The Asia Foundation

Expertise: Decentralization and local governance; multi-sectoral partnerships; change management; anti-corruption; and civil society capacity building and empowerment.

Maria Belen Bonoan is a senior program officer with The Asia Foundation in the Philippines. In this capacity, she manages the Transparent Accountable Governance program and assists in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of other selected activities within the Foundation's Governance and Counter Corruption program. She is an expert on subnational planning and financial management, local-level counter-corruption initiatives, government-private sector partnerships, design and facilitation of multi-sectoral processes, and building peer support networks among local governments and resource institutions.

Ms. Bonoan has more than 10 years of experience working with Philippine local governments and non-government organizations. She was a domestic public finance and decentralization specialist in the Asian Development Bank’s Regional Capacity Building and Governance for the Expanded ARMM project, and has worked on the Foundation’s local governance projects in Sri Lanka. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was a local finance specialist for the Associates in Rural Development-Governance and Local Democracy project, where she managed local financial activities in several provinces in the Philippines, focused on improving local government revenues and building the capacity of local governments to manage change. She has previously worked in an international humanitarian agency dealing with political refugees and economic migrants.

Education: B.A. in international relations, Mindanao State University; M.A. in public administration, University of the Philippines.