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Map-SA GEC 2020 Background Note Agenda Speakers
GEC Global Meeting 2020
Development Alternatives, India partner of Green Economy Coalition (GEC), will be hosting the eleventh GEC Global Annual Meeting in New Delhi, India from 4-6 February 2020. It is a three day event where Day I will focus upon the scope and potential of green MSMEs in building green and inclusive economies in the world. Day II will see Local Green Entrepreneurs sharing stories of transformation and building solidarity while reflecting upon the scope, opportunities and challenges of Local Green Enterprises (LGEs) in India. In the discussions on Day III, participants will work towards identifying what has been done, what needs urgent attention and who will need to steer and play roles in taking these actions forward.
  • Why do we come together every year?
  • What are we going to do this year?
  • Who all will be present?
  • Highlights from the Global Meeting in 2019
The overall objective of the Global Meet is to build a platform for the civil society and small businesses to engage with green economy policy making in India and other parts of the world. Together we bring together over 300 civil society networks spanning poverty, environmental protection and labour rights, who are actively championing the green economy transition at local, national and global levels. We centre our dialogues and debates to moving Societal Demand and Inclusion – both critical for the transition to be sustained across traditional investment or parliamentary cycles.
Our focus this year is on ensuring that local green businesses get a stake in the transition to a green economy. The Global Meeting will delve deeper into aspects of finance, measurements, markets and governance needed for enabling LGEs in India and other countries to carve the story of Green Economy Transitions. The Global Meet will also reflect on the stories and lessons from seven national/regional GEC hubs in the Global South, which are part of the ongoing Programme of GEC on creating enabling policy conditions for the transformation towards an inclusive green economy, currently supported by the European Commission.
The meeting will bring together representatives from business, finance, NGOs and citizen’s groups from India and around the world. It will be attended by members of the GEC, including the seven GEC regional/ national hubs (Caribbean, India, Mongolia, Peru, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda).
The 2019 GEC Global Meeting focused on how everyone can get a stake in the transition to a new, greener economic system. It gathered 130+ participants from over 30 civil societies, small businesses, academia, government and international organisations. The event Report can be found here
Why do we come together every year?
The overall objective of the Global Meet is to build a platform for the civil society and small businesses to engage with green economy policy making in India and other parts of the world. Together we bring together over 300 civil society networks spanning poverty, environmental protection and labour rights, who are actively championing the green economy transition at local, national and global levels. We centre our dialogues and debates to moving Societal Demand and Inclusion – both critical for the transition to be sustained across traditional investment or parliamentary cycles..
What are we going to do this year?
Our focus this year is on ensuring that local green businesses get a stake in the transition to a green economy. The Global Meeting will delve deeper into aspects of finance, measurements, markets and governance needed for enabling LGEs in India and other countries to carve the story of Green Economy Transitions. The Global Meet will also reflect on the stories and lessons from seven national/regional GEC hubs in the Global South, which are part of the ongoing Programme of GEC on creating enabling policy conditions for the transformation towards an inclusive green economy, currently supported by the European Commission.
Who all will be present?
The meeting will bring together representatives from business, finance, NGOs and citizen’s groups from India and around the world. It will be attended by members of the GEC, including the seven GEC regional/ national hubs (Caribbean, India, Mongolia, Peru, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda).
Highlights from the Global Meeting in 2019
The 2019 GEC Global Meeting focused on how everyone can get a stake in the transition to a new, greener economic system. It gathered 130+ participants from over 30 civil societies, small businesses, academia, government and international organisations. The event Report can be found here.
4th Feb Taking Stock
5th Feb Building Solidarity
6th Feb Building Synergy
4th Feb
B-32 TARA Crescent Qutub Inst. Area
New Delhi
Taking Stock
  • Agenda
  • Background Note
5th Feb
B-32 TARA Crescent Qutub Inst. Area
New Delhi
Building Solidarity
  • Agenda
  • Background Note
6th Feb
Silver Oak, India Habitat Centre
New Delhi
Building Synergy
  • Agenda
  • Background Note
Statement on Local Green Enterprises in India
Prepared for the 2020 Global Meeting

India’s fast paced economic growth has not translated to corresponding benefits to the large population of the country. The growth story goes in parallel with immense problems of environmental degradation and social inequity. For India to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, transformations are required in the way our economies are designed.

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Our Speakers
Ashok Khosla
Development Alternatives Group
Chairman
For nearly five decades, Ashok has been a pioneer in finding paths for development whose benefits reach everyone and can be sustained by the Earth’s resources. He has been Co-Chair of the UN’s International Resource Panel, President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and President of the Club of Rome. He was a member of the Government of India’s National Security Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Council to the Cabinet. For his contribution, he was awarded the OBE by the UK Government, the UN Sasakawa Environment Prize and the Zayed International Environment Prize, among others.
Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu
Rajya Sabha
Hon’ble Member
Suresh, a member of the Rajya Sabha, is an official emissary of the Prime Minister of India in the G7 & G20 forums. In a short span, he engaged with global leaders and thinkers, and led delegations across the globe. He has also held various cabinet portfolios like Commerce and Industry, Civil Aviation, Railways, Power, Environment and Forests, Chemicals and Fertilisers in the last two decades. Suresh is known for his out of the box thinking, and has scripted various reforms and effected organisational transformations. During his tenure as the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry (2017-19), he played a critical role in boosting domestic manufacturing at the district level to achieve a USD 5 trillion economy. He was also instrumental in promoting trade, investment, technology and innovation, and boosting the start-up ecosystem. As the Union Minister of Railways (2014-17), Suresh had successfully introduced a real time customer complaint resolution mechanism through social media, changing the approach of Indian Railways from ‘Passengers’ to ‘Customers’. He has also effectively made sustainability an integral part of the Railways strategy by diversifying the Railways energy consumption basket to include renewable energy sources and energy efficient equipment, with a vision to source at least 25% energy use from renewable energy sources by 2020. As the Union Minister of Power (2000-02), he introduced the landmark Electricity Bill 2001, which provided for non-discriminatory open access in the transmission segment, and mandated State Electricity Regulatory Commission to introduce open access in distribution. Suresh is a rare mix of academic excellence and execution capability. He has been published widely on social and economic issues. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in Climate Change issues in relation to Energy and Environment from the Freie University of Berlin, and also in State Public Finance from Mumbai University. He is also an avid sports fan.
