WGWLO
Executive Director,
Global Land Alliance
Having completed his graduation in English Literature (NEHU), Dr. Mizinksa Daimari went on to pursue a postgraduate in Development Studies (IIT Guwahati) and thereafter, a Ph.D. He has an academic research paper published recently with Springer. He is currently working as a Consultant with CIMMYT.
Trained in Development Studies, his research interest lean towards agrarian issues. His Ph.D. thesis, focuses on Agrarian Transition in a hitherto under-researched plains tribe dominant area of Assam, more specifically in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR; erstwhile BTAD).
Consultant (CIMMYT)
IIT Guwahati
Head- Metropolitan and Union Territories Division of TCPO
Mr. R. Srinivas has been working in TCPO since 1991. He has done his Post Graduation in Urban and Regional Planning from IIT Kharagpur and Professional Masters in Urban Planning and Management from ITC Netherlands. He has been heading the Metropolitan and Union Territories Division of TCPO, and is responsible for rendering technical advice and assistance on various issues pertaining to planning and development of Delhi NCR and Chandigarh, and advising and assisting the Department.
Independent development professional
Development Practioner, PRADAN
Associate Fellow at NCAER
Secretary ILDC
Founder NRMC-CLG (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Former Country Director,
Oxfam
Dy Project Director CLLMP – World Bank, Meghalaya
James has more than 21 years in the field of Social Development and has extensively worked on Participatory Watershed Development, NRM and Livelihood services in North Eastern Region.
Senior Natural Resources Specialist, World Bank office in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Jagat Basnet
CSRC(Nepal)
Jagat Bahadur Basnet is a policy researcher, development practitioner and founding member of the community Self-reliance Centre (CSRC), the non-violence movement based social organization and PhD from Rhodes University South Africa on de- peasantisation in Nepal. Currently, he is serving the Provincial Policy and Planning Commission, the government think-tank, of Bagmati Province as a Vice-Chairperson. He has been facilitating the land and agrarian rights movement in Nepal since 1994 mainly through formation and promotion of peoples’ organizations, Land Rights Forums for comprehensive land and agrarian reform in Nepal. That has resulted in a people led land reform model.
ILDC 2021 Speakers
Shah Mobbin Jinnah
CDA (Bangladesh)
SDF(India)
Geminiano Sandoval is a lawyer from the Philippines. He is also involved in public policy and governance
KPA (Indonesia)
Roni is the head of Policy Advocacy Department in Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA).
Marianne is human settlements planning major who has been working in the development field since 2013. She was previously engaged in academic research in the urban sector before joining ANGOC in 2014. Since then, she has served as a Project Officer of ANGOC, mainly involved in research and campaigns on agrarian reform, land use, and indigenous peoples. She is also a licensed Environmental Planner, and has been involved in a few local development planning projects in other provinces in the Philippines
SHAH I MOBIN JINNAH (72 years) is the founding Executive Director of Community Development Association (CDA), in Bangladesh. He is a member of several Development Networking Organizations at National, Regional and International levels. He has got longest experience from the realities over 4 decades in the field of Rural Development, Land Rights, Land Use and Agrarian Reform in South Asian perspective.
He is one of the popular development initiator and Human Rights activist and the Land Rights defender from south Asia. Academically, being a Sociologist working with the rural peasants from the community level to constituency level, he is actively involved in different social and mass movements against the injustice and discrimination in his areas deductively.
Since long with the principles of the People Centered Land Governance with a view to release from hunger & poverty and for in equalities through building up an alternative structure for empowering the disempowered and for excluded people’s participation from the grassroots for social transformation.
He is the member of Land Watch Asia of LRBHR, ANGOC & ILC. At the moment Mr.Mobin Jinnah is the member of IP & Ethnic Minorities Land Right Policy formulation committee under the NHRC in Bangladesh.
Former NCAER Director General & World Bank Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia.
Dr Shekhar Shah was until recently the Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi. As the CEO during 2011-21 of India’s oldest and largest, independent, non-profit, economic think tank, he managed NCAER’s wide-ranging research across all sectors of the economy, including its extensive data collection, analytical, and curation activities. He is credited with NCAER’s outstanding institutional transformation, the redevelopment of its new, world-class campus, and the significant role NCAER now plays in economic research and public policy discussions in India.
Prior to joining NCAER, Shah was the World Bank’s Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia and, earlier, Sector Manager in the Bank’s research complex and a principal author of the 2004 World Development Report, Making Services Work for Poor People. During a World Bank career spanning more than two decades, Shah also served as the Bank’s Deputy Research Administrator, Sector Manager for Public Sector Management for Europe and Central Asia, and Lead Economist for Bangladesh.
Before joining the World Bank, he was the Ford Foundation’s Program Officer for Economics and International Relations for South Asia. He worked earlier in Washington DC consulting for the US Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, the OCC, and US banks and bank holding companies. Shah received his BA in Economics from St Stephens College, Delhi University, and his MA and PhD in Economics from Columbia University.
ANGOC
Dr. Rikardo Simarmata is a professor at the University of Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and a researcher on land and natural resources. He has 20 years’ experience in the field of natural resource law with a special focus on customary rights over land and forest resources. Since 2015, he has been researching the recognition and protection of customary land rights; regional development and indigenous peoples’ rights; settlement of forest tenure conflicts; the definition of the legal personality of indigenous peoples; legal enforcement in cases of forest fires set by small holders; and customary land tenure systems
University of Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Mai Van Phan holds a doctoral degree in land administration and management. He has been the General Director for Land Administration (GDLA) of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Government of Vietnam. Currently, he is the Deputy Director General responsible for land policy and legal development and land administration in GDLA.
Deputy Director General, General Director of Land Adminstration MoNRE, Government of Vietnam.
Dr. Dzung The Nguyen is an agricultural and rural development specialist. He has over 35 years’ experience working with national and international development institutions in Vietnam. Till 2015, he worked at the World Bank Office in Hanoi as Senior Rural Development Specialist, a successful 14-year career in rural and land policy development and design and implementation of investments in land administration, rural finance, and information technology for sustainable and inclusive development. Currently, Dr. Dzung is serving as Land Policy Advisor for the Mekong Region Land Governance Project (MRLG). He provides MRLG and its alliances in the country with strategic advice on land policy framework and with technical inputs to protect tenure rights of small holders, especially women and ethnic minorities.
Vietnam.
Ram Prakash Danuwar works passionately with highly marginalized and socially excluded families to find their voice to access their rights focusing on land and housing. Coming from a marginalized group himself, Ram has empathetically worked for 20 years to bring systematic change in Nepal advocating with the Government for groups such as landless, poor vulnerable and socially excluded ethnic minority, Dalit (So called untouchable cast), ex-bonded labour, Haliyas. As the Program Operations Manager at Habitat for Humanity Nepal, Ram has progressively worked towards a partnership with the Government of Nepal to build safe and affordable housing for marginalized families with secure land tenures registered jointly in the name of husband and wife. His keen interest in land rights also comes from his background in Natural Resource Management.
Habitat for Humanity Nepal
Mr. Jagat Deuja is currently working as an Executive Director of Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC). He is a renowned land right activist who has been involved in the land rights movement for more than two decades. He was directly involved in the number of land related policy and laws making processes and contributed to include pro-poor agendas in those policies and laws. He was an expert member of the Land Issues Resolving Commission (April 2020 – August 2021). He published a number of articles in national papers and journals on land, land use and poverty issues.
Former Expert Member, (LIRC), Nepal
Dr. Reshma Shrestha is an Assistant Prof. in the Department of Geomatics Engineering at Kathmandu University. Dr. Shrestha has more than ten years of experience in the academic field. Besides academics, she has professional experience in many projects related to the application of geo-information technology in land management. She was the Co-chair of the working group in FIG commission 2 from 2015 to 2018. She has coordinated international conferences like “Transparency Land Administration in 2010” and recently “FOSS4G-Asia 2021” which was successfully conducted in hybrid mode. Her research interest is in the domain of Urban Land Governance, Land Use Planning, and Management for tackling societal issues like informal settlements, gender mainstreaming by applying Geo-information Technologies. She holds a Ph.D. in the Title “Understanding Urban Land Governance through” Action Space”: Implications for Access to Land for Low-Income Housing in Managing Informal Settlements” from the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, the Netherlands.
Dr Walter Fernandes, formerly Director of the Institute, Director of Research, Director of Tribal Studies, and Editor of Social Action at Indian Social Institute, New Delhi (1977-99) founded North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati (NESRC) and was its Director till 2011. He was later Senior Fellow and once again Director of NESRC. He has done extensive research on tribal issues, land and livelihood, development-induced displacement, gender issues and conflicts and peace. He has more than 50 books, over 200 professional articles and 150 newspaper articles on these issues to his credit.
S.J. North Eastern Social Research Centre, India.
Frankie has been working in Tanintharyi region, Southern Myanmar in armed insurgency conflict areas where power and authority favour financial sources of development that impact the local poor including indigenous people. He has been engaged in research and the development of forest policy for forest dependent communities promoting indigenous knowledge and culture .
Director, Tripnet
Mr. Saw Doh Wah, Deputy Program Director, Land Core Group, has around 20 years’ experience in the field of climate change, environmental governance, and land and natural resource governance. His career has spanned government service, UN agency work, and a productive stint with International Alert. He is a forestry graduate from the University of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Myanmar. He also holds Master’s Degrees in Forestry and Rural Development from the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, in addition to a Master’s in Theology from the Myanmar Institute of Theology.
Deputy Program Director, Land Core Group, Yangon
Dr. Hery Santoso is affiliated with Java Learning Centre (JAVLEC), the NGO based in Java, concern in social forestry and other community based forest management. He is currently working as freelance expert in Sustainable Palm Oil Support (SPOS) project, Indonesia Biodiversity Foundation; and freelance expert of Social Forestry issues in Tropenbos Indonesia.
Researcher at Palm Oil Research Institute of Indonesia.
Dr Bitopi Dutta is an Assistant Professor at the School for Life at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India. She is a former IRC Scholar and has a PhD from Dublin City University, Ireland. She earned her MA in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and her BA Honours in Sociology from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, India. Her research interests include Development Induced Displacement (DID), traditional methods of conflict resolution, gender studies and indigenous people. She has co-authored and edited several book publications on DID and on traditional methods of conflict resolution in Northeast India.
University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun
Dr Oliver Scanlan is a Research Fellow at ULAB’s Center for Sustainable Development. He has a PhD in Politics and International relations from Dublin City University, and a Master’s from the University of Amsterdam, both focusing on customary land and forestry rights in India and Bangladesh. His research interests include how customary tenure regimes relate to climate change resilience and adaptation measures. He is a Fellow of the Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security Program, specializing in climate change and its implications for global security. He is a member of the UN Environment Program’s Geneva-based Science Policy Platform, in which capacity he presented at the Munich Security Conference in 2018. He has worked for several International NGOs and multilateral organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and UN Environment.
Center for Sustainable Development, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh
Glenn Hunt has been working on land and forest governance issues, with both local and international NGOs, in Laos and Myanmar since 2004 with a specific focus on customary land tenure. Having lived in Myanmar from 2014 until the recent coup, since 2018 he is working with the Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern in Switzerland, on their Myanmar project as a researcher and senior land advisor.
Researcher at CDE in Myanmar.
Dr Iwan Gunawan, Senior Natural Resources Specialist, World Bank office in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Lead Land Administration Specialist at the World Bank Office in Singapore
Mr. Mika-Petteri Torhonen is a Lead Land Administration Specialist at the World Bank based in Singapore. He leads the Bank’s land investment development in the East Asia Pacific and South Asia regions. Mika has worked on tenure security and access to land for over thirty years globally and his current focus lies with the climate actions related to communal land rights, public lands, and infrastructure and energy investments. He is a Finnish National and holds a Doctor of Science Degree from the Helsinki University of Technology.
Associate Professor of Law and Vice Chairman of the Hanoi Law University
Dr Nguyen Quang Tuyen, Vietnamese national, is Associate Professor of Law and Vice Chairman of the Hanoi Law University Council and Dean of the Economic Department. He teaches land law, civil rights, and economic laws. He has been with the university since 1989 and specializes in land law and related subjects. He is the author of dozens of law reviews and over 120 scholarly articles. He has also written 30 books on land administration, land management, and land governance, aimed at policy makers, undergraduate students, and research scholars. Much of his recent and ongoing research is concerned with the complexities stemming from land policy and implementation of land law in Vietnam. In addition to his research and writing, Dr Tuyen leads a research group that is assessing the implementation of the Party’s Resolution no. 19 and Land Law 2013.
Former NCAER Director General & World Bank Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia
Dr Shekhar Shah was until recently the Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi. As the CEO during 2011-21 of India’s oldest and largest, independent, non-profit, economic think tank, he managed NCAER’s wide-ranging research across all sectors of the economy, including its extensive data collection, analytical, and curation activities. He is credited with NCAER’s outstanding institutional transformation, the redevelopment of its new, world-class campus, and the significant role NCAER now plays in economic research and public policy discussions in India.
Prior to joining NCAER, Shah was the World Bank’s Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia and, earlier, Sector Manager in the Bank’s research complex and a principal author of the 2004 World Development Report, Making Services Work for Poor People. During a World Bank career spanning more than two decades, Shah also served as the Bank’s Deputy Research Administrator, Sector Manager for Public Sector Management for Europe and Central Asia, and Lead Economist for Bangladesh.
Before joining the World Bank, he was the Ford Foundation’s Program Officer for Economics and International Relations for South Asia. He worked earlier in Washington DC consulting for the US Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, the OCC, and US banks and bank holding companies. Shah received his BA in Economics from St Stephens College, Delhi University, and his MA and PhD in Economics from Columbia University.
Co founder,
Landesa and CEO,
Chandler Foundation, USA
Mr. Tim Hanstad is the Chief Executive Officer at the Chandler Foundation. Prior to joining the Chandler Foundation in 2018, Tim co-founded Landesa with Roy Prosterman and spent over three decades with the organization, which included launching programs in China, the former Soviet Union, and India, where he lived for five years. Tim is a Skoll Social Entrepreneur Awardee and Schwab Foundation Outstanding Social Entrepreneur. He has authored numerous books and articles on economic and social development, including One Billion Rising with Roy Prosterman and Robert Mitchell. Tim holds two law degrees from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree from Seattle Pacific University.
Country Director – ICRISAT
Arabinda Kumar Padhee is an Indian national. He has a Master’s degree in Agricultural Science from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and a PhD from Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) from University of Birmingham, UK. He has taken public policy courses at University of Toronto; Civil Services College, Singapore; and University of Cambridge at various points in his career.
Dr Padhee joined the Indian Administrative Services in 1996 and belongs to Odisha cadre. Among the various positions he has held are District Magistrate and Collector; Director, Agriculture and Food Production; Director, World Bank assisted Rural Livelihoods Project; Revenue Divisional Commissioner, Cuttack; Chief Administrator, Shree Jagannath Temple, Puri; Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Tourism and Culture Department, Odisha and Joint Secretary, Department of Fertilizers, Government of India, New Delhi. During his tenure with the Odisha Government, he was instrumental in drafting the Odisha State Agriculture Policy in 2008. He has also served as a member of the Technical Support Group of the erstwhile Planning Commission that prepared the District Agricultural Plan manual. Government of India appointed Dr Padhee as the first nodal officer to implement Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in fertilizers in 2016.
Assistant Professor, Kathmandu University, Nepal
Executive Director,
Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI)
Ms. Renu Mishra, Executive Director of Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI, a women’s right organisation), is a lawyer and women’s rights activist who has been active in the field of women’s empowerment for about 2 decades. The focus of her work has been the access to justice for women and children. She strongly believes in the power of the law as a tool for social change and has tirelessly worked towards developing a human rights-based understanding of the fundamental rights and special laws especially in the Hindi speaking States, as the language of the law is predominantly English and complex. Ms. Mishra specializes in feminist counselling, casework strategy, and laws combating violence against women and those promoting women’s socio-economic and civil and political rights. Renu Mishra is dedicated towards effecting structural change for the promotion and protection of women’s human rights and acts as technical member and consultant to several national networks as well as State Departments. In 2016 her contribution to the women’s movement in Uttar Pradesh was recognized and honoured by the State Government and in 2014 she was presented with the Hindustan Times Woman of the Year Award for her work on women’s empowerment. She holds a L.L.B. from Lucknow University, a Master’s Degree in Commerce.
Dr Kanchan Sinha is a developmental professional, a researcher and an academic with more than four decades of experience in programme management, policy research, development planning, gender studies and teaching. She worked with Oxfam GB for nearly two decades in many positions including Country Programme Director in India and Country Director in Tanzania. She has been visiting scholar at University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA and at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA. Prior to joining the development field she was a University faculty teaching philosophy. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University, Boston, USA. She has a PhD degree in Philosophy.
Director- Women’s Land Rights, Landesa
Shipra Deo leads Landesa’s work for gender equal and inclusive land governance in India. She is passionate about the gender dimension of social development and specializes in designing and implementing gender responsive strategies and programmes including those related to land. In the recent years she has done intensive research on inheritance by women and gendered aspects of land laws. Her work in the past two decades has focused on expanding opportunities for rural women and girls enabling them to have more control over their lives. She has intensive experience in strategic planning, management of cross-functional teams and catalysing positive changes in challenging contexts.
Head, Sustainable Banking India, NatWest Group and Head, NatWest India Foundation
Mr. N. Sunil Kumar, Head, Sustainable Banking India, NatWest Group and Head, NatWest India Foundation (formerly RBS Foundation India). He has more than 2 decades of diverse experience in business strategy, public affairs, sustainability and communications with specialization on climate change/forest sector, environment. Have worked with Government institutions, International organizations and corporate sector. Mr. Sunil previously worked with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and served on the boards of Regional Rural Banks, National Biodiversity Authority’s Senior Expert Group on Access Benefit Sharing; MP Tiger Foundation Society, volunteering time for strategy and field work in NGOs. He studied in XLRI Jamshedpur and did the General Management Programme (GMP 2006-07), a wildlife enthusiast by his passion and travels across the forest landscapes in India and perfectly aligned the foundation’s mandate through partnerships with the civil societies for the supporting enterprises of the communities living around critical fragile ecosystems. Mr. Sunil is supporting the voluntary resettlement of villages living inside the core and buffer areas of Critical Tiger Habitats (CTHs) in India since 2006 in partnership with IGS and the State Forest Departments in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha.
IFS (APCCF Retd.)
Dr. Ramesh Pratap Singh, IFS (APCCF Retd.), Consultant and Advisor to Government of Madhya Pradesh. During his 35 years of service in the elite Indian Forest Service (IFS), Dr. Singh has undertaken several outstanding innovations and policy measures having powerful impact in field of wildlife conservation and forest management. His dedication to forest conservation has been awarded and recognised in illustrious private as well as public forums at the national and state level like Sanctuary Asia Wildlife Service Award (2017), RBS Green Warrior Award (2015), Prime Ministers Award for Wildlife Management (2016) and Chief Ministers Gold Medal for Relocation (2016). He is the person, who anchored voluntary relocation of villages from the Tiger Reserves in the state. Dr. Singh demonstrated this initiative by undertaking voluntary relocation of 42 villages (about 15,000 people) from core area of Satpura Tiger Reserve when he was Field Director during 2011-15. He later facilitated the relocation of 25 more villages from Sanjay Tiger Reserve, Nauradehi and Kheoni Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS). His efforts in Wildlife conservation & Enforcement through habitat improvements programme created thriving habitats for tigers & Barasingha in Kanha and Satpura Tiger Reserves and facilitated resurgence of endangered species from the brink – Eurasian and Smooth coated otter, Indian Skimmer, Indian grey wolf. He facilitated and mastered the task of releasing enclosure reared Tigers and Hard Ground Swamp Deer (Barasingha). When, he was the State Head of MP Special Task Force (STF), he built the momentum of provisioning of greater legal and structural powers to the STF. Dr. Singh also catalyzed several productive partnerships with CSR, Civil Societies, UN organizations and local communities to support conservation of wildlife and habitats.
AVP & Head, Natural Resource based Livelihood Programs, Indian Grameen Services
Mr. Sanjib Sarangi is the AVP & Head, Natural Resource based Livelihood Programs at Indian Grameen Services ,leading the theme, Natural Resource based Livelihood Programs. He has completed his masters in zoology from Ravenshaw University and EEP Leadership program from IIM , Bangalore.
