Project Steering Committee

Ms. Corinne Demenge joined the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland in 2008. In August 2020, she took up the position of Head of International Cooperation at the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi. SDC’s work in India focuses on addressing the global challenge of climate change by finding innovative solutions for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions or exchanging knowledge and skills to adapt to the consequences of climate change. Previously, she held the positions of Deputy Head of Cooperation in Tajikistan (2017-2020) and Head of Staff Unit at the Global Cooperation Domain in Bern, which is responsible for SDC’s engagement with the UN system and International Financial organizations (2013-2017). From 2009 to 2013, Ms Corinne worked as Assistant Country Director at the Swiss Embassy in Nepal. As part of her former assignments, she worked with the World Food Programme in New Delhi, India (2007-2008).

Ms Corinne Demenge holds an MPhil in international development studies from Oxford University, England, and a MA in international studies from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

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.

Aditi has over 18 years of experience as a researcher. She is a Principal Researcher at IWMI and responsible for providing a high level of scientific research expertise for activities associated with new program initiatives, new and on-going development activities and applied scientific research. She leads the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC-funded multi-year, multi-stakeholder regional project – Solar Irrigation for Agriculture Resilience (SoLAR), to promote solar irrigation, water saving agricultural practices and groundwater governance for climate-resilient agriculture in South Asia. Prior to IWMI, she was at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) as the Theme Leader, Water and Air and worked at ICIMOD until December 2018. Aditi is a Global Fellow of the Water for Food Institute at University of Nebraska. She is currently a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Dr. 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.

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.

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

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.

Mr. Islam has been trained, home and abroad, on financial management and reporting, project financing, financial modeling, procurement, project evaluation and monitoring, prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, micro-finance and ICT. Mr. Islam has led several delegations to different overseas forums and events and represented the organization as well as the country. He presented key notes and addressed a number of national and international seminars and workshops. Mr. Islam is a key person in designing and implementing promotion and capacity building initiatives under the development programs of the organization.

Apart from financial management, Mr. Islam also oversees the operations activities of the organization which include procurement, administration, people management and ICT.

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.

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.

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.