Arun Maira
Planning Commission
Former Member
Arun has an unusual combination of experience as a hands-on leader, a consultant to leaders, and a thought-leader on subjects of leadership and institutional transformation, in both the private and public sectors. He has written several books on institutional transformation. The most recent ones are ‘Transforming Systems: Why the World Needs a New Ethical Toolkit’, and ‘Listening for Well-Being: Conversations with People Not Like Us’. Arun was a Member of India’s Planning Commission from 2009-14, prior to which he was the Chairman of the Boston Consulting Group India, and previously had worked with the TATA Group in India and abroad for 25 years.
Arun Kumar Panda
Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
Secretary
Arun joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1984 in the Odisha cadre. Presently, he is holding the charge of Secretary of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), and leads the Ministry for fulfilling the vision of employment generation and development of the MSME Sector. In his 35 years of service, Arun has served as an administrator, policy maker and public health strategist, besides holding a wide range of assignments both at the provincial and central level in the field of Health, Urban Development and Rural Development. He has also served as Additional Secretary and Mission Director of National Health Mission in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, a flagship programme of the Government of India. He earned his Master’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Delhi, and received a PhD from the Department of Economics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. Arun has also attended programmes on leadership and management from the Cambridge University and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Rita Roy Choudhury
FICCI
Assistant Secretary General
With over 24 years of professional experience, Rita is presently in-charge of six domains at FICCI – Environment, Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Power & Coal, Water, and Sanitation. She has initiated FICCI's foray in sustainable waste management, clean energy, biodiversity, and sustainability, with a stronger focus on regulatory and policy feedback and thought leadership in these areas. Rita steers several thematic committees, is the nodal point for varied platforms that FICCI is a part of, and has initiated the formation of the Indian Green Bonds Council. The India Carbon Market Conclave, re-designated as the India Climate Policy and Business Conclave, the only platform in India for business and climate change, was launched under her initiative in 2007. She has also handled projects and partnerships with various organisations, such as UNIDO, USAID, USEPA, DFID, The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, GIZ, UNEP and UNDP; and is a member of expert committees of the government, ICC, OECD and others. Rita had obtained a Bachelors in Economics from Miranda House, University of Delhi, and a Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.
Arun Kumar
Development Alternatives Group
President
Arun has wide experience in the areas of Technology Innovation, Systems Engineering, Business Development, Organisation of Research and General Management. Since 1989, he has been responsible for innovation and development of technology systems required for large-scale creation of sustainable livelihoods. He has been responsible for development and commercialisation of sustainable technology packages in the areas of Low Cost Construction, Decentralised Energy Production, Cleaner Production Technologies, Biomass Utilisation and Paper Recycling. He has authored numerous publications on technology and issues of sustainability, including ones related to technology assessment, technology development and processes that accelerate acceptance of cutting edge technologies.
Reema Nanavaty
Self Employed Women’s Association
Director
Reema has been working with SEWA for over 35 years, expanding its membership to over 1.5 million, making it the single largest union of informal sector women workers. Reema facilitated rebuilding lives and livelihoods of 60,000 earthquake affected rural women and 40,000 riot-affected members. She is leading the rehabilitation programmes in Afghanistan and in Sri Lanka, providing vocational training in rural livelihood security to war-affected widows. Reema oversees 4,813 self-help groups (SHG), 160 co-operatives and 15 economic federations, pan India (including 16 states) and also in 7 South Asian countries, focusing on women’s economic empowerment by building women owned enterprises, promoting women led supply chains, introducing modern ICT-based tools and facilitating green energy initiatives and livelihoods. Reema is currently a member of the Advisory Council on Gender of the World Bank Group. She has also been a member of International Labor Organization’s High-Level Global Commission on Future of Work. She was honored by the Padma Shri Award for her contribution in areas of Social Services in 2013.
Sanjay Aggarwal
Ministry of Finance, Government of India
Director - Procurement Policy
Sanjay is holding the post of Director (Procurement Policy) in Ministry of Finance, Government of India. He is also the Secretary of Task Force on Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) constituted by the Indian Government to prepare the Action Plan on SPP. He has varied experience spanning more than 27 years in procurement and supply chain management with special expertise in electronic procurement. Sanjay was also the lead team member of the Task Force on revision of General Financial Rules (GFRs) of the Government of India released in March 2017. These Rules are overarching instructions for all procurements in India. Sanjay has assisted in development of the capacity building programme in Public Procurement. The programme has trained more than 6,000 procurement professionals across all Ministries and Departments of Government of India. He also has interest in the area of electronic commerce, and was elected the Vice Chairman of Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) between 2008 and 2010. Besides a graduate degree in Engineering, he also holds three post-graduate qualifications in Public Administration, General Management and Financial Markets.
Amit Bose
GIST (India)
Director
Amit is the Director of GIST (India), Advisor to and Shareholder of GIST (South Asia). He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), and has extensive 40 years of rich business experience in India and Asia. Amit has worked in leadership roles in fast-moving consumer goods (HUL, Pepsi, Mattel), Telecom (Reliance, TATA, Bakrie), and as an entrepreneur in several start-ups. He is the founding partner of 3C Mobile Inc., a digital software firm. He is a true polymath, with widespread interests across diverse subjects. His current focus is on Intelligent Analytics. Amit is an Honours Graduate in Statistics from Bombay University.
Madhu Sharan
Hand in Hand
President
Madhu is a Livelihoods and Gender Specialist with over fifteen years of extensive field research and global work experience in facilitating economic empowerment of rural women. As the President of a leading NGO, Hand in Hand India, she oversees projects related to social mobilisation, SHG management, promoting skilling, financial inclusion, entrepreneurship and jobs for people living at the bottom of the pyramid across six states of India. Prior to this, she has worked as a Consultant with several bi-lateral and multilateral organisations, including Asian Development Bank, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the Department for International Development (DFID), for monitoring and evaluating projects related to financial inclusion, gender and development.