He has been an integral part of Odisha Forestry Sector Development Project to facilitate community IGA enterprises of forest dwellers Agri. and forest produces .He has worked for Conservation and Livelihoods: Ecotourism at Mangalajodi, Chilika to Facilitate Community Institution in managing Ecotourism at Mangalajodi in Ensuring Green Livelihoods and conservation Based Livelihoods at Critical Ecosystem, an Action Research based Livelihoods Project with dual reinforcement of conservation and peoples livelihoods implementing at Similipal Biosphere Reserve of Odisha State.
Independent Journalist and Founder, Land Conflict Watch and Member, The Reporters Collective
Mr. Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava is a Delhi-based independent journalist. He reports and writes on issues at the intersection of environment, business, politics and social justice. He is also a co-founder of Land Conflict Watch, the first-of-its-kind data journalism project that maps land conflicts in India. He has proficiently reported from rural and semi-urban areas across 21 Indian states making him a finalist for the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s Global Shining Light Award in 2017. He received ‘National Award for Excellence in Journalism’ for ‘Development Reporting’ from the Press Council of India in 2014 and was chosen the ‘Young Journalist from the Developing World Award (Runner Up) by the Thomson Foundation in 2015. He was also a finalist for India’s Red-Ink Journalism Awards in 2015 and the ACJ Award for Investigative Journalism in 2016. In the past, he has worked for the Business Standard, Scroll.in, Hindustan Times, Down To Earth and the Times of India on governance, business and social justice
Land Information Management and Advocacy Consultant
Land Portal Foundation
Dr. Charl-Thom Bayer is a specialist in land governance and administration with a background in land surveying and information systems design. He is a versatile and seasoned project coordinator with more than twenty years’ of experience in leading multinational teams and initiatives in pursuit of improved land governance and development. He holds an extensive experience of working in capacity development with partners in higher education, civil society and policy makers and is passionate about open data, knowledge diffusion and land administration. Prior to joining Land Portal Foundation, he worked as a Land Tenure Consultant, Land Surveyor and as the Head of Department for Land and Property Science at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. He was born in Namibia and currently resides there.
Mr. Pranab Ranjan Choudhury is an expert with more than 20 years of experience in Natural Resources Management and Governance in India and abroad. He has founded and coordinates NRMC Center for land Governance, a think tank attempting inclusive and informed dialogue around land governance in India for shared prosperity. A post-graduate in Forestry, Mr. Pranab has earlier worked as a Scientist with Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) for about 8 years. He has coordinated implementation of LGAF for World Bank in India and has carried out studies on women land rights, forest rights and land governance with international agencies. He has also worked closely with Govt. Departments across hierarchies (primarily with land use and land administrative departments including Revenue, Forest, Water, and Agriculture etc.), with International and National Donors, NGOs and CBOs in many states of India. His past/ongoing clients/partners include the Donors (The World Bank, UNDP, DFID, JBIC, JICA, EED/BfW etc.), Consultancy Firms (NR International, Pragmatix etc.), State Govts (Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar, UP etc.), International Research Institutes (ICRISAT, ICRAF), INGOs (Caritas, RDI-Landesa) and NGOs. He is well versed with the legal-institutional frameworks and stakeholders (in Govt, Academics and NGO sector) around land and land-use sector in India.
National Coordinator,
Ekta Parishad.
Ramesh Sharma works as the General Secretary of Ekta Parishad. Ekta Parishad is a mass-based peoples’ movement for land rights with an active membership of 250,000 landless poor and is regarded as one of the biggest people’s movements in India with an iconic status globally. In 2012, Ekta Parishad was responsible for organizing and leading a foot march of more than 100,000 landless people for over 300 Km (from Gwalior to Delhi) to demand land rights.
As the Campaigner, Ramesh is one of the leaders of such large-scale mass struggles and is mainly involved in campaign planning and advocacy. In the last 20 years, Ramesh has played an instrumental role in strengthening and expanding Ekta Parishad as one of the most significant peoples’ struggles for land rights. Ramesh is also engaged in many peacebuilding initiatives especially in the conflict zones of Central and North-Eastern India.
Ramesh has been part of several land reforms committees of the Government of India and state governments. In 2008, Ramesh was appointed by the Government of India, as a member of the National Committee on Agrarian Crisis and Land Reforms. In 2012, Ramesh is nominated as a member of the National Task Force on Land Reforms (Government of India); Being member of Task Force – he is engaged in drafting the National Homestead Rights Act, National Land Reforms Policy, designing the institutional Set up for Land Tribunal(s), and various other pro-poor institutional & legal remedial measures towards land reforms.
Ramesh is also part of many research & advocacy projects carried by the Food and Agriculture Organization (United Nations FAO), Cambridge University (UK), Rutgers University (USA), LBS National Academy of Administration (India) etc. Ramesh is an author of several research papers and policies related to land rights, peacebuilding, gender justice, agriculture and environment, etc.
Prerna Prabhakar is an Associate Fellow at NCAER. Her areas of research include international economics and urban/land policy issues. She has also worked on trade-related areas in Research and Information System for Developing Countries and Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute for Foreign Trade. Her assignments at NCAER include NCAER Land Records and Services Index (N-LRSI); pilot impact assessment exercise of the Digital India-Land Records Modernisation Programme ; NCAER State Investment Potential Index (NSIPI) ; providing inputs to 15th Finance Commission. She is currently involved in the integrated study of demand side NLRSI and Prindex India which is proposed to be a survey of 25 Indian States/UTs. She has also contributed papers and articles in various media.
She has a PhD in International Trade from the Department of Business Economics, University of Delhi, and MSc in Economics from TERI University.
Research Associate, Land Rights Initiative,
Centre for Policy Research
Vrinda Bhardwaj is a Research Associate at CPR’s Land Rights Initiative. Her research interests include policy matters pertaining to real estate, land acquisition/requisition and constitutional interpretation of land laws.
Before joining CPR, she has worked as a Judicial Clerk-cum-Research Assistant to Hon’ble Justice Madan B Lokur and Hon’ble Justice Hemant Gupta, Supreme Court Justices. During the judicial clerkship, she researched on substantial questions of law for the promulgation of judgments in matters relating to juvenile justice, prison reforms in India, victims’ rights in criminal trials and guidelines for media reporting addressing issues of child sexual abuse. With a predilection towards legislative drafting, she assisted Members of Parliament (MPs) of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in drafting Private Member Bills, Private Member Resolutions, Short Duration Discussions, and Questions for Winter Session 2019 and Budget Session 2020.
Bhardwaj holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Indraprastha University (GGSIPU)
Executive Director,
Internet Freedom Foundation
Apar is a lawyer and the Executive Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF). For his work on digital rights, he was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2019.
He completed his post-graduate studies from the Columbia University School of Law and has practised for more than a decade. After graduation, he worked as a commercial litigator in top law firms such as Karanjawala & Co. and was a partner at Advani & Co. During this period, he represented a diverse set of clients from India’s top corporate groups, high net worth individuals and public sector units, even being retained as a counsel for the government of India in the High Court of Delhi. he continue to write op-eds and journal articles for Indian Express, The Hindu, IIC Quarterly and Seminar etc. and has written a book on the I.T. Act, 2000 published by LexisNexis.
From 2015, he has been working extensively on public interest issues which include strategic litigation and organisation of campaigns and collectives. In courts, my work as a lawyer includes key digital rights cases on privacy and censorship. He is part of key constitutional challenges on Section 66A, the Right to Privacy and Aadhaar representing public interest litigants. Beyond court work he has worked extensively with activists and set up digital campaigns such as those on Net Neutrality (SaveTheInternet.in), fight against defamation laws (SpeechBill.in) and safeguard privacy (SaveOurPrivacy.in).
He is committed to advancing values of the Constitution of India in a digital, technology mediated society.
FES
Sanjoy has been engaged in rights-based work on natural resource management for close to three decades with core competency on policy research and advocacy action on land and forests. Sanjoy specialized on innovative programme planning and design on rural livelihoods – productive land use, land to the landless, forest produce marketing including inclusive and decentralized planning exercise as key components of empowered local governance system. At present Sanjoy is engaged as Strategic Policy Advocacy Adviser in Foundation for Ecological Security, and provides strategic guidance to elevate the debate on Commons and Climate Change. Prior to that Sanjoy served as the India Country Director, Landesa and designed a range of land rights programmes with special focus on land to landless and women’s land rights.
Land Accelerator
Kavita Sharma is a Manager with the Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration team at WRI India and leads the work on Land Accelerator, South Asia.
Earlier she was associated with Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare in establishing Agri-Business Incubators across the country under the RKVY-RAFTAAR scheme. Kavita is an Agri-Business professional and environment enthusiast, focused on entrepreneurship development, business mentoring, start-up funding. She has experience in the corporate sector in developing agriculture marketing infrastructure, modern wholesale markets and value chains for perishables in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. She has worked as Technical Consultant for six months with Rungis Market International, Paris, France, for developing India International Horticulture Market (IIHM) Project at Ganaur, district Sonipat, Haryana. Kavita holds a PG Diploma in Agri-Business Management from National Institute of Agricultural Marketing, Jaipur and a bachelor’s in Agriculture with a Vice-Chancellor’s Gold Medal from GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pant Nagar. She is a nature lover and likes reading newspapers and journals
Development Economist
Global Development Institute
University of Manchester
Prof. Bina Agarwal is Professor of Development Economics and Environment at the University of Manchester, UK. Until recently she was Director of the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University. She is also President of the International Society for Ecological Economics. Educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Delhi she has lectured worldwide and held distinguished positions at many universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Minnesota (where she held the Winton Chair), and the NYU School of Law. An economist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary and intercountry explorations, her publications include nine books and over seventy-five professional papers on subjects such as land, livelihoods and property rights; environment and development; food security, the political economy of gender; poverty and inequality; law; and agriculture and technological change. Her writings placed the issue of women’s land rights centrally on the agenda of governments, civil society groups, and international agencies. In 2005, she also catalyzed a successful campaign for the comprehensive amendment of Hindu Inheritance law in India to make it gender equal. n 2008, Agarwal received a Padma Shri from the President of India for her contributions to education; and in 2010 the Leontief Prize from Tufts University ‘for advancing the frontiers of economic thought.’
Coordinator GLII & Gender Lead of Land GLTN
Ms. Everlyne Nairesiae is a social scientist, with over 17 years of experience working on gender, land and natural resource governance at policy and practice; strategic planning; research; program monitoring and evaluation at national, regional and internal level. She is the Coordinator of the Global Land Indicators Initiative (GLII) at the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN); Land, Housing and Shelter Section in UN-Habitat. She is also the Gender Lead for Land and GLTN. She is known for her contribution in coordinating and facilitating global networks, development of global methodologies and tools for land governance including monitoring of land in the SDGs and impact evaluation; research and analytical frameworks and strategies for mainstreaming gender in natural resource governance and management; and capacity development for governments, CSOs and other actors. She has written several papers and articles that underscore the link between land tenure, gender and land degradation neutrality, land governance monitoring and sustainable development. She previously worked as Women’s Land Rights Adviser at Oxfam International; Senior Regional Program Coordinator for Relief, Development and Protection at Church World Service in Africa. Everlyne holds a Master of Philosophy in Guidance and Counselling, and bachelor’s degree in Geography and Kiswahili from Moi University, Eldoret in Kenya.
Chief Programs Officer and Founder Cadasta Foundation
Frank Pichel is the co-founder and Chief Programs Officer at Cadasta Foundation. He is a land administration specialist with experience designing, managing, and implementing land-related projects with a technology focus around the globe. He has worked both with the private sector in implementing programs while based in West Africa, as well as designing and managing programs as part of the Land Tenure and Property Rights Office for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Ranjan Praharaj from Cuttack district of Odisha, India is a Master in Social Work. He has more than 2 decades of experience in the development field, particularly in the domain areas of Land Rights, Natural Resource Management (NRM), Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM), Water Security and Rural Livelihood. He is presently working with Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) as State Programme Manager, Odisha in the Land Rights Programme. His special focus is to coordinate for technology adoption in the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 with the objective to ensure tenure security, contribute towards the protection of forest ecology and promote forest-based livelihood.
Co-Founder, Trustee , Arch Vahini
Ambrish Mehta is one of the founding members of the organization known as ARCH-Vahini and has been working in the tribal areas of Gujarat since the early 1980s. Worked initially on the issue of Rehabilitation of the tribal families, who lost their lands and houses for construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. Thereafter from 2000 onwards he has been working on the issues of forests and forest rights, mainly in the Narmada district of Gujarat. From 2008 onwards he is working full-time with his wife Trupti for proper implementation of FRA in Narmada and other tribal districts of Gujarat for both IFR and CFRs. Have developed a method to help Gramsabhas in using GPS and Satellite Imageries to substantiate their claims under FRA. The use of this technology has led to the approval of more than 90% of more than 3000 claimants with the proper area. He is working with the Gramsabhas on carrying out post rights tasks, that they are envisaged to carry out under FRA. This includes helping them in preparing CFR management plans for sustainable use of the Community Forest Resources as well as documenting the positive impacts of recognition of individual as well as community forest rights.
Shilpa Vasavada is a Gender, Land and Livelihood professional with experience in advancing women’s land rights and gender mainstreaming in livelihoods, largely with the nonprofit sector in India. She is the founder convener of a network of women’s land rights issue in Gujarat. Issue of Women’s land rights issue has been close to her heart and she is associated with the issue in different capacities. Her proficiency in gender analysis and mainstreaming in agriculture has led her to look at the issue of climate change closely, including for gender mainstreaming in climate smart agriculture projects. She is a trained Social scientist from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and her field work has been largely in western, central and eastern states of India.
Director, SWATI
Poonam kathuria is the director of Society for Women’s Action and Training Initiatives-SWATI (http://www.swati.org.in). Poonam has over 20 years of experience in a leadership role working for the prevention of gender-based violence, women’s empowerment & leadership. She is a founder member of the Working Group of Women and Land rights.
She bridges the divide between practitioners and academia . Her latest work is an edited collection titled ‘Indian Feminisms- Individual and Collective Journeys
https://zubaanbooks.com/shop/indian-feminisms-individual-and-collective-journeys/ . During CoViD 19 SWATI has undertaken concerted advocacy on gendered impact of CoViD on women and conducted and published studies on GBV, livelihood, education and land rights.
Research and documentation consultant, SWATI
Karen Pineiro works with SWATI as a consultant and has 5 years of experience in gender, education, health, livelihoods and other social issues.
Senior Technical Expert, GIZ
Ms. Aparna Das got trained as an architect and later received a Master of Science degree in Urban Development Planning from Development Planning Unit, University College London. She was also a Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, during 2018-19. At present, she is working as a Senior Advisor in the Sustainable Urban Development – Smart Cities (SUD-SC) project of GIZ. She is working with the line ministries of Government of India at the central, state, and local level to implement various housing and urban development programmes. In a career spanning over twenty years, she has worked with different sector partners; national and international NGOs and other multi- and bilateral agencies, such as the World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP, DFID India. In recent years, she has been focusing on the contestations over land in urban areas and equity concerns in cities.
Programme Director at DAG – Cape Town
Helen is a Programme Director at DAG – Cape Town based NGO. Helen has over seventeen years of experience in the urban development sector. Helen is the current project lead for a National Programme on Land Value Capture in partnership with the National Treasury Cities Support Programme and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy geared to providing technical support and training to metros. Over the last five years Helen has worked in partnership with the City of Cape Town and local civics around neighbourhood regeneration and social housing in the inner city which has resulted in the delivery of the first transitional housing project in Cape Town. Helen has extensive expertise in informal settlement upgrading and regularisation, including the coordination of the NUSP socio-technical assistance to the City of Cape Town for 32 informal settlements and pioneered the Hangberg in situ upgrade in 2008.
Secretary,
Centre for Research and Advocacy,
Manipur
Jiten Yumnam is a journalist, human rights advocate and environmental activist in the state of Manipur. He is a deep understanding about the economics and its effects. He is from the indigenous population of Manipur. He is a part of the group, Center for Research and Advocacy Manipur (CRAM) along with many other human rights groups have been involved in protesting against the exploitation of natural resources and human right violations in the Manipuri state. They have been working towards promoting sustainable development in the region. Shri Jiten has been giving a strong opposition against AFPSA and its enforcement to justify extra judicial killings of many in Manipur. He had been arrested in 2009 for continuously raising voices against the act but was finally released after human rights groups’ pressure. He is one of those people who has deep understanding of the issues in NE India on human rights and environmental awareness.
President-Sikkim Indigenous
Lepcha Tribal Association
Ms. Mayalmit Lepcha is a strong flag bearer of Lepcha culture and traditions and has been working to protect Dzongu, the homeland of Lepchas (Indigenous Sikkimese Tribe) for as long as she can remember. She and her organization have been fighting for over 14 years against onslaught of large run of the rivers to build dams in Dzongu and other parts of Sikkim. She has also dedicated a lot of efforts to keep Lepcha culture and traditions alive and passing them onto the future generations of young Lepchas. She is the President of the Sikkim Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association and regularly organizes events and programs for young Lepchas. She is a believer of gender equality and regularly encourages young Lepcha women to take a more active role in leadership.
Kamal joined RSPO as the India Representative in October 2017. Based in New Delhi, he is responsible for outreach and engagement activities to members and stakeholders in India, as well as formalizing the RSPO’s presence in this important market.
Prior to joining RSPO, Kamal was the Founder & Chief Happiness Officer of Human Circle, located in New Delhi, where he worked to create experiential programs like Young India Challenge, for the youth in India to connect their career with the idea of #DoWhatYouLove and ‘Sustainable Development Goals’. He was also responsible for content development, communications and public relations. He has been a regular public speaker at forums like TEDx and Startup Weekend.
Previously, Kamal was a finance recruitment specialist for Michel Page in a consultative sales role. He was a part of the initial team in India, responsible for building the portfolio of ‘Fortune 500’ clients like Nestle and Philips. He has also been a youth influencer for Microsoft and Dainik Jagran – an Indian media house. In the last 10 years, Kamal has delivered entrepreneurship & leadership development programs and talks across Europe and Asia in more than 20 countries so far.
Joanna Dawson love planning and executing projects with teams, researching topics, and developing thought leader content. She like to get behind things and push them to completion. She has found ethnographic analysis as useful as conventional analysis tools. She worked on a number of projects with autonomous responsibility and leading small teams; that’s the great part about working in start-ups. Much of my work has been in project management and developing marcom, including for social media. She ike to use Design Thinking and the TOC (Theory of Constraints) methodologies in my work.
Balipara Foundation
Dr. Omokolade Akinsomi is an Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Real Estate Finance from the National University of Singapore and his research interests includes real estate investment trust (REITS), real estate portfolio management, real estate capital markets, Emerging Real Estate Markets and Housing Economics. Omokolade has published articles in journals such as Empirical Economics, Journal of Property Research, International Review of Economics and Finance specifically in Real Estate Finance and Investments. Omokolade sits on the editorial board of international real estate journals such as the Journal of Property Investment and Finance, Journal of Real Estate Literature and on the editorial board of five other built environment journals. He has won the best paper award at the African real estate society conference in real estate finance and investments in 2017. He is the recipient of the Young Researcher Rating Award by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, an award conferred to researchers under 40 based on their research impact and potential. Omokolade is the President of the African Real Estate Society. In addition, Omokolade is an advisory member of the South African Council for Property Valuers Profession (SACPVP) and member of the SA REIT Research Committee.
Associate Professor,
University of the Witwatersrand
Director General NICMAR, Pune; An eminent scholar, an expert in urban regeneration and real estate research with 20 years’ experience in practice, academia, and research in India and abroad. Dr. Kashyap holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering with distinction from NIT Kurukshetra, a post-graduate degree in Urban Planning from School of Planning & Architecture (SPA), New Delhi, and a Ph.D. from University of Ulster, United Kingdom. He was earlier Head of School, Geography, Planning & Environmental Management with University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom. Dr. Kashyap is a Chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), London, Member of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), London and a Fellow of the Institute of Town Planners (ITPI), India. He is also a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Kashyap has research interests in urban infrastructure and development financing agenda in developing nations. He has been Founding academic member, Professor, and Director of School of Real Estate, set up for RICS In India.
