Project Steering Committee

Jonathan Demenge is currently the Head of cooperation for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in India. He was previously the Country director of the international NGO Geres in Tajikistan, working on energy efficiency in housing and agriculture. Trained as an anthropologist, Dr. Jonathan holds a PhD from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in political ecology (on road construction in Ladakh). He calculated the first ecological footprint of subsistence farmers (in Ladakh). He has worked for the Netherlands Development Organization, the Overseas Development Institute, various NGOs, and as a researcher in Nepal, India, Tajikistan, Ethiopia, and West Africa.

Mark Smith A Ph.D. in Ecology & Resource Management from Institute of Ecology & Resource Management, Edinburgh University, UK. He has over 25 years of research & programme management experience in water resources, agriculture, climate & sustainability. He is the Deputy Director General of IMWI and prior to joining IWMI Mark had spent 10 years as Director of the Global Water Programme at IUCN. He led the development and implementation of a number of IUCN’s major initiatives working at the interface of water resources, development and conservation, including the BRIDGE, SUSTAIN-Africa and WISE-UP to Climate programmes. He coordinated collaboration on water and climate change, food security, governance and resilience across IUCN offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Mark also provided strategic leadership for IUCN on water policy in the 2030 Development Agenda.

Divya Kashyap has more than 20 years of development cooperation experience. As a professional in the field of environmental management and rural development, she has been active in the development and implementation of projects having focus on climate change adaptation, natural resource management, environmental management, food security and rural economic development. Since April 2014, she is working as the Senior Advsior with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Swiss Embassy New Delhi. The SDC work in India focuses on offering Swiss expertise in Climate Change and Environment for innovative actions in rural, urban and mountains landscapes. Divya holds a Masters in Environmental Management from University of Oxford and Masters in Regional Planning and Rural Development from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

Darshini Ravindranath has over 15 years of experience in climate change adaptation/mitigation, energy markets, climate finance, sustainable resource use and international development. She worked as a Principal Policy Advisor and Programme Lead (International Climate Finance) at the UK Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero where she led on projects in Asia, Africa and LATAM. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Sustainable Resources and Climate Change from University College London, Institute for Sustainable Resources; MSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and BA (Hons) in Economics from The University of Manchester, UK.

Tushaar Shah, an economist and public policy specialist, is a former director of the Institute of Rural Management at Anand in India. Over the past 35 years, Shah’s main research interests have been in water institutions and policies in South Asia, a subject on which he has published extensively. His notable contributions have been in comparative analyses of groundwater governance in South Asia, China and Mexico. More recently, his interests have lay in comparative analyses of water institutions and policies across Asia and between South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Shah has also worked extensively on energy-irrigation nexus in India. Shah was honored with the Outstanding Scientist award of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in 2002. His most recent publication is Taming the Anarchy: Groundwater Governance in South Asia published by the Resources for the Future Press, Washington. Shah serves on the boards of several academic institutions and NGOs and is a director on the board of the ICICI Bank.

Alok Sikka has more than 40 years of research, teaching, extension and consultancy experience in the field of hydrologic modelling of watersheds, effect of climate change on hydrology/water resources, adaptation to Climate Change, water productivity assessment, integrated water resource management, multiple water use, and Participatory Irrigation Management.

He brings extensive experience from his long term employment at the India Center for Agricultural Research which culminated in the role of Deputy Director General (Natural Resource Management), and Deputy Director General (Agri. Extension). At ICAR he lead a research portfolio covering: farming systems research, conservation agriculture, decision support tools for water management, drought analysis and management, land use planning, land use hydrology, Integrated Watershed Management, water harvesting and ground water recharge, soil erosion mapping, and modelling & Sedimentation. He has a PhD in Civil & Environment, Energy, Hydrology & Water Resources from Utah State University, USA.

PC Sharma International Solar Alliance Bio Mr. P.C. Sharma holds a Master’s degree in Technology. With an experience of working for four and a half years in the industrial sector, and Government of Haryana, India, as a Project Officer for the implementation of green and renewable energy projects for 27 years, he joined International Solar Alliance in 2017 where he has been working on ISA Programs on Solar Water Pumping, Solar Home systems, Demonstration Projects for LDCs and SIDS and multiple Capacity Building activities like ISA Fellowship, training on solar water pumping and rooftop. He has joined numerous missions as a technical expert and is the coordinator for National Focal Points for ISA.

S. M. Monirul Islam Deputy CEO and CFO Representative, IDCOL, Bangladesh Bio Mr. S. M. Monirul Islam joined IDCOL in 1998 and worked as a key resource person of the Company since its inception. Mr. Islam holds substantial wealth of experience in financial management and he is an expert in negotiating and managing funds from the government and various development partners. He has been managing, apart from the company’s own resources, about USD 1 billion of development funds, in the forms of credit and grant, raised from development partners like The World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Islamic Development Bank (IDB), UK Department for International Development (DFID), German Development Bank (KFW), German Development Cooperation (GIZ), SNV – Netherlands Development Organisation, Global Partnership on Output Based Aid (GPOBA), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF), etc.

Akhilesh Magal Representative GERMI, Gujarat, India Bio Mr. Akhilesh Magal heads the Renewable Advisory team at Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute (GERMI), where he leads the advisory and consulting group. The group’s main task is to advise the government on implementing policies and technologies on the energy transition. He has been instrumental in drafting the solar policy, solar-wind hybrid policy, and electric vehicle policy for the state of Gujarat. He holds a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.

Laxman Ghimire Representative, AEPC Nepal is an Electrical Engineer by profession, Laxman Ghimire is the Assistant Director for the Solar and Wind Energy Section in Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) under the Ministry of Energy, Water Resource and Irrigation (MoEWRI) at Lalitpur in Nepal. Ghimire’s main interests have been in areas surrounding renewable energy policy formulation, development, and promotion of solar energy in rural Nepal and quality control aspects related to renewable energy. He has an extensive experience of working with rural communities in the country. He holds a PhD from the Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

Kifayat Zaman Head of Department, Director General, Federal Water Management Cell, Pakistan Bio Mr. Kifayat Zaman is Head of Department, Director General, Federal Water Management Cell at the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, Pakistan. He has more than 18 years of progressive experience in diverse institutional setups at key managerial, strategic and leadership roles in national (Federal/provincial government) and international development and humanitarian settings, including USAID, World Bank, FAO, to name a few. Under Prime Minister’s National Agriculture Emergency Program (PM-NAEP), Mr Zaman has supervised 3 mega national water projects and has been a member of strategic planning groups for various national and international collaboration on water, farm mechanisation and sustainable land resources management. Prior to joining FWMC, he was associated with UN-FAO in Peshawar, Pakistan, as a Water Management Officer. He holds a master’s degree in agricultural engineering, specialising in soil and water engineering from UET Peshawar.