Ramakrishna NK
RangDe and Habba
Co-founder & CEO
Ramakrishna is the co-founder of Rang De - India’s first non-profit, peer-to-peer micro lending platform that supports underserved communities with access to low cost credit for livelihoods and education. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer and was elected to the Ashoka fellowship in 2012 in recognition of Rang De’s game changing efforts to lower the cost of borrowing when the focus was mostly on accessibility and not affordability. Ramakrishna, an engineer by qualification and a software consultant in his previous avatar, strongly believes in social business models that focus on impact maximisation. He also believes that when people come face to face with a problem and understand its manifestations, they are more likely to do something about it. A lot of his efforts at Rang De and in the social space, therefore, revolve around helping create empathy. He loves to teach social entrepreneurship, and is a guest faculty at the Centre for Social Initiative and Management (CSIM), and also a mentor at the TATA Social Enterprise Challenge in IIM Calcutta.
Rohtash Mal
EM3 Agriservices Pvt Ltd
Chairman and Managing Director
Rohtash is the founder of a large scale start-up in the Agri Tech and Agri Services space. In his long career of over 40 years, he has extensively worked across different industries like Agri-Machinery, Agriculture, Telecom, Automobiles, Paper, Chemicals, Switchgear. He has a proven track record of successfully executing greenfield projects, managing steady growth businesses and delivering turnarounds. Currently he is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industries, (CII) Agricouncil, and of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) National Committee on Technology. He is also the Charter Member of Indian Angel Network & TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).
Ashish Kothari
Vikalp Sangam and Kalpavriksh
Founder

Ashish began working on environment and development issues in his school days in 1978-79, as one of the founders of Kalpavriksh, an Indian environmental NGO. He coordinates Kalpavriksh's programme on Alternatives. A graduate in Sociology, Ashish has taught environment at the Indian Institute of Public Administration in the 1990s, and has been a guest faculty at several universities, institutes and colleges.

He has been the Co-Chair of the IUCN Inter-commission Strategic Direction on Governance, Equity and Livelihoods in Relation to Protected Areas (TILCEPA) (1999-2008), and in the same period a member of the Steering Committees of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), and IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP). He has served on the Board of Directors of Greenpeace International, and currently chairs Greenpeace India’s Board. Ashish has served on the Indian Government’s Environmental Appraisal Committee on River Valley Projects, and Expert Committees to formulate India’s Biological Diversity Act and National Wildlife Action Plan. He coordinated India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan process. Ashish has been active with a number of people’s movements, including Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and Beej Bachao Andolan (Save the Seeds Movement).

Shambu Prasad
Institute of Rural Management, Anand
Coordinator ISEED and Professor
Shambu is a Professor in the General Management (Strategy and Policy) area at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA). At IRMA, he coordinates the incubation centre for social enterprises through the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprises (CSEE), and works on contemporary research issues of Farmers’ Producer Organisations (FPOs) through the Verghese Kurien Centre of Excellence on producer collectives. His expertise is in science and innovation policy, and his education has been multidisciplinary with a basic training in mechanical engineering, a Masters in Industrial Management with specialisation in science policy (both at IIT Madras), and a Doctorate in science, technology and society studies from IIT Delhi. His publications and teaching have been in the domains of rural livelihoods, sustainable agriculture, innovation management, managing collectives, and managing sustainable transitions. Shambu was awarded the Villgro-CSIE award for ‘Academic Contribution to the Field of Social Entrepreneurship’ in April 2013, and he was a Fulbright Nehru Senior Research Fellow attached to Cornell University pursuing a long term study on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in 2013-14. He has been a member of a Sub Group on Upscaling Innovative Technologies in Agriculture for the 12th Five Year Plan and in several round table discussions on FPOs.
Kumar Anubhav
NotOnMap
Founder
Kumar is the Founder of NotOnMap. Realising the tremendous potential of hidden cultural treasure and beautiful old-style traditional houses, he, along with Sandeep (Co-Founder, NotOnMap), came up with the concept of NotOnMap. The idea was seeded a few years back by the side of a river in one such house, and today that house is rated as ‘One of the Top 14 AirBnB Stays in India’. Kumar holds an engineering degree in Electronics & Communication from Delhi College of Engineering. Before starting his own venture, Kumar spent over 11 years in the corporate world at various leadership positions in the Analytics Industry. He has deep knowledge and understanding of data analytics, Big Data, and has served clients to find meaningful data driven business insights across various industries like BFSI, Retail, Pharma, Telecom, Legal & Health care. He was also a Fellow - Analytics Consultant at Antuit, Assistant Vice President with CPA Global, Group Leader - Analytics at Ameriprise, and Data Scientist at Inductis.
Arvind Malik
Udyogini
CEO
Arvind has a degree in Forestry Science, advanced training in human rights, and over 25 years of professional experience in the development sector, working with some leading national and international NGOs including two and half years as Regional Rural Development Manager, Aga Khan Foundation, Afghanistan. Arvind was recognised as Ford Fellow in 2015, a global fellowship organised by Ford Motor Company and 92 Street Y, USA. His areas of expertise are to build sustainable programmes and teams around natural resource management, including sustainable agriculture, rural energy and strengthening of market systems to build viable value chains and business development services for the rural poor.
Oliver Greenfield
Green Economy Coalition
Convenor
As the Convenor, Oliver provides the GEC network with leadership, enabling people from diverse institutions to work and influence collectively. Before GEC, he spent seven years enabling stakeholder change, leading WWF’s Sustainable Business and Economics work. He previously worked as the corporate strategy advisor with Booz Company and the BBC World Service.
Stuart Worsley
Green Economy Coalition
Dialogues Director
Stuart joined the GEC in July 2017 as the Director for Country Dialogues, and leads the coalition’s dialogue work around the world. With 27 years of working for development agencies, Stuart has extensive expertise in facilitating system wide change for development. He has led organisations and programmes that address change in agriculture, natural resources, water and sanitation. Stuart is the co-author of "Navigating Complexity in International Development".
Emily Benson
Green Economy Coalition
Director of Engagement
Emily manages the GEC's external communications as well as stakeholder and outreach strategy. As lead on many of the GEC's published reports, Emily is author of the GEC's external voice and positioning. She was previously Head of Communications and Engagement at Stakeholder Forum, and initially worked in documentary-making as a researcher and producer.
Zeenat Niazi
Development Alternatives
Vice President
Zeenat leads the policy studies and development action initiatives at the organisation. Her work over two decades has focused on sustainable housing and habitat in rural and urban areas, community based approaches to climate and disaster resilience, and support to national, sub-national and local governments in mainstreaming integrated planning for achieving the Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement in India. Her key interests lie in the area of resource efficient and people-nature centric development planning. Her core area of interest is in social and ecological systems and resilience approaches for development, and her work in habitat planning now increasingly addresses the concern of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) systems through resource efficiency, circular economy and equity concerns in resource access and distribution of SCP benefits.