Director General NICMAR, Pune
Director General NICMAR, Pune; An eminent scholar, an expert in urban regeneration and real estate research with 20 years’ experience in practice, academia, and research in India and abroad. Dr. Kashyap holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering with distinction from NIT Kurukshetra, a post-graduate degree in Urban Planning from School of Planning & Architecture (SPA), New Delhi, and a Ph.D. from University of Ulster, United Kingdom. He was earlier Head of School, Geography, Planning & Environmental Management with University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom. Dr. Kashyap is a Chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), London, Member of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), London and a Fellow of the Institute of Town Planners (ITPI), India. He is also a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Kashyap has research interests in urban infrastructure and development financing agenda in developing nations. He has been Founding academic member, Professor, and Director of School of Real Estate, set up for RICS In India.
Associate Professor of Real Estate Finance at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA)
Ms. Aparna Soni is an architect- Urban Planner by discipline, presently working as an Assistant professor, in the department of planning, at the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal. Having nearly ten years of experience in academia, her subject areas include urban governance, land management and real estate development. She is presently perusing her doctoral studies from the Jindal Global University (JGU) where she is studying and exploring the various land assembly models across states in India.
Assistant professor, Department of Planning, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal
Mr. Deo Shankar Tripathi has over 39 years of commercial banking experience. He joined the Union Bank of India in 1977 as Probationary Officer and held diverse positions, managing varied assignments till his superannuation as General Manager. He holds the distinction of heading premier zones of the bank, namely Mumbai and New Delhi. His wealth of experience spans several locations across the heartland of India as well.
His last over 8 years stint has been in the housing finance industry in leadership roles. As the Managing Director and CEO of Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd, Mr. Tripathi has spearheaded the policies and processes to make housing loan accessible to low income and informal segments. Under his leadership, Aadhar Housing Finance has grown to become one of the largest affordable housing finance companies in India.
On functional expertise, Mr. Tripathi has managed varied roles in bank covering Corporate Finance & Credit Management, Retail Banking, Collection Management, Rural Banking, Transaction Banking, Resource Mobilisation, Customer Relationship Management, Branch Network Expansion and Human Resource Management.
A postgraduate in Chemistry from Lucknow University Diploma in public administration, and a certified Associate of Institute of Bankers, he has attended various management, leadership and other training programmes in leading institutions across India and overseas. He is a Guest Speaker at various forums, having spent valuable time coaching young minds on management expertise.
Managing Director & Chief Executive, Aadhar Housing Finance Ltd. Officer
Sudha Narayanan joined IFPRI’s South Asia Regional Office in December 2020 as a research fellow. Sudha’s research interests straddle agriculture, food and nutrition policy, and human development. She is particularly interested in survey-based research using micro econometric approaches to understand broader questions of agrarian change and state delivery systems for nutrition security. Her research focuses on contract farming, agrifood value chains, technology adoption in agriculture, public policies for food security and employment and agriculture-nutrition linkages.
She was previously an Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai. She obtained a PhD from Cornell University in 2011, specialising in agricultural economics. She earlier obtained M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India. Prior to studying for a doctoral degree, Sudha worked with the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, the Right to Food Campaign in India and Cornell University, among others
Research Fellow, IFPRI
Chockalingam S, Director General, Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA), Pune
Chockalingam, an IAS officer of the 1996 Batch, was born and brough up in Pudukottai in Tamilnadu. While completing his LLB, he got fascinated by Civil Services and became an IAS in 1996. He served in almost all regions of Maharashtra during his career as an Indian Civil Servant in various capacities. As the Land Settlement Commissioner of the state, he spearheaded the mapping of rural settlements in Maharashtra using drone and CORS technology to create rural property records, which brought him to limelight in Indian Land Administration scenario. He was appointed as a member of the Expert Committee on Land Titling constituted by the Government of India and as a member of the Task Force of NITI Ayog on Land Titling, contributed to the report- “Land Titling-A Road Map” and to the drafting of the “Model Land Titling Bill and Rules”. Further, he helped to establish the Country’s First Land Titling Centre at YASHADA, Pune.
He has helped the federal government in designing a national rural property card scheme called SVAMITVA which aims to map India’s 0.66 million villages.
He is currently posted as the Director General, Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA), Pune.
Director General, Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA)
Ms. Anna Locke is former Director of ODI’s Sustainable Environments and Societies programme. She joined ODI in July 2011 after having worked for 19 years in development, 12 of which were based in Mozambique. Anna has in-depth experience of working with market-led agriculture, analysing and advising on how to develop agriculture to promote sustainable growth and reduce poverty, based on principles of competitiveness, market access and inclusiveness. Her focus in recent years has been on land governance and large-scale investment, biofuels and food security.
Principal Research Fellow, ODI
Lennart Ackzell is a Senior Advisor for International Affairs for the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) that promotes development of green industry and supports individuals and small enterprises. From 2011-2020, Mr. Ackzell served as the Vice President of the International Family Forest Alliance (IFFA) that advocates for privately owned and managed forests and exists to give family forestry a voice at the international level. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. Lennart has a master in Forestry and a Ph.D. in Forest Genetics. Mr. Ackzell has worked in Sweden, Canada, Burkina Faso and Kenya, and has worked for smallholders and family forestry since 2008.
Senior Advisor for International Affairs , Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF)
Girija Godbole is affiliated to the Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay. She is leading the study “Ground- eye view of existing agricultural tenancy in western Maharashtra in the times of increasing land sales” under the Nudge Foundation Research Innovation Grant. She is also a co-investigator of the study “Surviving violence: Everyday Resilience and Gender Justice in Rural- Urban India” funded by the British Academy.Trained in anthropology, Girija has worked in the environment and development sector for many years.
Senior Project Research Scientist
Centre for Policy Studies, IIT Bombay
Mr. Malcolm Childress is a multi-disciplinary land resources specialist with 30 years of global experience, including urban and rural property rights, and strategy for managing critical global ecosystems. His focus areas include land policy and governance, land markets, land registration, property taxation, cadastral systems and spatial planning.
Dr. Dalip Singh is a senior officer who joined Indian Administrative Service in 1982 and belonged to Haryana cadre. He served on senior positions in Government of India as well as in the State Govt. Of Haryana and retired from the service in the year 2016. As a member of the IAS, his contributions have been across departments, including Urban development, District administration, Health & Family welfare, Parliament affairs and Human resource development. Dr. Singh worked from 1980-82 as a Faculty Member at the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi before joining the IAS. He has substantial experience of corporate would and has been Director in many Boards of Government companies including RINL, MOIL, ICVL, OMDC & MSTC.
DDG(AC), Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
Having completed his graduation in English Literature (NEHU), Dr. Mizinksa Daimari went on to pursue a postgraduate in Development Studies (IIT Guwahati) and thereafter, a Ph.D. He has an academic research paper published recently with Springer. He is currently working as a Consultant with CIMMYT.
Trained in Development Studies, his research interest lean towards agrarian issues. His Ph.D. thesis, focuses on Agrarian Transition in a hitherto under-researched plains tribe dominant area of Assam, more specifically in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR; erstwhile BTAD).
Consultant (CIMMYT)
IIT Guwahati
Akeina Gonmei is a trained social worker from Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai. She has worked as a development secretary of Rongmei Baptist Association (RBA) for sixteen years. Akeina Gonmei was probably the first woman from the Rongmei Naga tribe to have completed the Master of social work (MSW) course from Nirmala Niketan. Ms. Gonmei has successfully initiated community development through the Church. She has closely worked with the tribal women in Nagaland and has introduced Wadi cultivation in place of Slash-and-Burn cultivation. Her development interventions include livelihood promotion, health, water and sanitation facilities. All her activities and intervention have an inclusive approach.
Development Secretary
Rongmei Baptist Association (RNBA)
Kinjal Pillai, Coordinator at Working Group for Women and Land Rights, Gujarat state based network committed to sustained grassroots action and policy advocacy around the issue of women’s land rights, including access and ownership over Land and other productive resources. Initiated in 2002, WGWLO today has a diverse membership of more than 40 NGOs and CBO (community based organization) and individuals with varied expertise, across 17 out of total 33 districts of Gujarat. Kinjal Pillai is a Sustainable Development Specialist working in the field of Sustainable. She has done her Masters in Environmental Planning (MTech) from CEPT University, Ahmedabad and has experience of 14 years in the field of sustainable development. Her interest area is working for resolving gender issues in focusing on building their resilience. She also has experience of working with communities, training and them on various aspects of sustainable development and building resilience on climate change. Currently she coordinates WGWLO and the three thematic areas vis., women and land rights, sustainable agriculture and forest rights. Women having land ownership empowers her and gives her decision-making power enabling her to take decision to move towards sustainable agriculture thus leading towards sustainable development. Her experience includes working in the field of climate change through adaptation projects ranging from preparation of State Action Plan of Climate change for Gujarat State to evaluating community based adaptation projects for Earth Care awards, (a climate change award where CEE is Knowledge partner) as an evaluator.
Smt. Shraddha Joshi Sharma is the Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM), which is the women’s development corporation of Maharashtra where she leads MAVIM’s efforts in financial inclusion, livelihoods development, grass root institution building. MAVIM serves 1.7 million poor and socially backward families in Maharashtra by organizing them into Self Help Groups and federations. The corporation has successfully implemented an IFAD assisted Tejaswini Rural Women Empowerment Program and has started Nav Tejaswini in which women led federations will be set up. Apart from IFAD MAVIM has partnered with international organizations like UNDP, UNICEF, WORLD BANK, ADB etc. and also Govt. dept. like Minority dept., Urban Development dept., Rural Development dept. etc. MAVIM has a network of 1.47 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) and 17.17 lakh women members (Urban and Rural) distributed in 10,495 villages and 259 cities. It has demonstrated an effective financing model of SHGs through partnership with various banks. Through this partnership, 85% of total SHGs have been enabled to mobilize INR 4200 crore of loans having recovery rate of 99% while the Non-Performing Assets are less than 0.8%. Furthermore, 80% of federations have achieved financial sustainability. In addition to enterprise development MAVIM is strongly working for issues like Property Ownership of Women (Ghar doghanche abhiyan), Male Participation (MAVIM Mitra Mandal), Food and Nutrition etc. MAVIM is now assertively working towards enterprise development and is currently strongly fighting with the unprecedented COVID crisis.
An MBA from JBIMS, Mumbai, she started her career with the civil services in the year 2005 as the Deputy Collector of Nainital where she worked on issues related to rural development, tourism, environment and women’s development. It is here that she developed a passion for women’s issues which ultimately motivated her decision to take stewardship of MAVIM in 2018. Prior to this she has work on tax regime implementation across several departments and cities, after getting selected for the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) in the year 2007.
MD, MAVIM
Mukta Joshi is an advocate and Legal Associate at the Land Conflict Watch, a network of researchers tracking, studying and reporting land and natural resource conflicts across India. She has also worked as Legal Researcher in Citizens for Justice and Peace. She holds a degree of B.A., L.L.B. (Hons.) from National Law School of India University. Activities and Societies, she has been engaged in are Core Editor, Quirk Magazine (2018-19); Convener, Law and Society Committee (2017-18); Founder, NLS Feminist Alliance (2016). She was an Associate Student in Spring Semester Field of Study Law, Queen Mary University of London.
Advocate, Legal Associate-
Land Conflict Watch
Vaishnavi Rathore is the Environment Lead at The Bastion. She has been covering stories of environmental justice and democracy, governance of commons and land, forest and land rights for more than two years. She was a Fellow under Women and Land Rights Reporting fellowship received by WGWLO and Behan Box in 2021, where she reported on ground from Gujarat’s Adivasi districts. She is also the recipient of the Prem Bhatia Award for Excellence in Environment and Development Reporting, 2021. Prior to full-time journalism, Vaishnavi was a policy and development practitioner with Foundation for Ecological Security, Gujarat in 2017 and Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective, Himachal Pradesh in 2018
The Bastion
Prudhviraj Rupavath is Researcher, Land and Forest Governance with the Land Conflict Watch. Previously, he worked as a reporter with news portal Newsclick covering social movements, government policies and politics in Telugu States among others.
LandConflictWatch
Sanchayan Chakraborty is a Partner at Aavishkaar Capital. He manages Aavishkaar’s South and South-east Asia focussed impact fund, and is currently spearheading Aavishkaar Capital’s climate platform efforts, including a specific focus on investments in nature-based solutions. Sanchayan has over two decades of experience in fund management and investment banking across Asia and Middle East.
Partner, Aaviskaar Capital
Sandeep Roy Choudhury is a co-founder at VNV Advisory Services, a social enterprise working with communities & climate change in South and Southeast Asia. He heads VNV’s ownership on low carbon social development projects such as sustainable agriculture, social forestry, coastal resilience, clean cooking, clean air, drinking water, rural energy access and waste management. Sandeep’s work encompasses over 6 million rural households across 11+ countries in the region & over 100+ NGOs and implementation partners: currently working on over 1 million hectares of natural ecosystems through climate finance for rejuvenation, restoration, conservation of biodiversity ecosystems and climate smart agriculture for small holders with a big focus on the Himalayan countries and the Mekong basin regions. He has recently launched a climate change impact fund to invest in start-ups related to climate solutions. He also works as an advisor to the private sector in the region with issues related to corporate sustainability and its relation to community impacts and action. He is on the board of numerous non-profits working on climate related projects including Worldview International Foundation Myanmar, Planting on Demand, Bangladesh Bondhu Foundation & Environment Protection Centre Nepal. Sandeep has over 17 years of industry experience, has a degree in Electronics and is a Salzburg global fellow. He is also a director at “Carbon Initiative Forum”, a non-profit working on climate policy awareness for the youth and currently serves as the co-chair for the International Carbon reduction Alliance (ICROA).
Intellecap
Director and Co-Founder,
VNV Advisory and Services
Sugar Commissioner, Maharashtra
Sh. Shekhar Gaikwad is a 2002 batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre. Currently posted as the Commissioner of Sugar, Maharashtra, his previous postings include – Municipal Commissioner, Pune, Director, Ground Water Survey and Development Agency (Maharashtra), Collector and District Magistrate of Sangli.
He believes that Learning is an unending process and that one should earn maximum knowledge and use it for betterment of society. To this end he has written several books and successfully launched several literacy initiatives. In 2013, he received the Bhoomi Award, for his contribution in Creating Legal Literacy among the farmers of the State. His book, Shetiche Kayade received Maharashtra State Literary Award in 2006. The book provides an in-depth insight into land issues of Maharashtra.
Some of his notable achievements include the rejuvenation of Agrani River (2016) and Tilganga River (2016) in Sangli district, “Gramin Mahila Handa Mukti Yojana” Simple water supply Scheme based on Solar energy.(2014), “SwajalKumbh” Scheme developed on Rainwater harvesting (2014), launching of web portal for online access to decisions on Land Disputes (2005-2009), Road Widening in Baramati – The Gandhiyan Way (1996-1997) and Strategic Resettlement System of Project Affected Persons in Kolhapur District (1987-1991).
Collector and DM, Osmanabad (Maharashtra)
Sh. Kaustubh Diwegaonkar, is an IAS officer of the 2013 batch, Maharashtra cadre. Former positions held by him, include – Commissioner of Latur Muncipal Corporation, CEO, Zila Parishad, Jalgaon and Director of Ground Survey and Development Agency (GSDA).
During his posting as the Director of GSDA, he along with another officer, Shekhar Gaikwad, penned ‘Maharashtrachi Bhujal Gatha’ (Maharashtra’s Groundwater Story) – a 200-page research book that provides a glimpse into Maharashtra’s groundwater history and possibilities.
At his present posting as the Collector and District Magistrate of Osmanabad, he is studying the drought and farmer suicides in the Marathwada region, that according to his findings was once very prosperous. To update the documentation and the Administrative System of his state, he has decided to conduct in-depth research of each district and the region he is posted to. His goal is to compile his findings in a book that any academic or government functionary can use for reference.
In the year 2019, he was awarded the Swachh Sarvekshan National Award for Best Solid West management in Urban area (Cities less than 10 Lakh Population) by Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.
Collector and DM Sultanpur (UP)
Raveesh Gupta studied Mechanical Engineering from College of Technology, Pantnagar (UK), and followed up with an MBA from IIT Delhi. After serving in Indian Railways for 2 and a half years through Engineering Services Examination, he joined Indian Administrative Service in 2012. Before joining as DM Sultanpur, he has served as DM Sant Kabir Nagar, Special Secretary MSME, Chief Development Officer of Ayodhya (then Faizabad) and Balrampur Districts, and as Joint Magistrate, Meerut.
Besides being a practitioner in Land Revenue Laws and Procedures, he is an avid blogger and has written extensively on the practical and legal aspects of Land Disputes.
Research Fellow, Fraunhofer Center for International Management and Knowledge Economy (IMW)
Dr. Christine Richter has been working as a research fellow in the Innovation Acceptance group at the Fraunhofer IMW in Leipzig, Germany, since December 2019. The group’s projects enable the transfer and adaptation of various technologies and associated practices to new user and use contexts in support of the energy transition, cultural heritage management, and urban transformation. In her research, Christine combines insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Human Geography. Past research specifically analyzed the (potential) use of geo-data infrastructures and related digitalization processes in urban transformation and land rights governance. From 2008 until 2019 Christine worked in research and education at the University of Twente and the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), within projects in Europe, India, and West African countries, and before that as geodata analyst in government and private industry in Colorado, U.S.A.
External Consultant (Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Delhi )
Harshal is a graduate of urban planning from CEPT University, Ahmedabad, and public policy from Azim Premji University, Bangalore. He is currently an external consultant with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Delhi where he researches affordable housing, urban entitlements, and informal self-employment. Harshal is also one of the four coordinators of the Main Bhi Dilli Campaign, a civil society collective engaging with the preparation of the 2041 Master Plan for Delhi
Ph.D. Research Scholar (Land conflicts)
Currently pursuing her Ph.D. in sociology from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus; Lakshmi Jahnavi is working on land conflicts in Andhra Pradesh for her doctoral thesis. She completed her Masters’s and M.Phil from the University of Hyderabad, where her M.Phil dissertation focused on the political ecology of the informal seed supply system in Telangana.
Her research interest varies across Rural Agrarian Studies, Sociology of Development,
Sociology of Environment and Sustainable Development
Ph.D. Research Scholar, Center for Urban Sciences and Engineering
Vidhulekha Tiwari is a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Center for Urban Sciences and Engineering, IIT Bombay, working on urban energy optimization from the planning perspective. She has completed her Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture Bhopal. She has worked with LBSNAA as a Researcher in the field of Urban Land Governance, after her post-graduation. Her areas of expertise include urban growth prediction modeling through machine learning, data-driven urban planning and governance, and advanced method in town planning. She has a unique approach towards policy and urban governance and she will surely bring her nuance while mentoring the team.
General Secretary, SEWA
Reema Nanavaty has been working with the Self-Employed women workers from informal sector since 1984 when she joined the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and stayed on to be elected as its General Secretary in 1999. She expanded membership to new heights making SEWA the single largest union of informal sector workers. Her key focus has been to provide full-employment & self-reliance to the 1.7 million members of SEWA. 30 years of her selfless service was honored by Padma Sri (the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India) by Government of India for her distinguished contribution in the area of Social Services in 2013.
Reema is currently member of the Advisory Council on Gender of the World Bank Group. She was also invited as a member of International Labor Organization’s High Level Global Commission on Future of Work. She was the only commissioner representing the informal sector workers, self-employed workers and the rural workers union in the entire commission.
Professor of Gender & Development School of International Development, University of East Anglia
Dr. Nitya Rao is a professor of Gender & Development at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia. She has a vast research experience on topics related to gender equality and women’s empowerment, within broader issues of resource rights, social equality and rural development. Gender Analysis underpins all her research, be it in relation to understanding changes in land and agrarian relations, migration, livelihoods, food and nutrition security, growth and well-being, equity issues in education policies and provisioning, or indeed processes of policy change. Her book on land as a resource in the struggle over gendered identities entitled “Good women do not inherit Land”: Politics of Land and Gender in India was published by Social Science Press and Orient Blackswan, New Delhi, in 2008, republished in 2012. Dr.Rao’s recent work on gender and land has been published by World Development in 2017. Titled ‘Assets, Agency and Legitimacy: Towards a relational understanding of gender equality policy and practice’. Dr. Nitya has coordinated with UNRISD on research project for about 3 years and at present she’s working with 2 major research consortia- LANSA and ASSAR, where she’s responsible for mainstreaming a gender perspective in them.
