scope, relevance, implementation and effectiveness; identify how best to consolidate, modify and align relevant tools to make them more coherent and effective in the new framework to be proposed by this study. 

Volunteer writer, editing and proof reading with Danish Red Cross Asylum Centre (DRCA) in Denmark for New Times, a newspaper publication written by asylum seekers about asylum and humanitarian issues in Denmark and around the world from February until May 2008. 

Facilitator (1999 until 2001) for Star Publications (M) Bhd’s young journalist program (BRATs), for teenagers between the ages of 15 to 19. Responsibilities include theory (research, story angle) and practical training (interviews) of journalism for the youngsters with real life situations.

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) course by International Republican Institute (IRI) in 2013 & 2014