Tara D. Gurung, born in a remote village north of Pokhara, and largely brought up in Kaski district, is a development practitioner actively involved in progressive development work at the grass-roots, local and national levels for the last three decades. In her career, she has worked for national, bilateral and multilateral development agencies. She served as the Director of Development Policy and Programmes and the Country Manager for the Australian government’s aid programme in Nepal, managing Australia’s bilateral development cooperation in Nepal. With the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Government of Nepal (GoN), she worked in the capacity of Tourism Planning and Monitoring Specialist for the Tourism for Rural Poverty Alleviation Programme (TRPAP). Tara Gurung started her development career in April 1991 with the world class Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP), working in the laps of the Annapurna mountain range. She worked with ACAP in different capacities, including as the Officer-In-Charge of its Sikles Regional Office and as the Senior Conservation Officer leading on ACAP’s work in Sustainable Agriculture and Tourism Development. Currently she is the Chairperson of the Chandra Gurung Conservation Foundation (CGCF), established in the memory of late Dr Chandra Prasad Gurung, a world renowned leading conservationist from Sikles, Kaski.
At present she is the member of the board of trustees of Gandaki University.
Tara Gurung is a Masters in Rural Development from Tribhuvan University and a Post Graduate in Parks Recreation and Tourism Management (including International Rural Development) from the Lincoln University in New Zealand. She completed her Intermediate in Science (biology) and high school in Pokhara from the Prithwi Narayan Campus and Amar Singh Madhyamik Vidhyalaya respectively.