Coordinator, Conservation and Livelihoods Programme at Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group
Neema Pathak Broome, has studied environmental science and completed a post graduate diploma in wildlife management. She is a member of Kalpavriksh, coordinating the Conservation and Livelihoods programme. She is part of the team monitoring implementation of conservation laws and policies in particular the Wildlife Protection Act and the Scheduled Areas and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006. Her main area of interest is conservation governance, particularly Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs). She has been involved with documentation, research, analysis and advocacy related to inclusive conservation governance and ICCAs in India and South Asia. She has been part of team coordinating the National Community Forest Rights Learning and Advocacy Process since 2011. She also coordinates a local process of participatory conservation governance in Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary in Maharashtra
Professor, Nirma University
Dr. Varsha Bhagat-Ganguly is a professor at Institute of Law, Nirma University. She has worked as a professor at Centre for Rural Studies, LBSNAA and as a fellow at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. Studying land from the perspective of development sociology is one of her core areas of interests along with citizen’s rights, collective action, pastoralists and pastoralism, and Gujarat. Her recent publications on land are: Land rights in India: policies, movements and challenges (Routledge, 2016, 2018); Journey towards land titling in India (LBSNAA and Shipra, 2017); The land question in neoliberal India: socio-legal and judicial interpretations (Routledge, 2020).
Professor, Department of International economics, Government and Business, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Dr. Aradhna Aggarwal is Professor at the Department of International Economics, Government and Business, Copenhagen Business School. Prior to this she was with the Department of Business Economics, University of Delhi. She earned her PhD in Economics from Delhi School of Economics. Her thesis was awarded the prestigious Professor Chhablani prize in recognition of its research contributions. Her research interests include industrial growth, entrepreneurship, globalisation, economic reforms, competition, international trade, FDI, special economic zones, technology transfer, technology creation and innovations, export competitiveness, and WTO-related issues. She has been a recipient of the GDN best research award (2000), and the GDN-IMF, and CAPORDE fellowships.
Dr. Malini L. Tantri is with the Centre for Economic Studies and Policy at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, India. Her areas of specialisation include international trade and development, trade facilitation, doing business, India–China studies, Special Economic Zones, trade and gender, and food security. Her works have been published by leading national and international publishers. She was a visiting scholar with the Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada. As part of her consultancy work with GIZ–Lao, Dr. Tantri assisted the Government of Lao PDR (National Committee on SEZ) with the draft of the Prime Minister’s Decree on SEZs. Besides this, she has worked with many funding agencies in India and abroad.
Assistant Professor, Institute for Social and Economic Change
Dr. Lokho Puni was conferred Indian Forest Service of 1989 batch from Manipur-Tripura cadre. He is a retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forest/Climate Change & Forest Conservation Act, Govt. of Manipur. He is a graduate from North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) in Bachelor of Science and obtained M.Sc. and Doctor of Philosophy from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, (IARI), New Delhi in Agricultural Biochemistry.
He had earlier served as PCCF/CC & FCA, Member Secretary/MBB, State Mission Director (National Bamboo Mission) in the Forest department, Govt of Manipur; District Forest Officer (DFO) Govt. of Manipur, APCCF/Biodiversity and NTFP, APCCF/Working Plan/Res. & Training; Member Secretary/Manipur Biodiversity Board; CCF/Development, CCF/OSD, Forest Research & Training in the state Forest department, Wildlife (HQ) & Zoological Park, Imphal and in other districts of Manipur.
He had attended 24 important trainings/workshops and exposure visits during his active service. He had published 29 papers and projects completed in his life till date.
Former PCCF, Govt. of Manipur
Program Manager, RNBA Manipur
Ms. Prisca Gonmei graduated from College of Social Work Nirmala Niketan, University of Mumbai and obtained Master in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She is working as a Thematic Expert in Land Mapping with different communities at Development & Relief Department, RNBA, Manipur since 2017.
Assistant Professor
Azim Premji University
Seema Mundoli is a faculty at Azim Premji University, located in Bengaluru, India, where she teaches in the masters and undergraduate programmes. Her research focuses on the role of nature in addressing the challenges of environmental sustainability and social justice in Indian cities. Her recent co-authored books (with Harini Nagendra) include, “Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities” (Penguin India) and “So many leaves” (Pratham Books).
Dr. D Sajith Babu is a Kerala cadre, Indian Administrative Service [IAS 2012 Batch] officer, currently serving as the Director of Civil Supplies, Government of Kerala, India. He has been involved in many IT based governance initiatives throughout his career. In 2020 he won the prestigious National e Governance [Gold] award that is truly recognition of his abilities to conceptualize and implement appropriate e-Governance solutions for the various governance issues, which impinge the life of common people. In the same year he received the “Best e-Governed District award” of Government of Kerala and he was shortlisted for the prestigious “Prime Minister’s Award in Public Service Delivery and grievance redressal” while serving as District Collector in Kasaragod. In March, 2021 he received the second “National Water Award” instituted jointly by ilets-Jalasakthi Abhiyan and Embassy of Israel.
Prior to his entry into Indian Administrative Service, Dr. Sajith served as Deputy Collector in the Kerala Administrative Service for nearly 12 years and during which he played a major role in the successful implementation of e-District project in Department of Revenue, Government of Kerala. He was awarded “Certificate of Merit” by GoK in 2013 for the same. The Kerala State Land Bank Project executed by him won the first “Chief Minister’s Innovation Award” in 2011. He earned the reputation as a “land management and administration expert” during this stint and even now acts as one of the main “referral points” on “land related” matters in Government. He authored 10 articles during this tenure. He also co-authored 3 books published by Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration [LBSNAA] and Kerala Bhasha Institute.
While working as Assistant Professor of Agriculture for more than 6 years after earning a Ph.D. in Agriculture, Dr. Sajith authored 15 research articles in various scientific magazines and 14 popular articles in leading newspapers in the State of Kerala. He also served as an officer in Corporation Bank where he had won the “Asset Club Membership” in the second year of his career. During his tenure as Training coordinator in Kerala Horticulture Development Programme [KHDP] he had conducted maximum number of trainings within the shortest period of time.
In addition to Ph.D. degree in Agriculture, Dr. Sajith holds Master’s Degrees in Agriculture [Agronomy], Arts [Personal Management and Industrial Relations], Commerce [Cooperative Management] and Labour Management. He also holds Diplomas in Management as well as Export Management and a Post Graduate Diploma in Banking. He has National Eligibility for Teaching [NET] certificate in Agricultural science as well.
District Collector, Kasargode Government of Kerala
An Electrical Engineer retired from Indian Railway and have been actively involved in public causes since 1995 by actively participating in Consumer Protection organisations.
Since 2005, I have been an RTI Activist and have been actively involved in Anti-Corruption Movements. I’m also working along with the NCPRI (National Campaign for People’s Right to Information) & holding the portfolio of President, Vigilnet Foundation (An anti-corruption organisation).
Since 2014, I have been concentrating on matters related to Land and have gained in depth knowledge of laws pertaining to Land, including the maintenance and upkeep of land records, surveying, registration, etc.
I provide legal guidance to the victims of land scam and assisting them to regain their lost property. I’m also fighting cases against the corrupt officials of the Revenue, Registration & Survey departments who worked in nexus with criminals by tampering the official records pertaining to lands.
After conducting case studies and collecting the relevant documents, I have authored several articles (through social media) exposing the different methods of land scams adopted by the officials of the Revenue, Registration & Surveying departments with the aid and help of the softwares developed by the National Informatics Centre. The detailed report of the same was prepared and submitted to the concerned authorities also.
Activist, Land Record Frauds, Kerala
Professor, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
Ruth Hall holds the South African Research Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, which is funded by the National Research Foundation. The Chair is located at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. She has published several books, including Africa’s Land Rush, Global Land Grabbing and Political Reactions from Below, Another Countryside? and The Land Question in South Africa. She is a co-founder of the Land Deal Politics Initiative, the BRICS Initiative in Critical Agrarian Studies and the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative. She is a founding member of the Network of Excellence in Land Governance in Africa (NELGA) and leads training courses for policy makers and professionals on the political economy of land governance in Africa. Ruth also served as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Advisory Panel on Land Reforms.
Research and development officer,
Caritas Nepal/SAFBIN program
Mr. Sharma is a research and development officer at Caritas Nepal/SAFBIN program. He has completed Master’s in Agriculture with conservation ecology as a major subject from Agriculture and forestry University. He has experience of working in the field of climate change research, nutrition sensitive agriculture and agriculture marketing.
Pradipta Kishor Chand, presently working as Lead – Climate Adaptive Agriculture and Food Sovereignty (CAA&FS) in Caritas India. Having more than 17 years of diverse experience on the field of Agriculture, climate resilient farming system and value chain of small-farm-agri-food through smallholder led forums, he has demonstrated many good agriculture practices and models in Eastern, Western and Central regions of India through various programs. Prior to working with Caritas India, he has the privilege to serve Watershed Mission Odisha and World Vision India.
As Lead – Climate Adaptive Agriculture and Food Sovereignty (CAA&FS), Caritas India
Kalindi Kokal is a researcher on law and society. She is currently a post doctoral fellow at the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies in IIT Bombay Kokal’s research emphasises an inter-disciplinary approach and focuses on understanding how state law in India works on ground as it filters through social structures of caste, class, religion and gender. Kokal is the author of State Law, Dispute Processing and Legal Pluralism: Unspoken Dialogues from Rural India (Routledge: 2020).
Post Doctoral Fellow- Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Ms. Chilombo Musa is interested in creating sustainable living spaces in urban centres, especially for underserved and overlooked communities. A lecturer and researcher, she has worked on access to land, land policy making and the interaction of globalising forces and their impact on land and housing accessibility. Chilombo is also interested in the contestation of power amongst policy makers, the role of international organisations in driving policy making processes, and local communities’ involvement in decision making. She has worked as a Research Fellow at the Economic Commission for Africa, where she served as a focal person for the Land Policy Initiative (African Land Policy Centre) and worked with local and international players in land policy making processes. Chilombo has participated in the organisation of international and regional conferences centred on harmonisation of gender statistics, and economic and structural transformation
Institute for Poverty,
Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
I possess 15+ years of progressive leadership and responsible professional experience at both Local, Regional and International level in Zambia, South Africa and Australia. I have demonstrated expertise in the private and Non-Profit Organisations as well as strategic partnerships development with governments. In social and economic justice, research, legal and policy reform, dispute resolution, communication, project coordination and management.
My proven experience is on land governance on both statutory and customary land tenure regimes in Zambia, South Africa and Australia. Focusing on various issues concerning land access, control and ownership, land titling, inheritance, land rights for women and other vulnerable groups.
I also have experience working on sustainable mining related projects that take into account Indigenous Australians and Zambians. My other work experience focuses on reconciliation building so as to steer socio-economic outcomes that contribute towards issues related to the Native Title, cultural heritage, the environment, consensus and relationships building with Indigenous Australians.
Over the years I have demonstrated high-level communication, interpersonal and cross-cultural skills including the ability to build collaborative relationships internally and externally with sensitivity to cultural, ethnic, political and social issues. I have the ability to pragmatically solve problems, plan a course of action using analytical, conceptual, strategic and forward thinking abilities to achieve an effective resolution. I also have the ability to recognise, react and adjust to rapidly changing conditions and to lead the resources in appropriate direction with cohesiveness and a sense of urgency.
Legal and Land Administration Specialist, Land Equity International
Serene Ho is a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Urban Futures at RMIT University. Her interdisciplinary research is focused on the urban poor, where she investigates land rights, trustworthy land information systems, social innovation, gender and climate resilience. She is currently investigating the use of disruptive technologies used to map land rights in India, and how this impacts trust in formal land administration systems, one of the most corrupt public institutions globally. Serene is also currently engaged in a UNFCCC funded, a multidisciplinary project investigating climate resilience in Honiara, Solomon Islands where she leads the community profiling and gender-related work packages in the
Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Urban Futures at RMIT University
Sugar Commissioner, Maharashtra
Community Land Protection Advisor for Kenya
NAMATI
Eileen Wakesho Mwagae is the Community Land Protection Advisor for Kenya. She brings about ten years of experience in the Development Sector with a focus on Women’s Land Rights and Land and Natural resource governances. Prior to joining Namati, Eileen served as the Women’s Land Rights Advisor for Oxfam International. Women Land Rights Advisor at Oxfam International where she focuses on carrying out influencing work that draws on national work and grassroots women’s experiences and leads to greater attention to women’s land and property rights in all relevant policy arenas globally.
Eileen has also worked with Kenya Land Alliance, Development Policy Management Forum, NCCK and Kenya Institute for Public Policy, Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). She has co-authored a peer reviewed book on informal justice mechanisms and formal courts in Kenya and Engagement with Local Communities: Land and Conflict. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Project Planning and Management from the University of Nairobi and a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication. She is alumni of Landesa’s Women Land Rights Visiting Professionals Program in the USA and Sydney’s Law School Gender and Transitional Justice Fellowship.
Head of Department of Operations and Business Development
Buganda Land Board
Kizito Bashir Juma is a Land administration specialist with demonstrated history of working in the real estate sector and Land administration majorly in the central parts of Uganda for both the public and private sectors. He works as the Head Operations, Business Development and Corporate Affairs at Buganda Land Board. He also serves as the District surveyor for Wakiso and Nakaseke District Local governments. He has served both institutions for over 13 years. He has gained extensive knowledge and skills in land rights recordation, adjudication, land surveying and other activities leading to obtaining security of tenure for communities. He is a registered land surveyor and a fellow at the Institute of Surveyors of Uganda. Bashir holds a B.Sc. Surveying degree from Makerere University, a Diploma in law of the Law Development Centre and a Master’s in Business Administration from Uganda Management Institute. He has served as a Board member of the Buganda Heritage and Tourism Board, chairman supervisory committee of the corporate Muslim multi-purpose community and the Project Head for the Land Electronic Card that was introduced at BLB to increase security of tenure.
Chair , Group Sociology of Development and Change, LandAc Chair
Wageningen University and Research
Dr. Gemma van der Haar has a background in development sociology, which allowed her to move into the field of conflict studies. As a researcher, her work is located at the intersection of development sociology and conflict studies having a particular interest in issues of ordering, governance and state formation in conflict and disaster ‐ affected settings. Her area of expertise covers; land governance, local governance/state formation, gender and youth.
Senior Researcher
Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
Dr. Phillan Zamchiya officially joined the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) as a senior researcher in 2017. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in International Development from the University of Oxford. His academic interests are twofold. He studies contemporary trajectories of land and agrarian change in Southern Africa and the politics of post-colonial states in democratic transitions. He is currently the regional coordinator of PLAAS’s new project on the privatisation of customary land and women’s land rights in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. Previously, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford University where he taught on the Master of Philosophy program at the Department of International Department. He holds an MPhil in Land and Agrarian Studies from the University of the Western Cape. Before joining UWC, he studied for a BSc in Politics at the University of Zimbabwe. Dr. Zamchiya has worked extensively with civil society organisations in Zimbabwe and as a result he has been a victim of state engineered attacks. He is published in international peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Southern African Studies, the Journal of Peasant Studies and the Journal of Agrarian Change.
Head, State Capability,
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Thierry Ngoga Hoza has over 13 years’ experience working in the field of natural resources, with particular expertise in land tenure, land use planning and land management issues.
For the last six years, he has been a Consultant working across several African countries where he has advised various governments, international agencies such as the World Bank, DFID and USAID, as well as numerous NGOs, and think tanks like the International Growth Centre led by Oxford University and the London School of Economics. His line of work has been mainly focused on advising on policy, strategic development and project development.
Prior to his current role as Consultant at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Thierry was the Head of Land Technical Operations Department in the Rwandan Natural Resources Authority where he played a key role in leading the ambitious national land tenure reform programme. This culminated in the registration of all land across the country and the issuance of over seven million land titles in less than five years. Thierry holds an MSc in International Planning and Development from Cardiff University, UK as a Chevening Scholar.
The Executive Director ,Coordinator – Stand for her land rights Uganda
UCOBAC
Frances Birungi is the Executive Director for Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children’s welfare (UCOBAC). She is currently the Chairperson of the International Land Coalition – National Engagement strategy in Uganda and also coordinates the Stand for Her Land Campaign in Uganda. Frances is a feminist and passionate gender, human rights and development specialist with over 18 years professional experience in designing, implementing and evaluating programs aimed at accelerating progress towards attaining gender justice through promoting women and girls’ Land and Property Rights, Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, ending Gender Based Violence, promoting women’s leadership and strengthening women led climate change resilience and adaptation. Frances works with grassroots communities to organise, mobilize resources, develop community development practices and transform public policies at local, national, regional and global level
Principal Land Officer
Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Devt
Olekwa Abdunassar is a land administrator, with over 10 years’ experience in land management, land acquisition, land registration and land governance. Currently working as a Principal Land Officer in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development he joined the Ministry in 2010 as a Land Officer. Abdunassar is passionate about land reform and land rights, especially for women and marginalised groups. He has also been part of several high-level committees on land administration reform; he was a member of the Government team that negotiated the Host Government Agreement (HGA) on the East African Crude Pipeline (EACOP), a member of the Resettlement Action Committee that drafted the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Framework (LARF) currently used in the oil and gas sector, team leader for Systematic Land Adjudication and Certification (SLAAC) sub-program under the World Bank funded USMID-AF project, Secretary to the Standards Committee that oversees the development and implementation of the National Land Information System (NLIS), among other key assignments. Abdunassar holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB.) from Islamic University in Uganda, a Post-graduate diploma in Legal Practice from Law Development Centre and a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from East and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI).
Head of Organisational Development,
YILAA
Georges Gambadatoun is currently the head of Organisational Development at YILAA. He is an experienced project/event manager with a demonstrated history of working in the non-profit organization management industry and in operations management. Georges Gambadatoun is a focused and driven social entrepreneur. He is a project management graduate from the Republic of Benin and a recent graduate in Industrial Logistics from the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt in Germany. Georges is a former member of AIESEC. Additionally, he is the co-founder of Blog4SDGs.
Vice-President,
YILAA Tanzania
Marianne Kamsuri is a trained Lawyer with special bias on Land law, Property law, Commercial law, Administration law and International law. With a Diploma in Wildlife Management, Certificate in Geographical Information Systems, a law degree from the University of Dar Es Salaam and Advocacy Training at United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR) she has handled many land agreements, mortgages and company matters and dealing with litigation in courts in Tanzania since 2008. She is the founder of Organization for Legal and Conservancy(OLECO) in Arusha; working intensively with youth, women and children living at the areas surrounding protected areas and also the general public within Tanzania mainland and the Vice-President of YILAA in Tanzania
Independent Land and Resource Tenure Specialist
Liz ALDEN WILY is a political economist (PhD) specialized in agrarian land tenure, and especially community-based property systems (customary, neo-customary, and state developed). She has substantial hands-on experience in 20+ countries, mainly in Sub Saharan Africa (but also most notably in Afghanistan and Nepal outside Africa alongside earlier work in Pakistan and Indonesia). Over four decades Liz has contributed as both practitioner and academic to policies and legal constructs to enable rural communities to secure their unfarmed rangelands and forests under collective entitlements. Liz has also helped establish national, regional and international fora on tenure security. She remains active in active in supporting Land Rights Now, Land Portal, the Rights and Resources Coalition, and Community Land Trusts network. She works from village to ministerial levels depending on the task. Liz is a Fellow of the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law Development and Society at Leiden Law School in The Netherlands, a key facilitator of Community Land Action Now! in Kenya where she resides, and a Fellow or adviser to several other multi-agency initiatives.
Independent Land and Resource Tenure Specialist
Liz ALDEN WILY is a political economist (PhD) specialized in agrarian land tenure, and especially community-based property systems (customary, neo-customary, and state developed). She has substantial hands-on experience in 20+ countries, mainly in Sub Saharan Africa (but also most notably in Afghanistan and Nepal outside Africa alongside earlier work in Pakistan and Indonesia). Over four decades Liz has contributed as both practitioner and academic to policies and legal constructs to enable rural communities to secure their unfarmed rangelands and forests under collective entitlements. Liz has also helped establish national, regional and international fora on tenure security. She remains active in active in supporting Land Rights Now, Land Portal, the Rights and Resources Coalition, and Community Land Trusts network. She works from village to ministerial levels depending on the task. Liz is a Fellow of the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law Development and Society at Leiden Law School in The Netherlands, a key facilitator of Community Land Action Now! in Kenya where she resides, and a Fellow or adviser to several other multi-agency initiatives.
