Mr. Phuntsho Wangyel has been appointed as Officer-in-Charge (OiC) for the UNFPA Sri Lanka and Maldives Country Offices, effective 1 September 2025.
He brings extensive experience in development planning, coordination, and public policy, and has been serving as Head of the UNFPA Bhutan Country Office since January 2022.
Mr. Wangyel is an experienced development professional with expertise in policy analysis. Before joining UNFPA, he served as Chief of the Research and Evaluation Division of the Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC), Bhutan. He has also worked under the Ministry of Finance, gaining broad experience in development planning and coordination, research, and evaluation.
His professional contributions include coordinating the formulation of national development plans and programmes, aid coordination, design and conduct of evaluations, and targeted poverty intervention programmes. More recently, he led the formulation of Bhutan’s National Policy for Persons with Disabilities and oversaw the review of numerous public policies, including the Accelerating Mother and Child Health Policy.
A national of Bhutan, Mr. Wangyel holds a Master’s degree in International and Development Economics from the Australian National University, Australia.