Shrashtant Patara
Development Alternatives Group
Senior Vice President
Shrashtant is an architect by training, currently pursuing an M.Phil. at the University of Cape Town. He has been with the Development Alternatives (DA) Group since 1988, providing research expertise, management capability and strategic direction to teams engaged in the dissemination of green enterprise solutions, creation of green jobs and fulfilment of basic needs in underdeveloped economies. Through engagement across scales, his work has been focussed on the co-creation of multi-stakeholder eco-systems that promote entrepreneurship through social innovation, capacity building and access to technological, financial and marketing support services. Foremost among initiatives, Shrashtant is currently involved in the la Caixa Banking Foundation supported ‘Work 4 Progress’ project aimed at innovation in entrepreneurship driven job creation. He is also a Fellow of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Programme on Social Innovation, and a member of several advisory groups, including the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction and Indo-German Expert Group on Green and Inclusive Economy. He has been instrumental in the establishment of several social businesses within the DA Group, and leads the team that is incubating the Indian Micro Enterprises Development Foundation.
Chris Hopkins
Green Economy Coalition
Policy Manager
Chris works on the GEC network’s public policy and project implementation, having joined the GEC in May 2014. He works on green economy policy, sustainable economics and climate ethics, having spent five years as a freelance journalist in the energy sector. Chris holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from the University of York.
Ben Martin
Green Economy Coalition
Communications Editor
Ben joined the GEC in May 2017 to help grow the reach and impact of our work, bringing his experience of climate communications and policy advocacy gathered during his years working with Members of Parliaments around the world on climate and energy legislation. Ben has a Masters in Social & Political Science from the University of Chicago, and a First Class honours degree from Oxford University.
Catriona McLean
Green Economy Coalition
Project Manager
Catriona's expertise includes project design, management, monitoring, evaluation and learning methodologies and processes, particularly in climate-resilient sustainable development; the nexus between climate, environment, gender and poverty/development; proposal development; institutional fundraising; and grant management. Before joining the GEC in 2017, Catriona worked for WWF-UK, coordinating implementation of a portfolio of programmes in Africa, Asia and South America; international development organisations and the Scottish Parliament.
Najma Mohamed
Green Economy Coalition
Policy Director
Having joined the GEC in August 2019 from the International Labour Organisation, where she led work on green jobs and the just transition, Najma has previously worked for the UN Partnership for Green Economy and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. Author of "Sustainability Transitions in South Africa", Najma’s role is ensuring our GEC policy work goes to the next level of clarity, working closely with our global network partners and our country hubs, and leveraging her knowledge of what economic policy works in each country.
Aditi Haldar
GRI South Asia
Director
Aditi is an expert on sustainable development, with over twenty four years of experience. Her goal is to strengthen the integration of sustainable development and transparency into policies, strategies, management, performances and communication through measurable enablers and results. Currently, she is the Director - GRI Regional Hub South Asia, and her primary role is to advocate, research, communicate, and engage in dialogue with multi-stakeholder constituencies in making sustainability and transparency a standard practice in the South Asian region and the global community. Her focus is on creating trustworthy conditions in the society through credible information exchange between businesses, governments, financial institutions, civil societies, labour, academia and media, which will enable constructive dialogue and informed decision making at the organisational, national and global levels. She had been part of various national, regional and global advisory committees, councils, task forces for the government, regulatory bodies, professional and academic institutions and multi-stakeholder network-based organisations including the GRI Technical Advisory Committee, Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Committee UNGC GRI on UN SDGs, BSI Certification Advisory Board, and GAC World Economic Forum.
Sanjiv Bhatia
STENUM
President
Sanjiv is the President of the governing council of STENUM Asia, a consulting firm that has introduced the Resource Efficient Cleaner Production (RECP) approach to over 700 small, medium and large enterprises in South Asia. He has two decades of international business experience, servicing a customer base of leading international brands, retailers and factories across the apparel, footwear and luggage value chains. He has held many leadership roles, including a global role based at London in strategy formulation and marketing. Sanjiv holds a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA from XLRI, is a Chevening Scholar, and has completed the General Management Programme from Harvard Business School. He is also actively involved in promoting and supporting entrepreneurship and advising multiple incubators.
Madhu Verma
World Resources Institute, India
Chief Economist

Madhu is the Chief Economist at WRI India, based out of the Delhi office. An environment and development economist, and policy analyst, her work at WRI India focuses on providing a thread of economics across various programmes, along with supporting the global economics team.

Madhu is a Fulbright Nehru Environmental Leadership Fellow (2012); a Leadership in Environment and Development Fellow (LEAD International), London, UK, Cohort 12 (2007); and currently elected to the Board of the International Society for Ecological Economics (2020-21). She has 35 years of work experience with many national and international institutes, ministries and United Nations bodies and funding agencies; and has 40 publications, in international and national journals, and more than 45 project reports to her credit.

She has been an expert/ team member/ contributing author/ lead author of several international reports like the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (2004-06), The Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity (TEEB) Reports, and the Global Biodiversity Assessment Report of the Inter-Governmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (2013-2019). With many awards and accolades to her credit, she was recently honoured as an INSEE (Indian National Society for Ecological Economics) Fellow in recognition of her path-breaking contributions.

Madhu holds Master’s and M. Phil degrees in Economics with specialisation in Regional Planning and Economic Growth, and has a Ph.D. from Bhopal University in Industrial Economics. Besides her passion for nature, she is a passionate singer and an interior designer, and is penning a book titled, ‘What I Cook for My Family - From the Desk of a Working Woman’.

Anshul Bhamra
Development Alternatives Group
Senior Manager - Policy and Planning Domain
Anshul is working as a Senior Manager, Policy and Planning Domain of Development Alternatives. She leads the research on equity and resource issues pertaining to green economy, with special focus on the agricultural sector and micro and small enterprises. She also leads the work on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), pertaining to financial assessments, monitoring and review frameworks, and systems thinking approach for achieveing these. She directly works with state governments in India to support them in planning, implementing and tracking SDGs. Anshul holds her under-graduation degree in Economics from Delhi University, and Masters in Public Policy and Planning from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.