Director, Tripnet
HRD, General Secretary,
Borok Peoples Human Rights Organization (BPHRO)
Anthony Debbarma is the Secretary General of the Borok Peoples’ Human Rights Organization (BPHRO) , a human rights NGO based in Agartala, Tripura, North-east India, that works on the promotion of human rights in the region with a special focus on the rights of the indigenous Borok people. He is also the convener of the Joint Action Committee of Civil Society (JACCS), a platform that brings together indigenous civil society organisations in Tripura.
Associate Professor,
Namibia University of Science and Technology – Co. Chair of the Research Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
Uchendu Eugene Chigbu is an Associate Professor (Land Administration) in the Department of Land and Property Sciences (DLPS) at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). He is a Co-Chair of the Research Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), and an Associate Editor of the Journal, Land Use Policy (Elsevier).
State Co-ordinator,
Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan,
Rajasthan
Ms Chandrakala is the State Co-ordinator of the Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, Rajasthan and Coordinating Director of the Ekal Nari Shakti Sansthan. She has worked with single women since 1999, has extensive field experience in community organizing and mentoring grass root women activists.
Dr Vinod Aggarwal is a trained medical doctor, who passed out from Premier AIIMS New Delhi and ventured into IAS in 1980 and served in Bihar and after division of state in Jharkhand. In a career spanning beyond 36 years, he had worked mainly in the health, education and social sectors. He has served as Secretary (Health) in Jharkhand, Secretary (Health & Medical Education) in Bihar and as Director (Drug Pricing) in the Central Government. In Education, his main contribution was as Secretary, Technical Education in Jharkhand. Additionally, he has spent more than 7 years at various stages in social equity and worked towards upliftment of the Backward Classes, Divyang jan and Scheduled Castes. At the time of retirement, he was Secretary, Government of India in the department of Disability Empowerment. In the Economic sector, he has worked with the Board of Revenue, Border Roads Management and Bihar State Export Corporation. After retirement, for the past 2.5 years, he has been associated with the Human Rights Commission as a Rapporteur, where he is looking into the issues of jails, govt. programs for poor like MG NREGA, Food Security Act, etc in several states.
Former Additional Chief secretary (Land Revenue Department) Telangana State
Mr. Dharm Raj Joshi (M.A.), a researcher and development worker with more than 8 years’ work experience in Nepalese development sector. Currently, he is working as national coordinator for ILC’s National Engagement strategy (NES) in Nepal and facilitating the multi-stakeholder platform on people centered land governance called Land Governance Working Group – LGWG. Previously, he served COLARP – a national level research-based organization as Executive Director. He has received national and international fellowships for policy research and professional courses for land governance. He has been actively advocating for people centered land reform in Nepal.
Nhek Sarin
Star Kampuchea
(Cambodia)
Nhek Sarin has more than 20 years of experience in managing, coordinating and advising between 9 and 25 national and international staff of the non-profit organizations and state institutions. Sarin worked for two years with the National Assembly as Head of the Information and Library Office, 11 years with STAR Kampuchea (SK) as Executive Director, and five years with Forum Syd as Program Manager/Program Coordinator/ Organizational Development Advisor. Currently, Sarin is the Deputy Executive Director and concurrent Fundraising and Organizational Development Advisor of Star Kampuchea.
Denise Hyacinth Joy Musni
ANGOC
Denise is a researcher, development worker, and Deputy Executive Director of ANGOC. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, and is presently pursuing graduate studies in Demography. She joined ANGOC in 2017, and most of her work with the network has been in pursuit of ANGOC’s land rights program area. She has also worked on academic research on migration and peri-urban development.
Nathaniel Don Marquez
Former NCAER
V B Rawat
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a human rights defender with over 30 years work with grassroots movements on Land Rights issues of the most marginalised sections of Indian society. He is an author of over 22 books and has written extensively on the issues of Dalits, Adivasis and peasants on the issue of farm crisis in India. He has also made numerous documentaries and documented issues of Dalits and Adivasis. He founded the Social Development Foundation in 1998 and continues to focus on the land reform issues
Nathaniel Don Marquez has been with the civil society movement since 1989. For the past 28 years, Don has been with the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), a regional network of civil society organizations working on food sovereignty, land rights, sustainable agriculture and participatory governance.
ANGOC
Senior Law Researcher and Human Rights Activist
Dr. Usha Ramanathan is an internationally recognized expert on law and poverty. She studied law at Madras University, the University of Nagpur, and Delhi University.
She is a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, teaches environmental law, labour law and consumer law at the Indian Law Institute, and is a regular guest professor many universities around the world.
She is a frequent adviser to non-governmental organizations and international organizations. She is for instance a member of Amnesty International’s Advisory Panel on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and has been called upon by the World Health Organisation as an expert on mental health on various occasions.
Dr. Ramanathan is also the South Asia Editor of the Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD Journal), a peer-reviewed academic journal jointly published by IELRC and SOAS.
Her research interests include human rights, displacement, torts, and the environment. She has published extensively in India and abroad. In particular, she has devoted her attention to a number of specific issues such as the Bhopal gas disaster, the Narmada valley dams or slum eviction in Delhi.
CLRA
Kashish Gupta, is a penultimate year law student from New Delhi, India. She has worked with State Commissions for the enforcement of Child’s Rights and with the Enforcement Directorate against cases of money laundering and corruption. She has also worked with Supreme Court Litigators in pursuance of her interest in public policy, feminist governance, and social justice.
U Shwe Thein is a forester, used to a lecturer at Institute of Forestry, Yezin (1981 – 1998), a development worker (1998 – at present), Freelance for OD & Leadership coaching & mentoring, Executive Director or Team Leader of Land Core Group (2011 – at present), practicing OD, Institutional capacity building, leadership coaching & mentoring, and leading land governance improvement intervention for the people in Myanmar
Executive Director,
Land Core Group, Yangon
Dr. Trias Aditya teaches land administration and management with a particular focus on spatial data infrastructure, land information systems, and geoinformatics for land tenure recognition and land use management. He currently heads the Geodetic Engineering department at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He has published several papers on his fields of study and research in Land, Land Use Policy, Transactions in GIS, and other such journals. He has worked in various capacities (such as mapping expert, technical consultant, etc.) with national ministries and agencies of the Government of Indonesia and others such as Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency, Geospatial Information Agency, Peatland Restoration Agency, National Agency for Disaster Management
University of Gadjah Mada
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
National Coordinator, (LGWG) Nepal
Dr. Purna Bahadur Nepali is Associate Professor, and Program Director, Master of Public Policy and Management (MPPM), Kathmandu University School of Management (KU SOM), Balkumari, Lalitpur. Dr. Nepali is Research Fellow (non-resident), Harvard Kennedy School and Hutchins Center, Harvard University, US where he is undertaking his research on political economy of Inclusive Agrarian Transformation: Comparative Analysis of Race-Caste of US and Nepal/South-Asia. He has recently completed his Fulbright Visiting Research Fellowship (2017-18) in Global Development and Sustainability at Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, USA. His research interest is public and social policy, inclusive growth, social inclusion, and rural/agrarian issues. As a lead editor of the Journal- New Angle, he recently edited a special issue of the peer reviewed article called Agrarian and Land Issues that can be found here
Associate Professor, (KU SOM)
Deepak Sanan retired from the Indian Administrative Service in 2017, where he was attached to the State of Himachal Pradesh. He held senior positions in public finance, land governance, and the water and sanitation sectors at both the State and national levels. He also had significant tenures in the health, urban development, and power sectors. Currently, he is an adviser for projects on water and sanitation and land governance at a number of institutions in India. He has been a Consultant with the World Bank, IFAD, DFID, IDS Sussex, and AusAid. He has also served as the India Country Team Leader in the Water and Sanitation Program (South Asia) at the World Bank.
He writes regularly on Centre-State relations, and has published extensively and presented papers on these issues at a number of conferences across India. He received his MA in Politics (International Relations) from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and BCom (Hons) from Delhi University.
Dr. Martua Sirait holds degree in Forest Management (Mulawarman University Samarinda, 1990), M.Sc. in Applied Sociology and Anthropology (Ateneo de Manila University, 1996) and Phd in Rural Sociology (Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University 2015), has known in promoting the community mapping to the formal process of land tenure security for the IPLCs in Indonesia. Dr. Sirait is currently serving as the Director of Samdhana Institute, Indonesia Operations, based in Bogor. Beside that, he is also serving as the Expert Panel to the Peat & Mangrove Restoration Body (BRGM) for agrarian issues.
Director, SAMDHANA, Indonesia.
Dr Vincent Darlong is a former Vice Chancellor at MLCU. At present he is a team leader in the world bank funded biodiversity studies undertaken by MLCU and serving as a Director of Centre for Sustainable Development Studies.
Centre for Sustainable Development Studies, MLCU, Meghalaya
Naw Ei Ei Min received the U.S. Embassy’s Women of Change award on March 16 (2017). She is the Director of POINT (Promotion of Indigenous and Nature Together), Myanmar and Executive Council Member of Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP). which advocates for sustainable environmental and economic policies for all Myanmar people, regardless of gender or ethnicity.
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND Sept 2011 – May 2013 Master of Arts in International Development Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Jan 2004 – Dec 2006 Diploma in Environmental Policy, Open University, UK Oct 2000 – Oct 2004 B.A.R.S. (English), Myanmar Institute of Theology, Myanmar Mar 2000 – Mar 2003 B.A. (Economics), University of Distance Education, Myanmar
WORK EXPERIENCE Sept 2013 to Present Director, POINT (Promotion of Indigenous and Nature Together) Nov 2008 to Sept 2013 Program Coordinator, Spectrum (Sustainable Development Knowledge Network) Sept 2007 to Oct 2008 Program Officer, Spectrum (Sustainable Development Knowledge Network) June 2007 to Aug 2007 Volunteer, World Concern Myanmar June 2009 to Mar 2009 Mentor for Civil Society Organization, Paung Ku Aug 2007 to Aug 2010 Founder and Organizer, Lovers of Myanmar Environment (LOME) Oct 2004 to Oct2010 Part Time Tutor for English and Social Studies, B.A.R.S Program, Myanmar Institute of Theology, Insein, Yangon, Myanmar May 2006 to Sept 2006 English Teacher, Library and Class Organizer, Youth Center, Yangon, Myanmar Oct 2006 to Mar 2007 Internship, Asia Indigenous People’s Pact Foundation, Thailand.
Director, Point
Nasrin Siraj is an anthropologist. She completed her first MA in Anthropology from Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka in 2000. Then, in 2010, she obtained her second MA in Anthropology from Vrije University, Amsterdam, where she is currently doing her PhD.Region wise, Nasrin is focused on Bangladesh and its highland border areas. Thematically, she is focused on mobility and migration, violence and democracy, and the processes of exclusion and inclusion. She has teaching experience in Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and in Martin-Luther-Universitat, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Her courses covered qualitative research methods, political identities in Asia and history and rights of ethnic and religious minorities in Bangladesh.
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Dr. Nivedita P. Haran Graduated with Economics and Philosophy (Hons), obtained Masters in Philosophy from Jadavpur University and PhD in Sociology from IIT, Delhi.
She joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1980 and worked in the state of Kerala and in Govt of India in various departments that include departments of Land Revenue, Disaster Management, Agriculture, Industries, Labour & Employment, Planning and Home apart from serving as District Collector/ Magistrate. She was Director and later Joint Secretary in Ministry of Urban Development, Govt of India. She was on deputation to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo for 5 years.
Post-retirement she has been engaged in activities related to research and academics in the areas of Digitisation of Land Records, Disaster Resilience-building, Good Governance, , Labour & Migration issues and management of Water, Waste Water and solid waste. She is a member of the Court-appointed Committee of Experts for cleaning up and conservation of the Dal Lake and the committee related to modernization of land records in Delhi. She is also the chairperson of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development and Ente Bhoomi Trust. She has been a regular speaker at various training Institutes including the Civil services training academy at Mussoorie.
IAS (Retd),
former-Addl Chief Secretary,
Kerala and Faculty, JNU
Mr Arun K Bansal, former-ADG, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Govt of India
former-ADG, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Govt of India
Emeritus Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sydney, Australia
Philip Hirsch is Emeritus Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has written extensively on the political economy of land, environment and natural resources governance in mainland Southeast Asia and has 40 years of experience working on/in the region. His published work on land includes (with Derek Hall and Tania Li) Powers of Exclusion: Land dilemmas in Southeast Asia (Singapore and Honolulu: Singapore University Press and Hawaii University Press 2011), a series of papers on the political economy of land governance in the Mekong Region, and (with Kevin Woods, Natalia Scurrah and Michael Dwyer) Turning Land into Capital: Development and Dispossession in the Mekong Region (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022). He is currently writing a chapter on the modern history of land regimes for the new edition of the Cambridge History of Southeast Asia.
Social Activist and Researcher on Natural Resources and Land Governance
M. S. Shivakumar, social activist and researcher, has more than 30 years’ experience working on land and natural resource issues in Southeast and South Asia. He has worked with different bilateral and multilateral organisations including the World Bank, UN-FAO, UNDP, and others. He has advised the Governments of Vietnam and Myanmar on enhancing land governance, on drafting land law, and on forest tenure issues. He is currently based in Bengaluru, India.
Director of GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, Gurgaon, India
Dr. Govind Kelkar, PhD in Political Economy of China, is Visiting Professor at the Council for Social Development, Delhi, and Professor and Executive Director of GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, Gurgaon, India. In her concurrent assignments, Prof. Kelkar is a Regional Council Member of Asia-Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Adjunct Distinguished Professor of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand. a Honorary Professor in Institute of Ethnology, Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, Yunnan, China; a Member of the Steering Committee of BRICS Feminist Watch, and Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. She has previously taught at Delhi University, the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand. At AIT, Dr Kelkar founded the graduate program in Gender Development Studies and also the Gender, Technology and Development Journal, published by SAGE, India. Dr. Kelkar resides in Delhi, India. She has extensively worked on gender relations in rural Asia. She has contributed numerous articles to scholarly journals and written 16 books with a focus on political economy of land rights, gender and energy in Asia and has been in close touch with women’s movements in the region.
Secretary, Rongmei Naga Baptist Association (RNBA)-Manipur
Mr. Dimgonglung Rongmei is a secretary of Development & Relief Department, RNBA Manipur. He is a graduate in B.Sc. Botany from Manipur University, obtained Master in Conflict Study from Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia. He holds Diploma in Development Leadership, Coady International Institute, StFX University, Antigonish, Canada and had exposed on bamboo value chain analysis and bamboo sector development study at China. He is been actively involved in NGO sector (rural development) since 2001 and has experiences around sustainable livelihood through proper natural resources management. Food and livelihood security through proper NRM, Capacity Organization of the community members, and people’s-oriented policies, Good governance, quality education and land rights.
Associate Vice President, NRMC (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Pravanjan has over 17 years of experience in the development sector with his core expertise in project planning, management, monitoring & evaluation, capacity building and action research. Pravanjan has been working on developing solutions to catalyse land rights research, M&E and capacity building in land, livelihoods and forest space. To strengthen the sustainable land ecosystem, he has been vital to the setting up of the Center for Land Governance, a platform that aims to bring together all stakeholders in land governance.
Pravanjan has worked with a diverse set of clients including governments, multilaterals and foundations such as IFAD, DFID, WFP, World Bank, JICA, GIZ, OXFAM, CRS etc. across India and South Asia. He has contributed to projects focusing on tribal development, monitoring, evaluation and implementation of natural resources based livelihood and food security projects primarily for the underprivileged communities.
He has worked with organizations like UNDP, SIDBI, State and Central Government departments. As part of these organizations, he has spearheaded several concept designs, program development and facilitated execution. Pravanjan holds a master’s degree in management from Utkal University and completed his law degree in Environmental Law.
He is practices roof top vegetable farming and volunteers with Bhubaneswar City Farmer’s Association to promote urban farming.
IAS (Retd), former- Addl Chief Secretary, HP and former Advisor to NCAER, IIHS & CPR
Development Practioner,PRADAN
Sailabala Panda, as a development practitioner, has worked for close to a decade with PRADAN where she engages in projects from the gender equity perspective. She has gained a wide range of experience in designing, implementing, and monitoring livelihood prototypes—working to empower rural women in different livelihood activities and to increase their incomes and raise their awareness of their political, social, and economic rights, including land rights.
Ms Panda has expertise in forming and nurturing women’s self-help groups and producer cooperatives focusing on transforming lives of women in rural household. Some of Ms Panda’s most recent projects with PRADAN include enhancing the livelihoods of poor tribal families by strengthening natural resource management and facilitating the ability of Indian women in endemically poor regions in India to access, actualize, and sustain the mandate of the National Policy for Empowerment of Women. Ms Panda is an agricultural engineer from Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar.
Director Asia Region, ICRW
Ravi Verma is Regional Director at the International Centre for Research on Women’s (ICRW) Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, India. Over the past three decades, he has worked on issues of gender, men and masculinity, male sexual health and gender equality in relation to violence against women, reproductive health, including family planning and HIV/AIDS, in India and countries across the Asian region. He has published extensively on these issues in both Indian and international journals of repute. Ravi has also served as a member of High Level Committee on the Status of Women (HLCSW) from 2013-2016, Government of India and the Rights & Empowerment working group of the FP2020 Initiative. He currently serves as a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Gender and Health. He also serves on the Boards of Women Lift health and Global Health 5050.
Commissioner of Pimpari and Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and CEO of Pimpri Chinchwad Smart City limited (Pune, Maharashtra)
Mr. Rajesh Prabhakar Patil, IAS, 2005 Odisha cadre Civil Servant. Presently holding the position of Municipal Commissioner of Pimpari and Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and CEO of Pimpri Chinchwad Smart City limited (Pune, Maharashtra). He worked in several capacities in Government of Odisha. He was appointed as Director, Special Project, PR & DW department (MGNREGA Cell), Govt.of Odisha. He also led Odisha Skill Development Authority as CEO and Director of Employment. He served as District Magistrate and Collector in Kandhamal, Koraput and Mayurbhanj districts. During his stint in Mayurbhanj district (longest served civil servant in the district), Mr. Patil steered voluntary resettlements of villagers from the core areas of Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha and built a vibrant administrative team to drive the successful relocation. He did his Masters in Statistics from Savitri Bail Phule University. He authored an inspirational multi lingual best seller book ‘Maa I’ve Become a Collector: My Journey from Crushing Rural poverty to the Corridors of Power.
Wildlife Conservationist/ Writer/ Journalist/ Ph.D Scholar
Ms Prerna Singh Bindra is a writer and wildlife conservationist with a primary focus on conservation of wildlife habitats. She has served on various high-level government committees such as India’s National Board for Wildlife and its core Standing Committee and Uttarakhand’s State Wildlife Advisory Board. She was part of the team of the National Tiger Conservation Authority to assess the management effectiveness of tiger reserves. Prerna is a prolific writer and has authored more than 1,500 articles on nature and wildlife in mainstream media. She has authored the critically acclaimed The Vanishing: India’s Wildlife Crisis and a book for children When I Grow Up I Want to be a Tiger. In 2019, she co-edited Wild Treasures, an anthology on Natural World Heritage Sites of Asia. She was a visiting fellow of Wildlife Institute of India-UNESCO Category 2 Centre. She is a director of Hathi-Sathi Foundation which works to enable safe shared spaces for people and elephants in north Bengal. She is a PhD Scholar at St Johns College, University of Cambridge. Her doctoral research focuses on resettlement of people from Protected Areas.
Managing Director & CEO, Indian Grameen Services
She is currently the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Indian Grameen Services (IGS), based in Kolkata. She has more than two decades of experience in the development sector. Her core competencies are in the areas of livelihoods sector strategizing and program development. She has been a development researcher, trainer, implementer and mentor, in diverse livelihood-focused initiatives. She has worked with community institutions and grassroot civil society organisations, facilitating their human and institutional capacity enhancement and governance improvement efforts. She has coordinated professional support to small NGOs through young development professionals. She has conceptualized and rolled out action research initiatives in the space of community-based natural resource management, livelihood portfolio diversification of the poor and migrant support. She has led and developed teams of livelihood professionals, set up and implemented systems to improve the quality of implementation of community-centered programs, and fortified the livelihood sector portfolios of the organizations she has worked with. Before joining IGS, she was leading the Economic Development Unit at CARE India Solutions for Sustainable Development.
