Ashveena Gajeelee

Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

Ashveena Gajeelee is a public policy specialist with strong experience in public finance and global health. She is an affiliate of the Global Access in Action (GAiA) Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where she supports GAiA’s action-oriented research on global public health challenges faced by the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Ashveena is currently working with African Ministries of Finance to improve budget planning and execution and reforms. Over the coming years, she will be looking at how governments can improve the efficiency of the health systems through a more strategic finance mechanism.

Prior to her work at GAiA, Ashveena was a teaching fellow for the Adaptive Leadership course at the Harvard Kennedy School. She has worked in several governmental ministries in her home country of Mauritius, including Agriculture, Prime Minister’s Office, and Environment. After several years in government, she joined the Financial Services Commission, where she was the Head of Policy and International Affairs. Following the financial crisis, Ashveena was intensely active in working with Southern African Development Community countries to implement international norms in the financial services sector and ensuring compliance to fight money laundering and financing of terrorism. As a Fulbright Humphrey Fellow, she worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to research the best practice of community development outreach and financial literacy. She was most recently, the advisor to the Minister of Finance and Economic Development. She has a strong research interest in pandemic preparedness and the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

Ashveena holds an MPA from Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), France, and a dual master from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (MPA) and the Graduate Institute of Geneva (International Affairs).