Arup Kumar Misra
Assam Science Technology & Environment Council
Director
Arup is the Director of Assam Science Technology & Environment Council (ASTEC), and also the Director of Assam Energy Development Agency (AEDA) – both independent and Nodal Agencies of the Government of Assam. A Chemical Engineering graduate from Assam Engineering College, he did his post-graduation from IIT Kanpur, and PhD from Gauhati University. He taught in Assam at various positions for about 26 years. In between, during 1998 and 2001, he served the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India at New Delhi. His academic areas of interest are Environmental Engineering, Sustainable Development and Green Engineering, to name a few. Arup has been regularly contributing to academic publications and conferences/ workshops in and out of the country. He presented technical papers at International Conferences in Edinburgh (UK) in 1991, Barcelona (Spain) in 1992, Florida (USA) in 2003, Auckland (New Zealand) in 2004, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) in 2015, and Bonn (Germany) in 2016. He was part of the 12-member Indian Delegation to the USA for studying Rooftop Solar Projects in New York and San Francisco, in December 2017. He also attended REEW-2019 in Berlin (Germany) on October 2019. Arup was a member of the 5-member Indian Delegation to Germany and Brazil in 1996 for the more than two-month Group Study Exchange Tour, which is a prestigious exchange programme of Rotary International, USA. He is very passionate about science popularisation and communication efforts in the country. During 1998-2001, he worked as a Senior Fellow in the Department of Science & Technology (Vigyan Prasar), Government of India, New Delhi, and initiated quite a few projects for children and youth. Widely traveling across the country, he has established about 4,000 science clubs in India.
Sunil K. Agarwal
Department of Science and Technology
Scientist in SEED
Sunil is presently a Senior Scientist in Science for Equity, Empowerment & Development (SEED) Division, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, New Delhi. He is an alumnus of Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun, from where he obtained a PhD degree for the research work he carried out related to rural technology models. Mid-carrier, as a fellow, he did a course on Planning of Projects for Biodiversity Conservation from the University of Bradford, UK. For more than 25 years, Sunil is involved in the implementation and management of Science and Technology (S&T) based societal programmes of DST. At present, he is handling flagship scheme of DST having societal relevance i.e. Technology Advancement for Rural Areas (TARA) for long term Cores Support to S&T capable NGOs. In this endeavour, he has contributed significantly in the development and implementation of natural resource based multi-institutional and multi-locational network programmes for technology development, adaptation and customisation in important sectors of the rural economy, with the involvement of local communities through a network of conservation groups and S&T knowledge institutions. Initiatives by him have connected S&T for societal needs and rural growth, and have led to the development of replicable technology packages and social enterprise models. Such field level models as complete technology packages have been taken up for large-scale replication by developmental agencies across the country, as well as in African countries. Sunil has also authored more than 35 research papers, reports and popular articles related to technology development and adoption at the grassroots level. His special interest and concerns include development of innovative and green technological solutions for natural resource management and sustainable rural livelihoods to benefit the society for inclusive and equitable growth. Sunil is a fellow member of the Academy of Environmental Biology, Lucknow, India, and has been awarded the 12th R.C. Dalela Oration 2015 at Mumbai.
René Van Berkel
United Nations Industrial Development Organization
Head of Regional Office
René is a UNIDO Representative and heads the Regional Office, which is directly responsible for India, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, and coordinates Country Offices in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. UNIDO works to foster inclusive and sustainable industrialisation in its member countries. René has 30 years of professional experience in resource efficiency and cleaner production, industrial productivity and sustainability, with extensive international experience in Europe, Australia and Asia, covering a variety of manufacturing and related sectors. He is a Dutch national, with a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Amsterdam.
Eika Chaturvedi Banerjee
Future Learning
Chief Executive Officer
In her current role, Eika leads three Future Learning business verticals – Corporate Capability, Skilling, Employability & Livelihoods, and Education. With her vision, the firm has emerged as one of the leading Corporate Skilling Companies of Modern India. She is also the creator of Future Learning’s line of signature programmes, Bodhi – The Awakening, which aims to revisit ancient wisdom, making it relevant to the modern-day context. She also runs “Durga In the Boardroom” – a series of bespoke Leadership Development retreats for corporate women. Eika works closely with the Government on various Skill Development Initiatives. Previously, she had founded FinSutra, a boutique Leadership Development firm, based on ancient wisdom, history, mythology and literature; and founded-curated Aakhyaan, India’s First Annual Mythology festival. She has over 17 years of core operating experience in leadership roles, and has served key positions at Standard Chartered Bank, ABM Amro, Citi & Kotak, in India and Singapore. Eika is an MBA from FMS-Delhi, an IAC certified Executive Coach, and a Post Graduate in Comparative Mythology from Mumbai University. Her key focus areas include Women’s Issues and Diversity Agenda.
Gitika Goswami
Development Alternatives
Senior Programme Director
Gitika, with twenty two years of experience in the environment and development sector, has been working as a Senior Programme Director at Development Alternatives (DA) for the last three years. Her current portfolio includes Climate Change Resilience, Inclusive Development, and Sustainable Consumption and Production, with a mandate of influencing and supporting public policy in the transition towards sustainable development. She has been working closely with several networks – CANSA, Adaptation Fund NGO Network (AFN), and IUCN Ganges Brahmaputra Meghna CSO Network for six countries; and is an active working group member of Natural Capital for Green Growth Knowledge Platform. She has been a speaker at several national and International events, viz., UNFCCC COP 25 side events in Madrid, UNFCCC SB 50 side events in Bonn, Adaptation Fund Board meeting in Bonn, UNCCD COP 14 side events in New Delhi, Natural Capital Working group meeting at the World Bank in Washington DC in 2017, OECD in Paris in 2018, and World Environment Day events in 2018, in the last three years. Before joining DA, she has worked at WWF-India, UNDP, MoEFCC and Winrock International, and has several publications on her work.