She holds a Masters in Extension for Natural Resource Based Livelihoods (as Commonwealth Scholar, from the University of Reading, UK) as well as an M.Sc. in Plant Molecular Biology (Delhi University), and Post Graduate Diploma in Forestry Management (from Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal).
Team Leader
Land Portal Foundation
Ms. Laura Meggiolaro is a specialist in information and knowledge management for development. She believes that information should be a public good and access to information (and data) is a fundamental driver for democracy, which contributes to more robust and free societies and people’s well-being. She has been responsible for the conceptualisation and the overall management, implementation and expansion of the Land Portal project, which has now evolved into an independent Dutch non-profit organisation: the Land Portal Foundation. She has substantial program management experience and she has been responsible for kicking off, implementing and leading a range of data, information and knowledge management initiatives focused on land rights. Prior to joining the Land Portal, Laura collaborated with UN agencies and civil society organizations, including the Food and Agriculture Organization, ActionAid International and the International Land Coalition among others. Laura holds Master’s degrees in Communications Science and on Economics for Development.
Associate Fellow,
NCAER
Dr. Charu Jain is an Associate Fellow at National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). She is an experienced Associate Researcher with a demonstrated history of working in the research industry. She has also worked at TNS India Ltd and PHD Chamber, New Delhi. Her areas of research interest include gender and educational studies, socio-economic issues, consumer studies and developmental changes. She has worked in the area of large-scale consumer studies; industrial surveys; housing studies; agriculture, steel & handloom sector; and macro-economic policy issues. Her current research focuses on looking at land related policy issues in India. Dr Jain has few national and international publications to her credit and has recently authored a book on the ‘Quality of Secondary Education’ in India published by Springer. She received her PhD in Economics from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi and is Gold medallist during her Master’s program from GJUST, Hisar.
Analyst, Investments for Omidyar Network’s Property Rights initiative
Ms. Shalmoli Halder is an Analyst, Investments for Omidyar Network’s Property Rights initiative. Shalmoli is responsible for sourcing, evaluating and managing investments in Property Rights. Prior to joining the firm, Shalmoli was an associate consultant at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, where she supported projects, performed research, and analyzed data for a variety of clients including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, and Omidyar Network spanning gender, financial inclusion, education, and property rights. Shalmoli graduated from Yale University, where she studied biomedical engineering and political science.
Founding Director,
Land Rights Initiative Senior Fellow,
Centre for Policy Research
Dr. Namita Wahi is a Fellow at CPR and Founding Director of the Land Rights Initiative. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Law and Social Transformation in Bergen. She holds an SJD (doctoral) degree from Harvard Law School, where she wrote her dissertation on “The Right to Property and Economic Development in India”. Namita’s doctoral dissertation traces the historical evolution of the right to property in the Indian Constitution from the colonial period until 1967.
Namita’s research interests lie broadly in the areas of property rights, social and economic rights, and eminent domain or expropriation law. She has written extensively on these issues in various academic journals and edited volumes, as well as newspapers and magazines. Namita has taught courses in these areas at Harvard University, both at the Law School and the Department of Government, and at National Law School, Bangalore, and National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.
Before entering academia, Namita was a litigator with Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York, where she practised primarily in the areas of bankruptcy, securities, criminal defence and asylum law. Namita also holds an LLM from Harvard Law School, where she was awarded the Laylin Prize for the “Best Paper in International Law” and BA and LLB(Hons.) degrees from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, where she graduated first in her class, and received several gold medals for her academic achievements. She is a recipient of New India Fellowship for her forthcoming book on the history of the Fundamental Right to Property in the Indian Constitution.
Senior Researcher,
Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI),
Centre for Policy Research
Anindita Mukherjee is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Research. As part of CPR’s Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI FI) Initiative, she anchors the research on demystifying the urban land- planning-housing intersections with specific focus on residential vulnerability among the urban poor. Currently, she is supporting Governments of Odisha and Punjab in forming strategies towards unlocking land tenure security enabling slum upgradation and improving inclusion of the urban poor settlements into the city fabric. She has supported in formulation of various programmes and policies: National housing programmes and policies of MoHUA e.g., Rajiv Awaas Yojana (RAY) and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY), Rural Sanitation Policy of Odisha and provided specific support in developing Credit risk Guarantee fund Scheme, affordable housing policies among others. Apart from that, as part of CPR she has worked extensively on areas related to economics of sanitation service delivery in India, monitoring and evaluation of government rolled out national schemes and programmes, in economic and planning issues related to urban development, land management and sanitation.
Before joining CPR, Anindita worked with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, India in the project “Inclusive Cities Partnership Programme (ICPP); jointly implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and GIZ. The project supported the agenda of Government of India (GoI) in making affordable housing available to all, with a focus on the improvement of housing and living conditions in slums/ informal settlements.
Spanning almost 18 years of her career she has worked with different sector partners; Government agencies e.g., the Ministry of Housing and urban Affairs, various State Governments, urban local body in Kolkata, civil society organisations, other bilateral agencies such as erstwhile DFID, GIZ India and the World Bank. Her key sectors of expertise include urban economics, slum upgradation, inclusion, housing and urban basic services (water & sanitation) for the poor and other marginalized sections of the society, issues pertaining to land and land tenure in urban areas, and associated research work. Anindita is an Economist and has a specialization in Statistics and Econometrics.
Associate Professor,
Jindal School of Government & Public Policy
Dr. Kaveri Haritas is Associate Professor at the Jindal School of Government & Public Policy. She has a bachelor’s degree in law, a Masters and PhD. In Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. She was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation for her doctoral studies (CanDoc), which examines the struggles of poor women and men in a rehabilitation area in Bangalore. Her research focuses on the politics of the poor, the role that gender plays in everyday politics and struggles and the manner in which this shapes citizenship and the role of the state. After her doctoral research, she took part in an international research project on the solidarity economy practices of women in Latin America and India, supported by the Swiss Network of International Studies. In this research, she continued to work on women’s struggles for survival, examining a fisherwomen’s association in Udupi, Karnataka. With an education in development studies, she has a marked leaning towards anthropology, uses ethnography in her research and enjoys research and teaching in the areas of political and economic anthropology. Her recent research interrogates the future of work in a world of technological unemployment, examining the potential of technology to transform both the structures and meanings of work in the contemporary world. She has also been a north-south mobility fellow at the Institute for Research on Development, Paris.
Research Associate Land Rights Initiative,
Centre for Policy Research
Dr. Kaveri Haritas is Associate Professor at the Jindal School of Government & Public Policy. She has a bachelor’s degree in law, a Masters and PhD. In Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. She was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation for her doctoral studies (CanDoc), which examines the struggles of poor women and men in a rehabilitation area in Bangalore. Her research focuses on the politics of the poor, the role that gender plays in everyday politics and struggles and the manner in which this shapes citizenship and the role of the state. After her doctoral research, she took part in an international research project on the solidarity economy practices of women in Latin America and India, supported by the Swiss Network of International Studies. In this research, she continued to work on women’s struggles for survival, examining a fisherwomen’s association in Udupi, Karnataka. With an education in development studies, she has a marked leaning towards anthropology, uses ethnography in her research and enjoys research and teaching in the areas of political and economic anthropology. Her recent research interrogates the future of work in a world of technological unemployment, examining the potential of technology to transform both the structures and meanings of work in the contemporary world. She has also been a north-south mobility fellow at the Institute for Research on Development, Paris.
Former Head – Bio Resource Divison, Dabur
Dr. N. B Brindavanam is presently a Consultant in NRM, Biodiversity & Medicinal plants- based at Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). He is a Project Management Consultant to Tripura SCATFORM Project funded by JICA. In addition, he on advisory role to organizations like Dabur Research & Development Centre, Ghaziabad, Kovel Foundation, Visakhapatnam, National Medicinal Plants Board, New Delhi and Quality Council of India, New Delhi. He holds a degree in graduation in Ayurveda (B. A. M. S.) & M. Sc. in Medicinal Plants. He joined pharmaceutical Research after a stint of Clinical Practice for 5 years. He worked with Research & Development functions at Maharishi Ayurveda Products, Noida & Dabur Research & Development Centre for over 35 years. He has the experience across many facets of Ayurvedic Pharmaceutical Research like ‘Standardization & Quality Protocol Development for medicinal plants’, ‘Formulations Development & Process validation’, and many more. He has been awarded with 5 national & international patents concerning Herbal Formulations & Processes. He has contributed Chapters in 3 reference books & edited one and over 40 research publications.
His several awards & accolades are Fellowship: Society of Ethnobotanists Bharat Excellence Award-2008, NMPB Award for Life time contributions in Sustainable development of Medicinal Plants-2014
Living Farms
Sibabrata Choudhury has over two decades of experience in the rural development and public policy space working on issues related to land rights, poverty alleviation, women’s empowerment and climate change. During his career he has worked on projects of agencies like PRADAN, AKRSP, SAMAGRA, UNICEF and LANDESA.
Currently he serves as the CEO at Living Farms, an organisation that engages with local communities in rural Odisha to cultivate critical consciousness to deal with the ensuing ecological crisis. Living Farms works in solidarity with local grassroots initiatives, academia, researchers, and the government, by fostering innovative dialogues, valuing local and traditional knowledge and stimulate ethical action for our collective wellbeing.
Having completed his graduation studies from OUAT, Sibabrata studied Rural Management from XIMB (1997) in and Public Policy Management from IIM Bangalore (2010).
FES
Manjeet Kaur Bal is a system reformer who has demonstrated implementation of policies at the grassroots level through livelihood, inclusion, nutrition, education, fair market exchange and tribal rights. Her efforts have brought structural changes in the way policies are implemented. Currently, she is associated with The Foundation for Ecological Security as a Senior Programme Manager focusing on matters concerning livelihood and Community Forest Resource Rights.
Manjeet is Doctorate in Faculty of Management after Post Graduate in Human Resource Management. She was working as Faculty (livelihood) in State Institute of Rural Development (Named Thakur Payarelal Institute of Panchayat & Rural Development) and officer in charge of centrally sponsored program like Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) and Integrated Action Plan (IAP) in Directorate of Panchayat. 10-year experience in rural development areas. Areas of expertise involves training and teaching, decentralized planning, livelihood and human resource management.
Chief Program Officer
Landesa
Dr. Diana Fletschner provides strategic direction and oversight for all of Landesa’s programs. Fletschner is a development economist with over 25 years of experience teaching, conducting research, designing programs and tools, monitoring and evaluating interventions, mentoring, and conducting strategic advocacy with a special focus on rural women. Dr. Fletschner joined Landesa as a Sr. Gender Expert in 2010 and has directed Landesa’s global Research, Evaluation and Learning efforts for the past several years. She has co-led sector-wide efforts that resulted in the successful inclusion of land rights among Sustainable Development Goals’ targets and indicators, creating both an ambitious commitment to ensure land rights for all and a global mandate to generate land rights data. Dr. Fletschner has conducted work in 21 countries. Her work has been published in the Journal of Development Economics, World Development, the Journal of Development Studies, and the Journal of Socio-Economics. Dr. Fletschner has been recognized with awards for her technical work, her mentoring and her teaching.
Managing Director, NRMC (Intellecap Subsidiary)
Mr. Jayesh Bhatia has over 29 years of experience in the natural resources management and the rural development sector. With post graduate degrees from the prestigious Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and University of Oxford, Mr. Jayesh has worked with a range of organisations and institutions in India. Mr. Jayesh is a strategic thinker, problem solver and a leading voice in the social development sector, especially in augmenting livelihoods for the underserved communities.
He established and scaled NR Management Consultants India Pvt Ltd. He is adept at scaling up successful pilots across the range of sectors- NRM, WASH, and Rural Livelihood. He has worked extensively with UN organisations, JICA, DFID, the World Bank, State Government departments and Ministries of Government of India. He has also led and coordinated multi-cultural and multi-agency teams in delivering complex assignments for various donors in India, South-East and South Asia and Africa.
As a catalyst for social impact, Mr. Jayesh strongly believes in people’s participation in framing policies and has worked on promoting and communicating policy change by working closely with governments, international organizations, donors, NGOs and communities. He was awarded the Mitchell Young Scholar award by HARC’s Center for Global Studies and Rice University’s Energy and Environmental Systems Institute to explore the transition to sustainable development.
Founder & CEO · Waatavaran
Bhagwan Kesbhat is the founder and CEO of Waatavaran. A Social Entrepreneur with extensive experience in program design, networking and building community leadership. He has previously worked with Paani Foundation, Video Volunteers, Greenpeace & YUVA.
Lead Urban Habitat – Tata Trusts, Tata Trusts
Shishir Dash is leading the Urban Habitat Programmes of Tata Trusts in different states. He and his team provide technical support for strategic planning, quality implementation and progress tracking of the projects on sustainable habitat issues. Mr. Dash graduated in Economics and Business Administration, has more than 20 years of experience in the field of social development. He has experience in leading multi-thematic teams in the field of Urban Habitat, livelihood development, climate change, disaster management, and policy & advocacy. He was leading the Odisha Land Rights and Liveable Habitat Project lauded as the World’s largest slum land tenure programme, of Tata Trusts. He is closely working with Government, urban poor and local groups for improving basic services in the informal settlements. Through his work in urban space, he has demonstrated innovative ideas to bring changes in the life and livelihoods of the people living in the slum communities.
Development Practioner, PRADAN
Ranjan Praharaj from Cuttack district of Odisha, India is a Master in Social Work. He has more than 2 decades of experience in the development field, particularly in the domain areas of Land Rights, Natural Resource Management (NRM), Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM), Water Security and Rural Livelihood. He is presently working with Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) as State Programme Manager, Odisha in the Land Rights Programme. His special focus is to coordinate for technology adoption in the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 with the objective to ensure tenure security, contribute towards the protection of forest ecology and promote forest-based livelihood.
Climate Change and Land Tenure Specialist, Landesa
Rachel McMonagle is a climate justice and land rights advocate and practitioner with experience advancing climate resilience efforts with a social justice focus through nonprofit and U.S. government initiatives. She has honed a theoretical proficiency in climate mitigation and adaption strategies with a technical expertise in sustainable agriculture and soil science. As Landesa’s climate change and land tenure programmatic lead, Rachel develops capacity to implement land tenure as a climate mitigation and adaptation strategy to advance interventions that yield positive outcomes for communities and the environment alike. Rachel holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment and a B.A. from Oberlin College. Her fieldwork includes experience in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe.
CEO,Cadasta Foundation
With over 28 years of experience, Amy is a results-oriented, mission-driven executive leader with a proven record of significantly growing organizations. Amy comes to Cadasta from the National Cooperative Business Association, CLUSA International (NCBA CLUSA) where she served as the Chief Operating Officer of International Programs from 2011 to 2018. In this role, she oversaw a team of over 800 staff and a near tripling of the portfolio in 20 countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia working in resilience, food security, and rural development.Prior to her work at NCBA CLUSA, Amy worked as the Deputy Executive Director of the Pan American Development Foundation; the Deputy Director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Washington Director of the Center for Occupational Research and Development; and as the Vice President for North America for the International Vocational Education and Training Association (IVETA). She currently serves on the board of Interaction, the premier alliance of International NGOs working in humanitarian assistance and development.
Attorney I Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre
Jonty Cogger is an attorney at Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre, an activist organization in Cape Town, where he specialises in constitutional property law and human rights litigation. He is part of a dynamic interdisciplinary team that has over the last five years sought to expand and protect access to affordable housing and to build a more equal and spatially just city. A central strategy of this team is to pressurise municipal planning authorities to realise their constitutional and statutory obligations to regulate land use in a manner that transforms racial and class-based segregation. He also represents various communities experiencing homelessness in litigation to challenge discriminatory practices at the hands of local law enforcement. He also holds a Ph.D. in Public Law at the University of Cape Town.
IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics
Dr K P Krishnan is the IEPF Chair Professor in Regulatory Economics. The Chair has been established with the support of the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority of the Government of India. Dr Krishnan leads a group focused on research and policy outreach in the broad area of regulatory and public economics, including concerns about investor protection and financial sector reforms, land policy and records, public finance and public administration, and law, economics, and justice.
Before his retirement from public service in December 2019, Dr Krishnan was the Union Secretary in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Prior to that he was Special & Additional Secretary, Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development; Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance; Principal Secretary, Department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms in the Government of Karnataka (his parent cadre); Secretary to the PM’s Economic Advisory Council in New Delhi; Joint Secretary, DEA; Secretary Finance in Karnataka; Advisor to the Indian ED at the World Bank, Dr Bimal Jalan; and a number of other positions after joining the Indian Administrative Service in the 1983 batch.
Trained in economics, finance, and law, Dr Krishnan has chaired or served as a member of several Government of India committees, including the Krishnan Committee on Cross Border Insolvency Rules/Regulation Committee, the Krishnan Committee on Comprehensive Regulation of Credit Rating Agencies, the T K Viswanathan Committee on Reform of Bankruptcy Laws in India; the Rangarajan High-level Expert Committee on Efficient Management of Public Expenditure; High-level Coordination Committee on Financial Markets chaired by the RBI Governor; and the Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms.
Professor Krishnan has taught as a visiting professor at the Indian School of Business, at Ashoka University, as BOK Visiting International School Professor of Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and he regularly lectures at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie. He has published on a range of public policy issues in books, journals, and the mainstream media. Dr Krishnan holds a B.A. (Hons) in Economics from St Stephen’s College and an LL.B. degree from the University of Delhi, an M.A. in Economics from the University of Mysore, and a FPM/Ph.D. in Economics & Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
Assam Landscapes
WWF India
Bhavna Prasad leads WWF-India’s sustainable corporate engagement across priority programmes, including climate change, forestry, agriculture and finance sector. She has about 14 years of diverse experience ranging from banking, environmental consulting to working with environmental NGOs. Prior to WWF, Bhavna was a Vice President with JPMorgan Chase in New York. She covered a range of responsibilities, from implementing global environmental and social risk management policies to developing green business opportunities across various lines of businesses. She helped JPMorgan set up its carbon trading desk and also developed the greenhouse gas reduction and accounting strategies for the bank. Prior to JPMorgan Chase, Ms. Prasad held various positions at American Express and Standard Chartered Bank in their retail operations. Additionally, she took on short term assignments with Environmental Resources Management, the United Nations Development Program, and Centre for Science and Environment (India). Bhavna holds a Master’s in Public Administration in Environmental Policy from Columbia University.
FOLU India Country Co-ordinator
World Resources Institute India
Jayahari (Hari) is the India Country Coordinator of the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) co-led by WRI India. His primary responsibility is to coordinate the FOLU India activities working closely with the FOLU India Core partners and collaborations. He is also the Associate Director of the Sustainable Landscape Restoration Programme India.
Prior to joining WRI, Hari worked in different capacities in institutions like Kerala Forest Research Institute, WWF India, Winrock International India till 2015, focusing on Natural Resource Management and Biodiversity Conservation. He has initiated and implemented many conservation programs primarily in Western Ghats and Eastern Himalayas. Between 2015-17 he led an NGO working in pastoral and dry-land agriculture sectors-Sahjeevan-as its Executive Director. He has also played an instrumental role in building several spatial databases in India, like India Observatory (www.indiaobservatory.org.in) at the Foundation of Ecological Security, and Restoration Opportunity Atlas of India (india.restorationatlas.org) at WRI India. He also provided consultancy services to national and international organizations like Tetra Tech, ICLEI South Asia, etc.
Jayahari holds a PhD in Forestry (Wildlife Biology) from Forest Research Institute, Dehradun.
Amba Jamir is a development consulting expert with over two decades of multidisciplinary and multi- team experience from policy formulation to project development, implementation and review, Amba is professionally trained as an environmental lawyer and development communicator. He is a grassroots convenor, trainer, and facilitator with experience in the Asia Pacific region in areas of education, rural development, community institutions and resource management, livelihood, policy advocacy and envisioning. Amba works directly with policy makers, NGOs, community leaders, farmers and the poorest of the poor in mountain regions, particularly the Eastern Himalayas. He has extensive experience working in local, national and international NGOs, the government and with advanced regional policy and research think tanks such as the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan. He is a founding member of the Sustainable Development Forum Nagaland (SDFN) and the Integrated Mountain Initiative (IMI).
Director, Sustainable Development Forum, Nagaland and vice president of Integrated Mountain initiative, Nagaland
Ratoola holds a PhD in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois, Chicago. She teaches urban transport policy, planning and practice; urban planning theory and practice, planning and the Indian city, urban studio and research design at the School of Habitat Studies, TISS. Previously, she has worked with organisations such as TERI and Human Rights Law Network, focusing on resettlement and rehabilitation projects associated with large urban infrastructure developments. Her research interests include planning and its intersections with urban informality, processes and impacts of peri-urbanisation, inclusion and exclusion of groups within and through plans and policies. Her research interests include Urban informality, urban theory, political economy of urban restructuring, urban contestations and politics over land, housing and participation in planning, sustainable and accessible urban transportation, informal urban livelihoods and claims to the city, new towns and the politics of planning and development of urban peripheries.
Assistant Professor, Centre for Urban Policy and Governance,TISS-Mumbai
Ms Reema Bali, Assistant Professor, RICS School of Build Environment, Associate Director, Programmes, School of Real Estate and Infrastructure, RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University, Noida
With a Doctorate in corporate law, graduated from Delhi University, Reema Bali acquired her Master’s in Law (LLM) from the UK specializing in International Commercial and Business Law. She has national and international teaching experience of almost ten years. She has worked as an Assistant Professor and Head, Placement Cell with Lloyd Law College, Greater Noida. Reema has taught at IGNOU, Amity, Leeds Metropolitan University and London Academy for Higher Education.
Associate Director Programmes,
School of Real Estate and Infrastructure,
RICS School of Built Environment,
Amity University, Noida
Mr Triveni Prasad Nanda, Assistant Professor, RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University
Triveni is an architect by education and a thorough professional experienced in various aspects of the built environment, such as project feasibility, design and development, construction execution & management, and contract management.
He has completed his graduation in Architecture from School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, followed by a post-graduation in Infrastructure Design and Management from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, specializing in regional & physical infrastructure.
Engaged with RICS SBE since August 2016, Triveni had been in the role of Research Associate contributing to academic and industry-sponsored research, student outreach and running training modules for industry professionals, along with regular academic teaching for subjects like Construction Contracts, Risk Management and Dispute Avoidance & Resolution in Projects.
Previously, he worked with a reputed developer from Pune as a Project In-charge of a 14 storey, multi-tower luxury residential project in central Pune. He has hands-on experience with design management, contract administration, construction management & quality control.
Also, as part of previous brief engagements with firms like JLL India, he has experience in real estate and logistics consultancy starting from network analytics for feasibility studies till product mix development for industrial clients.
He has research interests in fields of ‘Smart Cities’, ‘Sustainable Urbanism’ and ‘Capital Project Assessment’. Triveni has, as a co-author, published two book chapters in Springer’s award-winning ‘World Sustainability Series 2018’ on Smart Cities and Sustainability in Construction Management Education.
Also, as a part of the institutional research team he has submitted proposals to GCRF (UK) and BMTPC (India) on Smart Cities and Construction Technologies, respectively.
Assitant Professor, RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University
Diya Uday is Research Lead at xKDR Forum. Her work focuses on land markets, state capacity and access to finance. She has previously worked on research projects with the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, the Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and is currently working as consultant with the National Council for Applied Economic Research to measure land tenure security in India. She is also visiting faculty at the Tata Institute of Social Science in Mumbai. Prior to joining the field of public policy, she was an associate at leading law firms in India including Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and worked in the areas of land and property law, project finance and structured debt.
Research Lead, xKDR Forum
Lara Shankar Chandra has over 16 years of experience as a social development professional in India. She is a published author with Penguin India. She is on the Board of Trustees of Kriti Team – a communications praxis organization and is a Founder and Advisory Board member of Citizen’s Association for Child Rights (CACR) – an NGO working in education and WASH in Maharashtra.
In the affordable housing and sanitation sector in India, Lara has led strategy, initiated and managed coalitions, and forged multiple partnerships with Governments and bi-lateral and multi-lateral organizations for policy implementation, fund raising and intervention. She comes from a strong background in child protection, child rights, advocacy and gender programming. She has valuable experience in strategic and program planning on inclusive development, land rights for housing and housing finance.
Director- Strategy, Advocacy & Partnerships
Habitat for Humanity India
Mr. Annindya Banerjee has a vintage of over two decades in the field of law and is the National Legal Head- Retail Lending at Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited. Mr. Banerjee has closely worked with various regulators and Government authorities on several significant issues pertaining to the BFSI and real estate sector. Mr. Banerjee’s swift ability in efficiently resolving various challenges has earned him a strong reputation in the BFSI industry. In addition to having immense expertise in the BFSI industry, he has been extremely perceptive towards the various challenges and development of data protection laws across the globe. Apart from firmly believing and practicing the mantra of “Once a lawyer always a learner” and being a great mentor to innumerable budding lawyers, Mr. Banerjee is an avid reader and passionate about music.
National Legal Head -Retail Lending at HDFC Limited
Mr. Council Dickson (CD) Langoya is a forestry resources, environmental and natural resources planning and management specialist with over 25 years of experience. He is a private plantation forest owner with 130 hectares in Northern Uganda. Mr. Langoya is interested in promoting enterprise based forest/tree resources management where public and community participation address social, economic and environmental concerns. He also manages a Government of Uganda certified tree seedling production nursery and is running high recovery small scale mobile saw mills that target small scale farmer/tree growers. Mr. Langoya worked with the Forestry Department from 1988 to 2004. He joined National Forestry Authority (NFA) as Coordinator and Partner from 2004 to 2007 and later as Consultant with FAO, UNDP, IUCN, USAID, AfDB/NDF, and other organizations. He holds a BSC in Forestry from Makerere University, Kampala and an MSc in Rural Environmental Management from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Prof. Jintao Xu is a professor of economics and associate dean at the National School of Development at Peking University. He is the director of China Center for Environmental and Energy Economics, also at Peking University. His recent researches range from assessing forest tenure reform in China, industrial pollution control policy, economic policy toward a low carbon economy, to transportation management in Beijing. In particular, Prof. Xu has been doing extensive research on policies and practices supporting smallholder forestry in China using data collected in multiple provinces, analyzing the outcomes of the tenure reforms, and implications for farmer household income and investment in forests.
Shri Agrawal is a civil servant with an experience of 35 years at senior management positions in the Government of India and the Government of Himachal Pradesh. He is currently the Secretary, Lokpal , Government of India and has authored the book “Land Registration: Global Practices and Lessons for India”. During his career in Indian Administrative Service (IAS), he has been dealing with policy-making, regulation, and implementation of large scale government programs. He has acquired expertise in Land Governance, Urban Development, Rural Development, Food Security, and Tourism. His articles on various subjects have been published in the newspapers. He is frequently invited by the educational institutes to speak on the topics related to land administration and property law.
Secretary Lokpal of India, Government of India
Rachanadevi is doctoral student at School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Her research interests are about land use transfer for development projects and its impact on local communities. While documenting the impact of land use transfer on local communities, she is also focusing on how people are responding to land use transfer. She is using ethnographic methods to understand the resistance over land.
Research Scholar
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
I have worked in social work practice, communities in rural India, engaged in social movements on ecology, social justice, women’s rights and queer affirmative action through media, social work education and home based livelihoods.
Founding Member-QueerUp India
Mr. Ward Anseeuw a development economist and policy analyst, is a research fellow at the Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). He was seconded to the ILC in 2016 as a Senior Technical Specialist leading the team responsible for supporting Strategic Objective 02, Mobilise. Prior to this and for the last 12 years, he was seconded to the University of Pretoria, as a senior research fellow to the Post-Graduate School of Agriculture and Rural Development and as the co-director of the Center for the Study of Governance Innovations (GovInn) – which he founded in 2012. His work focuses mainly on issues of agricultural and land policies, agrarian and land reforms, large-scale land acquisitions as well as to participatory approaches of data generation, governance and advocacy regarding land. Ward holds a PhD in Development Economics and a Ms in Agricultural sciences.
Researcher
International Land Coalition
Shivani Gupta leads Womanity Foundation’s work in India and brings more than 25 years of Consulting, Technology and Development sector experience. She spent more than two decades with global consulting organisations like Capgemini and has a wealth of experience conceptualised business solutions and successfully implemented large complex business and technology transformation programs. She transitioned over to the development sector a few years back and believes that these years have been a long immersive continued journey of understanding developmental challenges, different approaches, systemic issues and ‘passion’ of sector leaders of the Indian development sector. Prior to Womanity, she has also worked closely with adolescents centric issues, and helped in capacity building of non-profits focused on adolescent’s well-being, health, education and employability. Currently, Shivani is responsible for Womanity’s two India progams – Women Change Makers and Women Land Rights aimed at economic empowerment of women through increase awareness, demand and access to land rights by women. She and the India team have been instrumental in shaping and now launching the Women Land Rights in India. Shivani is a qualified Cost Accountant and holds an MBA from Mumbai University.
Programme Director – India
Womanity Foundation
Mr. Halder, currently National Director of Programs, Landesa India, is a social development executive with more than 32 years of experience, performing field work, implementing projects related to rural and urban development, and advising on policy at the state and national levels. Prior to joining Landesa 10 years before, he worked with the government and Unicef, and played an instrumental role in facilitating collaboration of Landesa with governments of several states.
National Director of Programs, Landesa – India
Arshia Gupta is an Agriculture Analyst with the Food and Agriculture Global Practice of the World Bank, working in the South Asia Region. She has been associated with the Bank for over 5 years and is presently leading the rural enterprises component across World Bank’s portfolio of livelihoods project in India and is also working on agribusiness focused projects. Arshia plays a key role in providing technical support to the design and implementation of agriculture and rural development projects and as part of that has developed an interest in ensuring that the client governments take adequate account of opportunities to strengthen women’s land rights.
Senior Land Administration Specialist – Africa Region
The World Bank
Girish is the Co-Founder and heads of products at Landryt. His leads Landryt’s technology initiatives to democratize access to credible, curated land title information. Girish has more than thirteen years of experience working in various product management roles for Fortune 500 companies across US, UK, Middle East and Asia Pacific region. He is also passionate about Access to Justice and has worked closely with multiple Legal tech start-ups in US and UK in this space.
Landryt
Hagar ElDidi is a Research Analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). She holds a BA in Economics from the American University in Cairo and an MSc in Interdisciplinary Studies in Sustainability, with a specialisation in Ecological Economics, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her research interests and foci are on equitable and sustainable community governance of natural resources, environmental justice, rural development, food security for vulnerable communities. She has been writing many discussion papers in which her recent IFPRI discussion paper, in collaboration with other analysts and authors, was published titled Reducing vulnerability to forced labor and trafficking of short-term, low-skilled women migrant workers in the South Asia to Middle East corridor. She has also worked as Research Associate in Research Institute for a Sustainable Environment.
Research Analyst,
International Food Policy Research Institute
Pooja Chandran is an advocate and a law and policy researcher associated with the Foundation for Ecological Security as a Senior Project Manager. Her research interests are environmental justice, land use management and bio-cultural rights. She has practiced at the Delhi High Court and has also taught subjects related to environmental laws and human rights.
Advocate,
Senior Project Manager-FES
Rina Chandran joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s editorial team in India in January 2016. She has covered land rights in Asia for about five years at the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Prior to that, Rina was a business journalist for more than a dozen years in India, Singapore and New York, with Reuters News, Bloomberg and the Financial Times. Rina has an MFA in Writing from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA in Business & Economics Reporting from New York University.
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Ishan Agrawal works with Foundation for Ecological Security, an NGO working for restoring fragile ecosystems in India through rural community centered efforts. He deeply believes in Commons and community’s ability to act as stewards for conservation of natural resources. He worked for a decade around Kanha tiger reserve landscape especially on conservation aligned livelihoods for tribal communities. He is currently working with Commons Collaborative, an effort anchored in FES for building a coalition of actors in the country for realising the promise that commons hold for larger issues that country faces, like poverty, environmental degradation and gender disparities
FES
Steven Lawry received a PhD in Land Resources from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988. The same year he joined the research staff of UW-Madison’s Land Tenure Center (LTC) and became LTC’s Associate Director in charge of Africa programs in 1990. Steven held senior positions in the Ford Foundation from 1992 to 2006, including Assistant Representative for the Foundation’s Office for South Africa and Namibia (1992-1997) and Regional Representative for the Foundation’s Office for the Middle East and North Africa in Cairo (1997-2001). He was Acting Representative of the Foundation’s South Asia office, in New Delhi, in 2003. He was president of Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 2006 and 2007. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations from 2008 to 2013. On leave from the Kennedy School, he headed the USAID-funded Sudan Property Rights Program in 2010 and 2011, based in Juba, assisting the Government of South Sudan develop a national land policy. He went on to serve as Global Practice Leader for Land Tenure and Property Rights at DAI, a Washington-based consulting group, from 2011 to 2014. During this period, he was lead author of a major USAID-funded study on the potential of REDD+ and related PES programs to mitigate deforestation in 16 developing countries. From 2014 to 2019 Steven served as Director of Governance Research and Principal Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); first at CIFOR’s Indonesia headquarters and later in Washington, D.C., hosted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). As a scholar, foundation executive, policy advisor and project manager Steven has carried out research and published scholarly articles on the social and ecological effects of forest rights devolution and many more.
CIFOR
Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue and Land (Bihar)
Sh. Vivek Kumar Singh is a 1989 batch IAS officer of the Bihar Cadre. During his tenure as an Indian Civil Servant, he has served the State in various capacities. He served as the Principal Secretary to the Governor, Principal Secretary of Environment and Forest, Chairman of Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB), Principal Secretary of State Agriculture Department and Secretary, Information and Public Relations (Bihar).
He is currently posted at the Additional Chief Secretary of Revenue and Land Reforms Department, Bihar.
Associate Professor
FLAME University
Yugank is Associate Professor – Public Policy at FLAME University. In 2009, he joined O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) as one of its founding faculty member, steering a range of institution building efforts, in particular its research infrastructure and international collaborations. Prior to JGU, he worked with a major private bank, consulting its rural infrastructure projects in eastern India.
He pursued his Master’s and Ph.D. in law and economics, both as Erasmus Mundus Fellow from Europe. His doctoral thesis was titled, Essays in Informal Institutions. After his doctorate, he re-joined JGU, helping build its School of Liberal Arts & Humanities.
Yugank publishes in reputed journals, and also contributes to national dailies and other popular fora. His research interests include regulation, law and development, institutional economics, knowledge structure and psephology. He enjoys teaching interdisciplinary subjects, including institutions, futures studies and ethics. He is a visiting faculty in several institutions including IIMA and IIMK.
He sits on the board of the Indian School of Public Policy, which he helped establish. He routinely engages with the government on public policy issues. Yugank is however, most passionate about small towns and education in India. Recently, he cofounded a philanthropic, crowdfunded school in rural, western UP.
Municipal Commissioner, Latur (Maharashtra)
Sh. Aman Mittal received his degree in B.Tech and M.Tech (Electrical and Electronics Engineering) from IIT, Delhi. In 2015, he joined the Indian Administrative Services and was allocated to the Maharashtra cadre.
He is at present, the Municipal Commissioner of Latur, prior to which he was posted as the CEO Zila Parishad, Kolhapur.
Chief Development Officer, Unnao (UP)
Diyanshu Patel is an IAS officer of the 2017 batch. He is currently posted as CDO of Unnao city. He previously served as the SDM, Barabanki.
A resident of UP’s Balrampur, Patel has an M.A. and M.Phil. in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University and MEd from Delhi University. In 2012, he was selected as an Assistant commandant in CRPF but did not join.
Urban Development Practitioner
Swapnil Saxena is an urban development practitioner based out of New Delhi. A gold medallist from the School of Planning and Architecture, she has over 5 years of work experience across a range of development projects with numerous stakeholders, including the Government of India (MoHUA and MoEFCC), various state and local governments, Smart cities, donor agencies, and civil society.
She’s a firm believer that integrating sectoral expertise with solution-oriented management is pivotal for the success of inclusive development initiatives. Her works include looking at the core development challenges from perspectives of domains as diverse as housing, climate, education, health, public space-making, and she frequently writes on these subjects.
Executive Director,
Internet Freedom Foundation
Mr. Apar Gupta is a lawyer and the Executive Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF). The IFF is an Indian digital liberties organisation that seeks to ensure that technology respects fundamental rights. He has completed his post-graduate studies from the Columbia University School of Law, have worked as a commercial litigator in top law firms such as Karanjawala & Co. and was a partner at Advani & Co.. He has been working extensively on public interest issues which include strategic litigation and organisation of campaigns and collectives. His work focusses on key digital rights cases on privacy and censorship and setting up of digital campaigns such as those on Net Neutrality (SaveTheInternet.in), fight against defamation laws (SpeechBill.in) and safeguard privacy (SaveOurPrivacy.in). He is committed to advancing values of the Constitution of India in a digital, technology mediated society.
Research Officer, Housing and Land Rights Network
Anagha Jaipal is currently working as a Research Officer at Housing and Land Rights Network, New Delhi. A graduate in Public Policy and Governance, from Azim Premji University, she has contributed to research on forced evictions, displacement, homelessness, women’s land rights in India and has also been involved in assessments of human rights in light of the Covid-19 Pandemic
Team Lead for the land rights vertical (SEWA Bharat)
Sukrit Nagpal is an urban researcher, working as the Team Lead for the land rights vertical at SEWA Bharat. He has done his graduation from Hindu College, Delhi University, and went on to pursue a Masters in development from The Azim Premji University. A fellowship with the Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS) helped shape his interest in
urban informality, land rights, tenure, service delivery, and governance in informal settlements.
Professional Planner & Researcher at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi
Shambhavi Gupta is a Planner and a researcher whose interest lies in exploring the planning processes in housing, water and urban governance, socio-spatial segregation, public participation, social inclusion and justice & urban resilience. She is currently working as a Junior Researcher at the Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub – India Collaboratory at the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi. Her ongoing area of research is Water Sensitive Planning Theory and Socio-Spatial Segregation in Indian Cities. Simultaneously, she has been part of various events, namely the UN75 Initiative, High-level Delegation to the People’s Republic of China, among others. She is presently volunteering at Cityspeaks.
Director, Center for Women’s Land Rights, Landesa
Beth Roberts directs the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights. She is a law, policy, and gender expert who works to strengthen gender-equal and socially inclusive rights to land and productive assets. She provides legal and policy recommendations to government decision-makers, traditional authorities, civil society partners, and international human rights and climate change bodies, conducts consultations and assessments with rural communities, and works to collaborate with, strengthen, and expand the network of practitioners focused on gender and natural resource justice worldwide. During her time at Landesa, she has focused on advocacy at both global and national levels for greater policy coherence and stronger implementation related to gender and land in global agendas (the Sustainable Development Goals, human rights norms and standards, and climate change); and internally on organizational change initiatives and program and project management. She leads and works with a team of gender specialists across Landesa that seeks to ensure an integrated approach to Landesa’s gender equality and social inclusion work. Beth holds three advanced degrees from the University of Washington: a Master of Public Administration (MPA) with a focus on international development and nonprofit management, a Juris Doctor (JD), and an LL.M in Sustainable International Development Law.
Assistant Professor, Institute of Law, Nirma University
She has completed BALLB(Hons) from Jaipur National University and LLM from National Law University Jodhpur in Intellectual Property Rights. She has also pursued a Diploma in Cyber Law from Government Law College in association with Asian Society of Cyber Law and in Intellectual Property Rights Law and Management from Gujarat National Law University. She is pursuing PhD from Gujarat National Law University in the field of Artificial Intelligence and IPR. She has written IPR Modules for IGNOU. Ms. Taruna has presented papers in international conferences on Green Intellectual Property & Climate Change Mitigation Technologies: Way Ahead and III virtual IPIRA Conference on the topic Standard Essential Patents and Competition law in India: Time to go Beneath the surface of Standardization. Her interest area of research is Intellectual property Rights Law and Alternate Dispute Resolution.