Rainer Agster
SEED
Director of Operations
Rainer has been supporting SEED since 2006. He serves as the Director of Operations, and oversees all functioning within the Hosting Partner Adelphi Research, providing inputs to the strategic development of SEED. Rainer joined Adelphi in 2002 as a Senior Project Manager, and is now the Director of its Private Sector Cooperation. His focus is on social and environmental entrepreneurship, energy efficiency, green finance and adaptation to climate change. He has experience in the development, implementation and evaluation of sustainable development projects for national and international clients (EuropeAID, DG Energy and Transport, DG Education and Culture, UNFCCC, UNEP, as well as Austrian, Chinese, German and Indian ministries, GIZ and KfW). Rainer graduated from the University of Applied Science Bremen in an International Study Programme for Environmental Engineering, and has a Master’s degree in Business Administration with a focus on sustainability management from the University of Leuphana in Lueneburg. He had also studied for one year at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Aruna Rangachar Pohl
India Foundation for Humanistic Development
Executive Director
Aruna is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), has 27 years of varied entrepreneurial and senior management experience in the food, agriculture and retail sector. She has set up businesses for processing spice oils and oleoresins and other food ingredients, a food laboratory, and organic and imported food marketing and distribution channels. She has been a Consultant to the Agri-products Export Promotion body of the Government of Germany (CMA), and reputed multinational companies across the globe. She has won the “Outstanding Women Entrepreneur” Award for 2002, presented by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Transitioning to the development sector in 2011, she was the National Director of Cheshire Disability Trust, implementing livelihood programmes for persons with disability. Since 2013, she has been developing organisational capabilities of IFHD to design and implement core programmes in greening economies, and sustainable consumption and production. Aruna is also a governing Board member of the Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRAN) in India. She is also recognised and listed globally among the 50 Most Impactful Green Leaders by the World CSR and World Sustainability Organisation.
Chandan Bhavnani
Responsible Banking, Yes Bank Ltd.
Group Executive Vice President
Chandan is a sustainability professional with over 10 years of experience in the areas of Corporate Sustainability Strategy and Management, Sustainable Finance, and Corporate Social Responsibility. At Yes Bank, he is involved in mainstreaming sustainable development into the core operations of the bank, including investments, reducing operational footprint, and creating impact for the communities. Under the leadership of the Chief Sustainability Officer, he has driven thought leadership, ESG Risk Management, Triple Bottom-line Accounting, and Sustainable Finance products. Additionally, he leads the knowledge and policy advocacy work for the Responsible Banking vertical. Prior to Yes Bank, Chandan has been associated with Ernst & Young and Jubilant Life Sciences, working across climate change, sustainability and EHS domains.
Anish Kumar
Transforming Rural India Foundation
Managing Director
Anish is the Managing Director at Transforming Rural India Foundation (TRIF). The Foundation seeks to bring about paradigm change across income, health & nutrition, education, drinking water, sanitation, gender inequality and local governance. It has created a collaborative platform of NGOs, government and businesses, together striving to make villages places worth living with dignity, prosperity and opportunity. Anish is also the Chairperson of National Smallholder Poultry Development Trust, supporting more than 11,000 women. This is the largest family poultry network in India, with a turnover of USD 56 million. Anish was part of the senior management team at PRADAN, India’s leading rural development NGO. His areas of expertise include creating business organisations run by poor communities, and facilitating participation of small-holder farmers in modern value chains. Anish has also been part of the erstwhile Planning Commission’s Working Group on disadvantaged farmers, and has been involved in designing of policies on producer collectives.
Poonam Sandhu
Natural Resources Defense Council
Financial Sector Specialist and India Head Consultant
Poonam is a banking and finance expert, and leads NRDC India’s team at New Delhi. Her work here focuses on clean energy finance and climate change policy issues. Prior to NRDC, Poonam worked at GIZ India as a Senior Advisor, Private Sector Development, where she was responsible for promoting the adoption of environmental and social standards in the banking sector, developing partnerships and training senior bankers. Poonam comes to NRDC with over 20 years of banking and development finance experience. Her previous professional engagements include DFID and multinational banks in India. Poonam holds a Bachelors of Economics (Honors) degree from Lady Shriram College, New Delhi, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad.
Gaylor Montmasson
Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies
Senior Economist
Gaylor is a Senior Economist at Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS). He leads TIPS's work on Sustainable Growth. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED). He holds two Master’s degrees – in International Affairs from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) of Grenoble, France; and in Energy and Environment Economics from the Grenoble Faculty of Economics, France. Gaylor has been working on green economy issues for more than 10 years, and has carried extensive research on the transition to an inclusive green economy from a developing country perspective, with a focus on policy frameworks, industrial development, just transition and resource security. Prior to TIPS, Gaylor had worked at the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, as well as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Leslie Forsyth
Foro Nacional Internacional
Director
A natural from Peru, Leslie studies sociology, and has worked in different projects with local communities, mainly in the Amazon forest. Her work experience is complemented with a specialisation in indigenous communities and diploma course in Multiculturalism and Indigenous Peoples: Challenges for Governance and Sustainable Development at UARM. Leslie has a Master’s in Anthropology, Environment and Development from the University College of London. She had carried out her field work for two months in Botswana, with the objective of developing her dissertation on “Are forms of involvement of local people in compensation programs for human-wildlife conflict telling us more about the conflict than the solution? The case of the Shorobe Livestock Insurance Initiative”. At present, she works with Foro Nacional Internacional (FNI), a part of the Peruvian hub of Green Economy Coalition. FNI has created the platform economiaverde.pe, gathering more than 190 green and social small and medium entrepreneurs.
Luis Miguel Prado
Libelula
Executive Producer Communications
Luis is a social communicator with a Bachelors in Fine Arts, a major in Film Animation, from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He has a postgraduate degree in Corporate Communication from the University of Lima, Peru. In the past 10 years, as the executive producer in the Communications Department in Libelula, Luis has focused his work towards connecting with people and organisations to improve the way in which they interact with the environment, and to promote a more sustainable world. Before this, he has worked in three different TV stations in charge of areas related to production, post-production and corporate image.
Nicole Leotaud
CANARI
Executive Director
Nicole has 25 years of experience working in environmental governance and management across the Caribbean. She is currently the Executive Director of the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), and has also held positions in other non-profit organisations, as well as the government, private sector and academia. A conservation biologist by training, she has worked in diverse areas related to: governance and management of forests, coastal and marine resources; green and blue economies; rural livelihoods; and climate change and natural disasters. She has developed, managed and executed projects on research, capacity building, and participatory policy development and planning. She also has expertise in civil society strengthening, and participatory monitoring and evaluation. Nicole is also a highly experienced facilitator, and has successfully facilitated many multi-stakeholder processes ranging from engaging local community resource users to negotiators in global policy processes.