Policy analyst
Researcher & Advisor, Gender, Sustainable Development and Livelihoods
A policy researcher and analyst, practitioner in the field of gender, development, livelihoods and environmental justice with almost 35 years of experience. I straddle the space between support to gender inclusive community initiatives for development and livelihoods, institutional and organization development and policy analysis from a feminist position. My research lens is feminist political ecology. I engage with several networks as a gender and development specialist for ecologically sustainable livelihoods solutions in India such as National Forum for Women Farmers Rights, CFR La (Community Forest Rights Learning Alliance) and seek to bring voices of marginalized and grassroots women to natural resource and developmental policy debates and platforms.
Director, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development
Prof Nagesh Kumar is Director and Chief Executive of the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), a public-funded policy think-tank based in New Delhi. Between May 2009-April 2021, he served as Director at United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) where he has held a number of senior management roles. These include Chief Economist of UNESCAP, Director of the Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division (MPDD) and Director of the Social Development Division (SDD), at the UNESCAP headquarters in Bangkok and Head of the South and South-West Asia (SSWA) Office of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) based in New Delhi, that he had the privilege to establish.
Assistant Professor, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID)
Dr. Ramaa Arun Kumar is a Doctorate in Economics from Delhi School of Economics. Prior to joining ISID, she was a Consultant in CII working on a study on ‘Trade Analysis between India and China under RCEP’.
She has worked in many reputed institutions like Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi and UNCTAD India Project. Her major area of research has been international trade and industrial issues for over eight years. Her research inputs have contributed to policy making in the Ministry of Commerce as well as Ministry of External Affairs. She has also taught Macro-Economics and Indian Economy to Management under graduate students as an Assistant Professor.
Bipin Menon (I Trade S:1997) has been appointed as Development Commissioner (JS level), Noida Special Economic Zone (NSEZ), Noida under the Department of Commerce.
Development Commissioner, NOIDA SEZ
Chief Functionary- RAS
Holkhomang Haokip is the Chief Functionary of Rural Aid Service (RAS), and a Director of Childline Churachandpur,Manipur. He is an Executive member of Kuki chief association Manipur.CFor last 26 years he has been associated with the organization in the field of community development in Churachandpur district.
Senior Programme
Manager- RNBA
Mr. Pouchunlung Panmei is a Senior Programme Manager at Development & Relief Department, RNBA, Manipur. He is a graduate from North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) Shillong, Meghalaya and Master in Social work from Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU) Shillong, Meghalaya. Since 2011, he is been involved in NGO sector under community development issues working with different communities of Manipur.
RNBA
M Hechin Lheikhochin Haokip is a Secretary of Centre for Women and Girls, Lhunnajang village, Pallel, Tengnoupal district, Manipur. She is a Chairperson of Child Welfare Committee, Chandel, a member of Manipur Human Rights Commission, Co-convenor (women committee) of United NGOs Missions Manipur, President of NGO Forum Chandel and a member of State working committee of Manipur Alliance for Child Rights. She is a well experienced person who is actively involved in the field of community development, women empowerment and child rights issues. She is currently pursuing Master in Applied Conflict Transformation Studies (ACTS) at Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies, Cambodia.
She had attended conferences on International Conference for Grassroot Women Leaders on UNSCR 1325 “Women Peace and Security”, Brussels, Seminar on “Peace from the Soil” for Asia-Pacific Region, The Asian Rural Institute, Japan and attended 3 conferences of General Assembly, UN Human Rights Council, Geneva
She was awarded as ‘Prominent Women Leader of Chandel District’ in the field of women empowerment by the Department of Social welfare, Government of Manipur in 2019, in the year 2018 she was awarded the ‘Best Performing Chief Functionary of NGOs in Chandel District’ by NERCORMP Chandel, Government of India, and an awardee of Dr. B.R Ambedkar National Award in recognition of Social Work, by Dalit Sahitya Academy, Manipur in 2017.
Ms. Susheela R Bhatt, BA. LLM, Advocate, Kerala High Court
At the age of 24, Ms. Susheela Bhatt joined Maharajas college and graduated in BA Literature. In 1984 she obtained a degree in Law from MG University, achieving first rank. She pursued LLM in mercantile law and there also came out with flying colours and passed with the first rank from MG University. Thereafter, she served as a guest lecturer for the evening law classes for three years. She also did a study under the aegis of National Commission for Women to work out remedies for women’s problems.
She was appointed as the Secretary of Indian Law Institute, Kerala Branch by the Chief Justice and did many educative programmes for the young lawyers in the High Court of Kerala. She is also active in legal awareness programmes for the downtrodden.
Ms Susheela Bhatt first came to be known as the Forest Government Pleader in 2004. She had to face umpteen challenges to fight for the forest lands and the protection of environment. She was instrumental in the enactment of the Ecologically Fragile Land Act and fought for saving more than 45000 acres of forest lands before the High Court.
By a special order of the Government, she was entrusted with cases of Government Land encroachers involving big plantations in the State of Kerala. Her work and research to resume lands grabbed by big plantations amounting to more than 5 lakh acres of pristine Government lands has achieved significant results. She has proved that through mere legal methods, lands belonging to the Government and the public can be reclaimed from big plantations.
Previous positions held by her, include – Special Government Pleader for Revenue at the Kerala High Court, Special Government Pleader for Forests at the Kerala High Court, Secretary of the Indian Law Institute, Kerala Branch and an Associate Member of the Justice Wadhwa Committee for Vigilance, appointed by the Supreme Court of India.
Advocate High Court of Kerala
CEO/Software Advisor & Architect Whitesun Technologies India/Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre
Sumeendranath R is the CEO of Whitesun Technologies India and a software advisor & architect for Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre. He formed Whitesun Technologies India Private Limited with a strong conviction to provide cutting edge technology solutions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of Administration and operations in Organizations with focus on improving transparency, accountability and authenticity.
Sumeendranath R is a software professional with a B-TECH from the prestigious Regional Engineering College, Calicut (now, National Institute of Technology) with an industry experience of over 21 years. He worked for Texas Instruments for 9 years from the year 2000 to 2009 and quit to work towards utilizing his skills for the benefit of India with his technological experience.
Sumeendranath carries years of technological experience on various fields and domains like – Disaster Management Automation and Automation Technology of District Disaster Management Plans, Elections Technologies, Geo-mapping, GIS Surveys, Distributed Data Processing, Software Automation, Mobile and web based interconnected & real-time systems, ERP Systems, Remote Management and Monitoring Systems, Human Resource and Administration Management in Health Departments, Machine Learning, AI, Interactive systems.
Currently Sumeendranath is working with Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre as software architect and developing systems for automation and management of Disaster Planning, Response and relief measures using cutting edge software technologies.
Country Director – ICRISAT
Arabinda Kumar Padhee is an Indian national. He has a Master’s degree in Agricultural Science from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and a PhD from Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) from University of Birmingham, UK. He has taken public policy courses at University of Toronto; Civil Services College, Singapore; and University of Cambridge at various points in his career.
Dr Padhee joined the Indian Administrative Services in 1996 and belongs to Odisha cadre. Among the various positions he has held are District Magistrate and Collector; Director, Agriculture and Food Production; Director, World Bank assisted Rural Livelihoods Project; Revenue Divisional Commissioner, Cuttack; Chief Administrator, Shree Jagannath Temple, Puri; Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Tourism and Culture Department, Odisha and Joint Secretary, Department of Fertilizers, Government of India, New Delhi. During his tenure with the Odisha Government, he was instrumental in drafting the Odisha State Agriculture Policy in 2008. He has also served as a member of the Technical Support Group of the erstwhile Planning Commission that prepared the District Agricultural Plan manual. Government of India appointed Dr Padhee as the first nodal officer to implement Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in fertilizers in 2016.
Strengthening Adaptive Farming in Bangladesh, India & Nepal (SAFBIN)
Managing an action research in south-asia called Strengthening Adaptive Farming in Bangladesh, India & Nepal (SAFBIN) focusing on “building resilience to climate change through strengthening adaptive small scale farming systems in rainfed areas in Bangladesh, India and Nepal”. This programme is supported by European Union under the “Food Security thematic programme” of the “Global Programme on Agricultural Research for Development”. South Asia Coordination Unit of the Programme is based in Caritas India with partners in Austria, Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
National Coordinator
SAFBIN Caritas Bangladesh
S M Zillur Rahaman is an agriculturist by profession with 23 years of diverse experience in the field of participatory research, participatory rural development; climate change – induced disaster risk management; natural resources management such as water, forestry and fisheries; needs assessment; institution building; participatory monitoring; impact assessment of development projects; program development and participatory poverty assessment. He is specialized in participatory approaches (PRA) and its application to research and development. He is extensively engaged in the field of training, farmer field school, horticulture, social forestry, nursery establishment and management, homestead gardening, establishment of demonstration plots and demonstration of adaptation technique on climate change and socio-economic activities with vulnerable households in stress environment. His research interests are On Farm Adaptive Research (OFAR), Agro-environmental studies, and Cereal and horticultural crop cultivation in flat and Barind Tract of Bangladesh. He is actively engaged in training, development and evaluation.
SAFBIN
Jasmine Joseph has extensively worked with marginalised communities of South Asia with focus on agriculture, gender and livelihoods. She has specialisation in Rural Development. She has extensive grassroot experience of working with tribal women farmers in Central India and has led training workshops for women leaders and farmers. She is part of the South Asia Regional Enablers of the SAFBIN programme where she is responsible for research, knowledge management and communications.
University of Hertfordshire,
United Kingdom
international lawyer by training, with a PhD in human rights and development. Chamu has completed a UKIERI funded project on Land ownership and access to commons and food security (2017-2021) and continues her research in the region through work on the SDGs. She is the Research Lead for interdisciplinary research in areas that impact the Global economy at the Office of the Vice-Chancellor, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
Dr. Prakash Shah is Reader in Culture and Law at Queen Mary University of London. He has research interests in caste, religion, culture, migration, and law. He has a long standing interest in legal pluralism. He used to be an advisory board member of the Journal of Legal Pluralism from which he has now resigned. After having long advocated legal pluralism as a framework for the study of law, he has recently become a critic of it. He is co-editor of the book Western Foundations of the Caste System (Palgrave 2017).
Reader in Culture and Law,
Queen Mary, University of London
Pradeep K Nayak is a Senior civil servant under Odisha Government and currently serves as Faculty, Administrative Training Institute, Odisha. He holds PhD in law and governance studies from JNU. He is a former Fellow at IIAS, Shimla. His recent books are Land Reform to Land Titling: Emerging Paradigm in Land governance, Sage, 2021, Land and Livelihood in Neoliberal India, Palgrave, 2020, (Co-edited) , The State and Land Records Modernisation (2015) published by Cambridge University Press. Earlier books are Party Politics and Communalism: A Study of Ram Janamabhoomi and Babri Masjid Dispute (1993) and co-edited Communalisation and Tenth Lok Sabha Elections (1993). He has contributed several papers to journals and edited books. His areas of interest are party politics, communalism, public policy, governance studies and Indian society.
Faculty, Administrative Training Institute, Odisha
Masalu Luhula is a Land Tenure Specialist and an attorney based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Masalu joined Landesa in November 2019; prior to that, he worked with the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (TNRF) Coordinating Land based investment thematic area where he also supported a Landesa project focused on responsible investment in property and land.
Land Tenure Speacialist
Landesa
Associate Professor
FLAME University
Principal Researcher
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Lorenzo Cotula leads research, policy engagement and field-level projects on the legal arenas where natural resource governance meets the global economy – cutting across Land and natural resource governance; economic law, particularly international investment law; human rights; “responsible investment”, particularly in agriculture and the extractive industries; rural producers and agricultural value chains; law and political economy in natural resource investments; legal and socio-legal research methods; legal empowerment approaches; citizen participation in law reform with extensive country experience in Africa and Asia. Prior to working at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), he was a research consultant to the Legal Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO); collaboration with two Italian NGOs. He has a Postgraduate certificate in Sustainable Business, University of Cambridge; PhD in Law, University of Edinburgh; MSc in Development Studies (Distinction), London School of Economics; Degree in Law (cum laude), University “La Sapienza” of Rome.
Kabogoza Simon Muwanga is a Social Scientist holding a Masters’ Degree in Development Studies from the Uganda Martyrs University – Nkozi and a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences from Makerere University. He has over 15 years’ experience in strategic communication & coordination of social change projects and 5 years’ experience in land management business. He has been the Head of Corporate Affairs/Deputy MD (Admin) at Buganda Land Board Limited, a company mandated to manage Buganda Kingdom land. In his position, Simon has been responsible for upholding the Company’s image and overseeing the Legal, Community Mobilization, Client Management and the communications units of BLB. Before joining BLB, he worked with Communication for Development Foundation Uganda (CDFU) on several USAID-funded programs. Simon worked as the Behaviour Change Communication Advisor on the Northern Uganda – Health Integration to Enhance Health Services (NU-HITES) Program, AFFORD and the Strengthening TB and HIV&AIDS responses in East Central Uganda (STAR-EC). He has experience in coordinating projects, developing communication strategies, field research and community mobilization. He has written and presented abstracts in international HIV&AIDS conferences. Previously, Simon worked with the DISH Project for 4 years coordinating Behaviour Change activities at community level.
CEO Buganda Land Board
Professor & Director,
Centre for Management of Land Acquisition, Resettlement & Rehabilitation (CMLARR), ASCII
Dr Reshmy Nair is a Professor and Director at the Centre for Management of Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation (CMLARR). She has graduated in Economics (Hons.) from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University and holds M. Phil & Doctorate degrees in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Among the prominent international assignments successfully led by her include customized courses on LARR for Ministerial delegation from Government of Uganda, Egypt, Kenya etc; Curriculum Development Workshop for University of Nairobi; Support to World Bank in the Technical Assistance for Land Acquisition Policy and Institutional Reform in Egypt; Development of Step by Step Guidelines on Social Impact Assessment; South-South learning event on R & R and Benefit Sharing; International training courses on LARR, advisory guidance to University of Peradeniya; Sri Lanka on LARR, Technical support for Training of Trainers in workshops organized by World Bank in the South Asian Region among others. She has led national/international consultancy studies on social impact assessment and evaluation. Her current areas of interest include Development Issues in Economics, Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Agricultural Insurance, Food Security, Public Distribution System, Monitoring and Evaluation of Development Interventions in Rural and Social Sectors.
Dr Shashi R. Singh is a Dr Manmohan Singh Fellow at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and currently positioned as a Research Fellow at the Department of Geography. He is a Human Geographer with inter-disciplinary academic training in Environmental Sciences, Environmental Law, Development Studies, and Human Geography. His research interests pertain to the Political Economy of Land Acquisition and Resource Development, Public Policies, Environmental Laws, and Indigenous People Development. His journal publications are on land acquisitions, displacement, compensation frameworks, mining and resource revenue sharing, public sphere, and justice. He works at the intersection of environment and development issues. Prior to Cambridge, he was associated with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Delhi, as an Associate Fellow and Convenor of Land and R&R Area under the Social Transformation Division. In the last 10 years he has conducted several land acquisition and rehabilitation training programs for different organizations. His present line of research is around large-scale land acquisitions, mining, fair compensation models, land tenure recognition, social risk assessments, land conflicts, and governance issues in resource rich regions. He is also interested in the comparative study of resource rich economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America. His recent book is on ‘Land Acquisition and Resource Development in Contemporary India’ at Cambridge University Press.
Research Fellow
Department of Geography, Cambridge University
Uchendu Eugene Chigbu is an Associate Professor (Land Administration) in the Department of Land and Property Sciences (DLPS) at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). He is a Co-Chair of the Research Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), and an Associate Editor of the Journal, Land Use Policy (Elsevier).
Associate Professor,
Namibia University of Science and Technology – Co. Chair of the Research Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
Cissy Namuddu Kiyaga is a PhD fellow at Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University, Uganda. Her areas of specialization are Political studies, Political economy and Cultural studies. Her doctoral research interest centres on investigating the land question and conflicts that arise from the political and cultural dynamics in control and administration of land. She is also interested in women’s rights with specific focus on women land rights. She graduated with a first-class Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master’s degrees in Public Administration and Management from Makerere University in 2015. Cissy has experience in the land sector especially from Buganda Land Board where she was exposed to the land question and its dynamics. She is an alumni of NELGA – PLAAS, an alumni of the Africa Women’s Leadership Institute.
Product and Business Development Manager,
Buganda Land Board
Frances Birungi is the Executive Director for Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children’s welfare (UCOBAC). She is currently the Chairperson of the International Land Coalition – National Engagement strategy in Uganda and also coordinates the Stand for Her Land Campaign in Uganda. Frances is a feminist and passionate gender, human rights and development specialist with over 18 years professional experience in designing, implementing and evaluating programs aimed at accelerating progress towards attaining gender justice through promoting women and girls’ Land and Property Rights, Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, ending Gender Based Violence, promoting women’s leadership and strengthening women led climate change resilience and adaptation. Frances works with grassroots communities to organise, mobilize resources, develop community development practices and transform public policies at local, national, regional and global level
Founder & Executive Director,
YILAA
Ameth Diallo, PhD candidate in Law and Land Governance. He has some experience in Decentralization and local development. Ameth Diallo is also researcher at NELGA West Africa francophone and member of YILAA coordination. As a member of YILAA, he is the Head of Research and training. His training in legal and political sciences, more particularly in public law at Gaston Berger University, allowed him to acquire many skills in subjects such as public international law, international relations, international rights law, classified installations law, environmental law, community law, international humanitarian law, decentralization, local governance and sustainable development.
Head of Research and Training,
YILAA
Oumar Sylla has been acting as Director for the Regional Office for Africa in the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) since January 2020. Before this, he was Branch Coordinator, Urban Legislation, Land and Governance in UN Habitat and, from September 2015, Head of UN Habitat’s Land and GLTN Unit. Prior to joining the Land and GLTN Unit, Oumar served as a Senior Advisor in UN Habitat’s Regional Office for Africa and focal point to support urban policies development and sustainable urbanization in francophone countries. From 2009 to 2014, he was Chief Technical Advisor for UN Habitat’s Land Programme in DR Congo and he also has experience with the European Union framework, which he gained as a Land Policy Advisor in South Sudan and Burkina Faso (2006-2008). From 1999 to 2005 he was a Research Fellow in the Laboratory of Legal Anthropology in Paris 1 Sorbonne, mainly working on land and decentralization policies in West Africa. In Senegal, he operated as a junior researcher within the ILRI/ ISRA institutional cooperation framework (1998-1999) dealing with land and natural resources.
Regional Chief,
UN Habitat, Africa
Mutjinde Katjiua is an Associate Professor of Integrated Land Management at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, and Head of the Department of Land and Property Sciences. He coordinates the Southern African Node of the Network of Land Governance in Africa. Professor Katjiua works in the fields of natural resources management, community facilitation and rangeland and arid environment ecology, biodiversity conservation, livestock production and herbivore-plant interactions.
For over 20 years, Professor Katjiua has played a role in the development of national programmes dealing with Community-Based Natural Resources Management, Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Land Management. He has carried out numerous social and environmental impact assessments for rural and urban areas development projects. He is an astute commercial livestock farmer in the semi-arid region of Namibia, the Kalahari sandveld, managing a delicate arid rangeland ecosystem on 5000 hectares prone to frequent droughts, water scarcity and an array of plant communities. Namibia has a lucrative beef export market to the EU, US, Norway, and China.
He has served in various statutory bodies of the Government of Namibia, such as the Omaheke Communal Land Board responsible for administration communal lands and conflict resolution; Namibian Government’s High Level Committee for the Second National Land Conference; the National Heritage Council of Namibia; and currently serves on the technical panel of the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia.
Prof Katjiua is the Chair of the Transitional Committee of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority and its substantive Secretary General, has recently submitted an “Alternative Report to the 7th Periodic Report submitted by the Federal Republic of Germany under Article 40 of International Covenant of Political and Civil Rights (ICCPR)” together with the Nama Traditional Leaders Association, Minority Rights Group, Berlin Postkolonial e.V. and the European Center of Constitutional and Human Rights e.V. (ECCHR). This is an ongoing effort to see the Federal Republic of Germany pays reparations to the Herero and Nama peoples for genocide committed against their ancestors.
Associate Professor
Head of Department
NUST
Centre for Sustainable Development Studies, MLCU, Meghalaya.