Sandeep Tandon
UNIDO
National Programme Manager
Sandeep has 29 years of professional experience in the Energy sector. He has been associated with various bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies, such as USAID, UNDP and UNICEF on Climate Change mitigation projects. He has worked on several first-of-a-kind projects to advance the concept of Clean Energy among government agencies in India. He has also been closely associated with projects on Appliance Labeling with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Demand Side Management programme with State Electricity Boards, among others. Sandeep has provided advisory and programme implementation support to UNDP projects in India, Mongolia, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). He has contributed various articles for technical magazines, and participated at national and international forums. At UNIDO, Sandeep is responsible for implementation of projects – ‘Global Cleantech Innovation Programme’ with the Ministry of MSMEs, and ‘Low Carbon Technology Deployment’ with BEE, for the deployment of innovative technologies and solutions to improve energy efficiency. Sandeep holds an M.Tech. in Energy Studies from IIT Delhi, and B.E. in Electrical Engineering from D.A. University, Indore.
Kanika Verma
Development Alternatives Group
Programme Director
Kanika leads the Sustainable Enterprise Domain of the Development Alternatives Group. As the Programme Director, she provides strategic guidance, substantive expertise and management support to teams engaged in projects related to the development of delivery models for basic needs products, provision of support services to micro and small enterprises, and initiatives to strengthen aggregation driven value chains for enhanced livelihood security among women and other community groups. Her current areas of focus include piloting a social innovation platform (action and learning) to boost job growth for women and youth in India, with support from the “la Caixa” Banking foundation; co-leading the Asia Hub of Systems Play on fostering collaboration, experimentation, and learning with system innovators; scaling up micro enterprise development in villages being provided electricity through solar micro-grids supported by the Rockefeller Foundation; and developing clusters for traditional industries to make them profitable and productive through a mandate given by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise, Government of India – the Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI).
Debapriya Dutta
SEED, DST
Head and Advisor , Scientist 'G'
Debapriya completed his PhD from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, and joined the National Agricultural Research Service of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). He has served as a Scientist in the Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute, Dehradun; Senior Scientific Officer-I (1994) at the Natural Resources Data Management System Division of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India; Scientist 'F'/ Director in the same Department (till May 2008). Thereafter, he was appointed as the Counsellor (Science and Technology) in the Embassy of India, Washington D.C. (2008-12). During September 2012-15, he assumed the responsibility of Director, Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (IFCPAR). Currently, he is serving as Head and Advisor/ Scientist 'G' in the Science for Equity Empowerment and Development (SEED) division of DST. Debapriya was deputed to the Blackland Soil and Water Research Institute, University of Texas, as UNDP visiting scientist during 1998. He completed his Post Doctoral Fellowship from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), the Netherlands, in 2003-04. He was awarded Senior Professional Research Fellowship on ‘Groundwater Governance’ from International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Sri Lanka, in 2006-07.
Mahenau Agha
UN Inquiry
Director
Mahenau, universally known as Gugu, has a long career of international experience in the field of sustainable development. She was been the head of Communications at the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and Chief of External Relations for the Environment Finance Group of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Previously, she has worked with UNEP, the World Health Organisation’s GAVI programme, and the Global Environment Facility.
A.V. Ravindraprasad
Farm Sector Policy Department (FSPD), NABARD
Assistant General Manager
Ravindraprasad has rich experience in project formulation, appraisal, financing, monitoring and overseeing implementation of Natural Resource Management (NRM) based livelihood promotion programmes and farm sector development programmes. He has served as the District Development Manager (DDM) of NABARD at Ananthapuram district of Andhra Pradesh, where the principal functions included credit planning, coordination and monitoring through liaison with banks on the one hand, and government line departments on the other; business functions like refinance to Banks and RIDF projects, monitoring and coordination with implementing departments; and overseeing implementation of various developmental programmes aimed at improving ground level credit flow, capacity building, training and skill development of farmers, women and youth in rural areas. At present, Ravindraprasad is working for the Climate Change vertical of FSPD NABARD Mumbai, and is looking after projects under GCF, AF & NAFCC – Proposal (PCN/DPR) mobilisation efforts, scrutiny/ appraisal, overseeing implementation, and project monitoring. Ravindraprasad hold an M.Sc Agriculture degree, with a specialisation in Agronomy, from Bapatla Agriculture College, APAU; and a PhD in Agronomy at IARI, Delhi, with a specialisation in soil and water conservation and crop husbandry.
Atul Bagai
UN Environment
India Country Head
Atul joined UN Environment’s OzonAction programme under the Montreal Protocol as the Regional Officer for South Asia in 2000, and served as Senior Regional Coordinator to build the capacity of sub-regional networks in Asia and enable them to meet the compliance targets under the Montreal Protocol. In that capacity, he spearheaded and led some innovative initiatives with the Executive Committee of the Multilateral Fund. For instance, he was instrumental in designing and developing synergies between Ozone Depleting Substance phase-out and climate change in Maldives and Bhutan; green procurement policies in Mongolia, taking into account the phase-out of Ozone Depleting Substance as a legislation; a study of carbon credits and Ozone Depleting Substance destruction in Nepal; and the hydro-chloro-fluoro-carbon phase-out plan for India that included energy efficiency and the cold chain. Prior to this, Atul worked with the Government of India for 17 years as an officer of the prestigious Indian Administrative Service, the Chief of Staff to two Ministers at the Federal level (Ministry of Finance and Ministry of External Affairs), and to a Chief Minister at the provincial level. He also served as the Ozone Cell Director at the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Atul is a Post Graduate in History from the University of Delhi.
Odonchimeg Ikhbayar
Economic Policy and Competitiveness Research Center
Deputy Director
Odonchimeg currently holds the position of the Deputy Director of the Economic Policy and Competitiveness Research Center (EPCRC), a leading independent think tank in Mongolia. Having joined EPCRC in 2010, she has worked on projects related to economic competitiveness, policy and sustainable development since then. These include ‘Mongolia in World Competitiveness’, ‘Provincial Competitiveness Index of Mongolia’, ‘Scenarios for Mongolia’, and ‘Green Economy Stocktaking Study’ to name a few. Odonchimeg holds a degree in Management of Development from the University of Turin in Italy, and in Economics from the United Arab Emirates University in the UAE.
Racine Kane
IUCN
Country Director
Racine, prior to working with IUCN, had worked as a Programme Specialist in the UNDP Capacity 2015 Regional Coordination Mechanism for Africa, based in Dakar (Senegal). This included providing support to national programmes funded by Capacity 2015, capacity building, monitoring and evaluating ongoing and completed projects, learning from various sustainable development experiences, and developing sustainable development networks in sub-Saharan Africa. During the preparatory process for the WSSD, he was principally responsible for the elaboration of the national assessment of Agenda 21 in more than 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which have significantly contributed to strengthening countries and UNDP negotiators at the summit. As the focal point for the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) in the Capacity Development Group, Racine has also been involved on a similar initiative for the ten year review of the Barbados Plan of Action held in Mauritius during 2005. Before joining UNDP Capacity 21, he was with the Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE), in Senegal, for a total of 10 years, and developed many activities and programmes related to studying and combating desertification and environmental degradation, policy formulation and programme development.
Steven Stone
UN Environment
Chief, Resources & Markets Branch
With more than 20 years of professional experience, Steven currently directs UN Environment’s team dedicated to furthering the knowledge base and outreach and support to countries on environmental and resource economics as key components of economic, trade and investment policy. Few of the many key flagships he has helped to incubate are the Green Economy Initiative, the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), and PAGE. Prior to this, Steven worked at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), serving in a number of capacities, from Resource Economist in Washington, to Environmental Specialist in the Bank's offices in Jamaica and Ecuador, to Country Representative in Honduras. Before IDB, Steven led field research in Brazil as part of the team at the Instituto do Homen e Meio Ambiente in Belem, for a number of years. He has also worked at the World Bank on resource and agricultural economics with Uma Lele, among others. Steven earned an M.Sc. and PhD in Resource Economics from Cornell University, following his B.A. Honours from Swarthmore College. He has authored numerous journal articles and blogs, and also serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for International Environmental Studies at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.
Arthur Bainomugisha
ACODE
Executive Director
Arthur is the Executive Director of Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE), one of the leading public policy research think tanks in Eastern and Southern Africa. He has been a Technical Advisor for Uganda Peace Support Team on South Sudan, and was involved in brokering a peace agreement between SPLA (IO) and the Government of Uganda when fighting broke out in December 2013 in South Sudan. Arthur is a Lecturer of Peace and Conflict studies in the Faculty of Religion and Peace Studies at Makerere University, and a senior teaching fellow in the department of Public Administration and Governance at Uganda Christian University, Mukono. He has also worked as a Civil Society Fellow at the International Peace Institute (IPI), a New York based public policy think tank. He has authored several research publications, book chapters and articles on Peace and Security, Natural Resources and Local Governance. He holds a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies, a Masters in Peace Studies from University of Bradford (UK), and a Diploma in National Security from Galilee Institute, Israel.
Mamadou Fall
IED Afrique
Executive Director
Mamadou Fall is the Executive Director of Innovation Environnement et Développement en Afrique (IED Afrique). He capitalises more than ten years of experience in participatory action-research, the experimentation of participatory approaches in rural development, and policy dialogue in the governance of natural resources. He has coordinated various regional programmes (in West Africa), and has been involved in several inclusive policy dialogues over the governance of land and natural resources.
Pankaj Pachauri
GoNews
Founder & Editor in Chief
Pankaj is a print and broadcast journalist, with more than three decades of editorial and management experience in print and electronic media across three continents. He has worked in Delhi, London, Boston and Hong Kong, with leading news organisations such as NDTV, BBC World Service (UK), Public Radio International (US), India Today, and The Sunday Observer. In March 2017, he launched India’s first app-based TV News Channel, GoNews, and turned into a pioneering entrepreneur. The app integrates latest global internet and broadcast technologies to provide video news on mobile handsets. Pankaj has also been the Communications Advisor to former Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, while he was in office.
K. Vijayalakshmi
Development Alternatives Group
Vice President
Vijayalakshmi is responsible for technology innovation and research at the Development Alternatives (DA) Group. A chemist by training, her main focus areas include water quality management, and MSMEs that address the problems of women. At DA, Vijayalakshmi is responsible for strengthening the organisation’s capability in designing green solutions for the brown issues of the environment. She leads the resource efficiency team at the Group, and provides guidance to innovation in technology and delivery models for waste to wealth interventions. These also include solutions for air, water and land pollution due to industrialisation and urbanisation, and the related socio-economic implications on people and ecosystems. Under her leadership, the institution has developed capacities for addressing the environmental and social issues of small and medium enterprises and large corporations. She is also responsible for promoting the NGO-Business and other stakeholder partnership models. Vijayalakshmi has been the recipient of the National Award for Women's Development, through application of Science and Technology for the year 2007, granted by the President of India.
Prasad Modak
EMC LLP
Executive President
Prasad, along with being the Executive President of Environmental Management Centre LLP, is also the Director at Ekonnect Knowledge Foundation. He is an ex-professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He has worked with almost all key UN, multi-lateral and bi-lateral developmental institutions and intergovernmental organisations in the world. Apart from the Government of India and various State Governments, his advice is sought by Governments of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Mauritius, Thailand and Vietnam. Prasad is a Member of the Indian Resources Panel at MoEFCC, and a Member of Task Force on Sustainable Public Procurement at the Ministry of Finance. He has drafted the Report, Status on Resource Efficiency and Recommendations towards Circular Economy for NITI Aayog; and has been a contributor to UNEP’s Green Economy report. He is also the co-author of the Global Waste Management Outlook, and Chief Editor of Asia Waste Management Outlook for the United Nations Environment.
Sanjay Kumar
Ministry of Railways
Chief Materials Manager
Sanjay has over two decades of governance and leadership experience in Public Policy, Procurement & Supply Chain, and Environmental & Social Safeguards. He has been one of the leading voices from the region, advocating growth of sustainable purchasing movement in India. He serves as a member of the Task Force on Sustainable Public Procurement of the Government of India, and has the distinction of being the only member from Asia-Pacific on “Strategic Advisory Committee” of Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, Washington, USA. Sanjay is on the Board of Trustees of Asia Pacific Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production, and on the Steering Committee of United Nations Environment on Sustainable Public Procurement. He is also the Voice of SPHS (Sustainable Procurement in Health Sector) by Interagency Task Team of 10 United Nations agencies. Sanjay is a recipient of the prestigious 2017 Sustainable Purchasing Individual Leadership Award by SPLC, Washington, USA.
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